# Ghost Framing Theory: Exploring the role of generative AI in new venture rhetorical legitimation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.11384 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.11384/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 5 of its 88 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 11 Mar 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [The future of human-AI collaboration: a taxonomy of design knowledge for hybrid intelligence systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.03354/) (2021)
- [Hallucination Mitigation using Agentic AI Natural Language-Based Frameworks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.13946/) (2025)
- [Prompting Science Report 1: Prompt Engineering is Complicated and Contingent](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.04818/) (2025)
- [Twenty-Four Years of Empirical Research on Trust in AI: A Bibliometric Review of Trends, Overlooked Issues, and Future Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.09828/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Responding to the surging but largely invisible use of generative AI in entrepreneurial framing, I advance Ghost Framing Theory (GFT) to explain how hybrid founder- and investor-genAI ensembles co-produce, contest, and recalibrate resonance in the rhetorical legitimation of new ventures. Building on scholarship in framing, micro-level legitimacy judgments, and sociomaterial affordances, I identify genAI rhetorical affordances (generativeness, extreme combinatorics, tone repertoire, velocity/energy and shared substratum) and theorize a recursive/iterative process model (ghost pitching, ghost screening, ghost relationship-building), configuring emergent resonance and legitimation. GFT builds new rhetorical framing theory for the age of genAI, connects research on human-AI collaboration with cultural entrepreneurship and extends affordance theory into multi-actor scenarios where affordance transitivity and visibility emerge as key considerations.