Engaging Opportunities in the Context of COVID-19 Equivocality: The Role of Frame Structure

How does information interpretation influence entrepreneurial action when the market is uncertain? This article reveals the role of frame structure through a topic modeling analysis of over 2900 financial news items about 444 newly public firms in 2021, when COVID-19 brought the greatest market uncertainty and, meanwhile, record breaking IPOs. It is the structure of the alignment of primary frames, the foundations of interpretative frames upon which information about financial market and individual firms rest; secondary frames, the positioning of other frames toward primary frames through congruence or incongruence; and socio-cognitive content clusters, the grouping of frequent terms that supply information. The analysis showed that information about successful IPOs has a flatter structure with a higher ratio of alignment than that of unsuccessful ones, regardless of firm age. It suggests a negative association between frame structure and entrepreneurial action outcome when the market is uncertain.