BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//132.216.98.100//NONSGML kigkonsult.se iCalcreator 2.20.4// BEGIN:VEVENT UID:20260411T160640EDT-4950t6AXcU@132.216.98.100 DTSTAMP:20260411T200640Z DESCRIPTION:Tim Weiss\n\nAssistant Professor of Management and Entrepreneur ship at Imperial College London\n\nCriminal Deception in Silicon Valley\n \nDate: Friday\, January 16\, 2026\n Time: 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM\n Location: B ronfman building\, room 245\n\nRegister here\n\n\nAbstract\n\nScholars are increasingly interested in studying how entrepreneurs employ deception. R esearch in cultural entrepreneurship specifically looks at the cultural wo rk involved in deceiving audiences through the dramatization of entreprene urial stories. Yet\, we argue that this rather narrow focus\, as well as t he analysis of antecedents and consequences of entrepreneurial fraud among scholars of organizational wrongdoing\, fall short in capturing how entre preneurs carry out criminal deception—employing deception to defraud audie nces. Specifically\, we lack an understanding of the cultural and organizi ng work involved in criminal deception. To advance a theory of criminal de ception at the culture-organizing interface\, we inductively analyze court data of Silicon Valley ventures\, and their entrepreneurs prosecuted for fraud between 2000-2023. Our findings reveal a process of façading through which entrepreneurs construct\, perform\, and protect illusory appearance s—façades that project high-growth venture performance to audiences while masking ventures’ actual\, subpar performance. We identify three forms of façading—surface\, reinforced\, and deep façading—that are contingent on t he severity of the expectation-reality gap that entrepreneurs face and the nature of the audiences they must convince. Our theoretical framework cap tures how the level of sophistication in façading corresponds to widening expectation-reality gaps\, wherein entrepreneurs detach the venture’s exte rnally projected appearance from its actual operational reality. We make c ontributions to the literatures on cultural entrepreneurship\, organizatio nal wrongdoing\, and the social effects of entrepreneurship.\n\nAbout Tim Weiss\n\nTim Weiss is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Manageme nt and Entrepreneurship at Imperial College London. His research programme applies an organizational theory lens to studying entrepreneurship phenom ena with a specific focus on the changing nature of entrepreneurship and i ts social effects. Leveraging qualitative methods (i.e.\, extensive fieldw ork\, ethnography\, and archival work)\, Tim studies phenomena such as col locating\, identical car repair firms in Kenya\; experimentation on gig wo rkers\; and fraud court cases against Silicon Valley start-ups.\n Tim is a founding member of the Interdisciplinary Network for Technology and Entrep reneurship Research in Africa which supports emerging research talent who focus on studying African economies and of the annual Entrepreneurship & S ociety conference.\n\nBefore joining the faculty at Imperial College\, Tim was a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Work\, Technology & Organ ization in Stanford’s Management Science and Engineering Department. He ho lds a Doctorate and Master’s degree from a start-up academic institution\, Zeppelin University in Germany\, and a Bachelor of Science degree in busi ness administration from the University of Vienna.\n DTSTART:20260116T153000Z DTEND:20260116T170000Z LOCATION:Room 245\, Bronfman Building\, CA\, QC\, Montreal\, H3A 1G5\, 1001 rue Sherbrooke Ouest SUMMARY:CSSO Speaker Series: Tim Weiss URL:https://www.mcgill.ca/channels/channels/event/csso-speaker-series-tim-w eiss-369810 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR