Valentina Assenova

Valentina A. Assenova is the Edward B. and Shirley R. Shils Assistant Professor of Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Her research centers on the formation, growth, and funding of early-stage firms, with a focus on emerging and developing economies. She has collaborated with organizations such as FINCA International and the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation on projects and initiatives that advance entrepreneurship and economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. She holds a Ph.D., M.Phil., and M.A. from Yale University, an M.B.A. from the University of Cambridge, and a B.Sc. in Economics from the Wharton School.

Awards and Honors

• Carolyn B. Dexter All-Academy Best International Paper Award Nominee, Entrepreneurship Division, Academy of Management, 2021
• William H. Newman All-Academy Best Dissertation Award Nominee, Entrepreneurship Division, Academy of Management, 2019
• Editorial Board, California Management Review, 2017
• Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Summer Institute on Organizations and their Effectiveness, Stanford University, 2017
• Doctoral Fellowship, Yale University, 2012-2017
• Doctoral Consortium, Organization and Management Theory, Academy of Management, 2016
• Consortium for Competitiveness and Cooperation, Bocconi University, 2016
• Best Graduate Student Paper Honorable Mention, Rationality and Society Section, American Sociological Association, 2016
• Conference Travel Fellowship, Yale University, 2015-2016
• Best International Paper, Organization and Management Theory, 2015
• Finalist, Carolyn Dexter Award, Academy of Management, 2015
• First Class Honors, University of Cambridge, 2012
• Director’s Award, University of Cambridge, 2012
• Robert & Rosalie Cort Scholarship, University of Pennsylvania, 2004-2008
• Wharton Research Scholarship, University of Pennsylvania, 2006-2007
• Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship, University of Pennsylvania, 2005-2006

Publications

• Valentina Assenova (Working), The Long-Run Effects of Environmental Endowments on Innovation by New Entrants.
• Valentina Assenova and Ethan Mollick (Working), Critical Mass in Group Proportionality as Remediation for Demographic Inequality: Evidence from the Startup Game.
• Valentina Assenova and Raffi Amit (Working), Why Are Some Nations More Entrepreneurial than Others? The Role of National Culture in Organizational Founding Rates.
• Aparajita Agarwal and Valentina Assenova (Working), Mobile Money as a Stepping Stone: Addressing Institutional Voids in Market-Based Institutions through Enabling Innovations.
• Valentina Assenova and Raffi Amit (Working), Poised for Growth: Cohort Learning and Its Effects on Accelerated Startups’ Growth.
• Ranran Wang, Valentina Assenova, Edgar Hertwich (Forthcoming), Energy system decarbonization and productivity gains reduced the coupling of CO2 emissions and economic growth in 73 countries between 1970-2016.
• So-Min Cheong and Valentina Assenova (Forthcoming), Absorptive capacity facilitates adaptation to novel environmental disasters.
• Valentina Assenova (2020), Institutional Change and Early-Stage Startup Selection: Evidence from Applicants to Venture Accelerators, Organization Science, 32 (2), pp. 407-432.
• Valentina Assenova (2020), Early-Stage Venture Incubation and Mentoring Promote Learning, Scaling, and Profitability among Disadvantaged Entrepreneurs, Organization Science, 31 (6), pp. 1313-1620.
• Valentina Assenova (2018), Modeling the diffusion of complex innovations as a process of opinion formation through social networks, PLOS ONE, 13 (5).
• Valentina Assenova and Olav Sorenson (2017), Legitimacy and the Benefits of Firm Formalization, Organization Science, 28 (5), pp. 781-964.
• Valentina Assenova and Matthew Regele (2017), Revisiting the Effect of Colonial Institutions on Comparative Economic Development, PLOS ONE, 12 (5).
• Olav Sorenson, Valentina Assenova, Guan-Cheng Li, Jason Boada, Lee Fleming (2016), Expanding innovation finance via crowdfunding: Crowdfunding attracts capital to new regions, Science, 354 (6319), pp. 1526-1528.
• Valentina Assenova, Jason Best, Mike Cagney, Douglas Ellenoff, Kate Karas, Jay Moon, Sherwood Neiss, Ron Suber, Olav Sorenson (2016), The Present and Future of Crowdfunding, California Management Review, 58 (2), pp. 125-135.
• Valentina Assenova and Emily Erikson, “New Forms of Organization and the Coordination of Political and Commercial Actors”. In Chartering Capitalism: Organizing Markets, States, and Publics (Political Power and Social Theory, Volume 29), edited by Emily Erikson, (Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2015), pp. 1-13
• Peter Aronow, Cyrus Samii, Valentina Assenova (2015), Cluster Robust Variance Estimation for Dyadic Data, Political Analysis, 23 (4), pp. 564-577.
• Valentina Assenova (2007), Determinants of the Music Piracy Divide, Issues in Political Economy, 16 (1), pp. 1-20.