Yong Li (Management, Entrepreneurship, Technology), Lee Business School professor and research director of the Troesh Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, published the paper, "Entrepreneur Weirdness as a Double-Edged Sword," in Personnel Psychology, an "A+" journal on Lee Business School's SARS list. The paper is co-authored with Jun-Yeob Kim (University of Illinois), Emily Grijalva (University at Buffalo), and Daniel A. Newman (University of Illinois).

This paper represents the first rigorous analysis of how weirdness affects entrepreneurial outcomes. Many iconic entrepreneurs, including Tony Hsieh, former CEO of Zappos, have been celebrated for being weird and unconventional. Using pitches collected from the TV show Shark Tank, we theorize and test the following idea: As weird entrepreneurs tend to break from social norms and think outside the box, weirdness enhances generation of creative ideas but diminishes the competence to execute ideas, thus serving as a double-edged sword in terms of its impact on entrepreneurial creativity and investor funding decisions.