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The purpose of this paper is to find the characteristic of entrepreneurial process for the student in free enterprise (SIFE) team in China, and to provide theoretical guidance for the entrepreneurial process of SIFE student team through a new Timmons model.

Taking an entrepreneurial project of Shantou University SIFE team as example, a Timmons model was proposed describing the SIFE student team entrepreneurial process based on the famous entrepreneurial process model established by Jeffry A. Timmons. The application value of the new Timmons model was proved by case analysis.

The paper summarized the main characteristics of the entrepreneurial model for the SIFE student team as: the nature of creation free enterprises, the excellent entrepreneurship networks, and the spirit of social entrepreneurship orientation. By case study, the paper proved the practical value of the new Timmons model by analysis of the key factors such as business opportunities, resources and entrepreneurial team, and their dynamic balance process.

The new model proposed in the paper will have theoretical value to provide a direction for student entrepreneurial practice, the analysis of the characteristics of the new model will also enrich the research on entrepreneurship theory.

This paper is the first research on SIFE student entrepreneurial process in China. In the past two years, the authors observed dozens of successful worldwide SIFE students' practical projects, but few of them appeared in the literature. It is hoped that this paper can offer some constructive advice to the entrepreneurial process of the SIFE student team and enrich the theory of general entrepreneurial education.

Understanding the construction of individual entrepreneurial identity for entrepreneurship education is an important but understudied issue. Prior studies indicate that entrepreneurship learning is associated with not only learning critical entrepreneurial skills and knowledge but also facilitating the construction of a personal entrepreneurial identity. However, educators are constantly challenged by the task of facilitating such an identity within students via learning-by-doing processes in the context of entrepreneurial teams. Additionally, while effective conflict management is essential to productive entrepreneurial learning in entrepreneurial teams, studies that investigate the relationships between interpersonal conflicts of entrepreneurial teams and the students' entrepreneurial identity are absent.

The approach of an in-depth case study was adopted to achieve our research purpose.

A conceptual model that describes the construction of the entrepreneurial identity of students of entrepreneurial teams in a learning-by-doing environment from the perspectives of conflicts and task characteristics are developed.

The research findings highlight the preliminary relationships between task characteristics (i.e. task interdependence, task uncertainty, resource competition and tension regarding responsibility allocation) and interpersonal conflicts of entrepreneurial teams, and their impacts on the entrepreneurial identity of team members.

This study is among the first group of studies that especially explores the relationships among task characteristics of entrepreneurship projects, interpersonal conflicts and the development of students' entrepreneurial identity.

First, this paper aims to explore how CEO humility and relationship conflict in entrepreneurial teams affect the firm-level performance of new ventures. Second, it investigates the moderating effect of CEO political skills on the indirect association between CEO humility and entrepreneurial performance through relationship conflict in entrepreneurial teams.

A questionnaire survey was administered to CEOs and their entrepreneurial team members in 171 start-ups in Shanghai, China. The data obtained from the survey were subjected to multiple regression analysis using the SPSS PROCESS macro and confirmatory factor analysis using Mplus.

The findings are as follows. First, CEO humility can reduce relationship conflict in entrepreneurial teams. Second, CEO political skills moderate the link between CEO humility and relationship conflict in entrepreneurial teams. The weaker the CEO political skills, the stronger the effect of CEO humility on relationship conflict, and the stronger the CEO political skills, the weaker the effect of CEO humility on relationship conflict. Third, relationship conflict in entrepreneurial teams is negatively related to entrepreneurial performance. Finally, CEO political skills moderate the mediating effect of entrepreneurial team relationship conflict on the CEO humility – entrepreneurial performance link.

The findings of this study offer guidance for entrepreneurs seeking to improve firm performance. The findings suggest that entrepreneurs should adopt a humble leadership style that cultivates their strengths and minimizes their weaknesses. To improve the centripetal force and cohesion of the entrepreneurial team, they should focus on the team, affirm the contribution of subordinates and accept subordinates’ advice.

The study reveals that CEO humility has a positive effect on entrepreneurial performance, which enriches research on the effectiveness of humble leadership at the firm level. From the perspective of team relationship conflict, the study also explores the mechanism underlying the effect of CEO humility on entrepreneurial performance, opening the “black box” of CEO humility and entrepreneurial effectiveness. In addition, the study reveals the boundary conditions of the influence of CEO humility, enriching the theoretical literature on humble leadership, political skills and resource conservation.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the risk decision making of entrepreneurial team, deconstruct the intermediate process mechanism of cognitive adaptability in promoting risk decision making and reveal the role of opportunity identification and entrepreneurial efficacy in the decision-making process, which clarifies how cognitive adaptability affects decision-making speed and effect.

This study establishes a relationship model among entrepreneurial team’s cognitive adaptability, opportunity identification, entrepreneurial efficacy and risk decision making, and selects 316 entrepreneurial teams to empirically study the relationship among core variables using Bootstrap analysis and Johnson–Neyman technology.

Cognitive adaptability though has no direct impact on risk decision-making speed, whereas it directly affects risk decision-making effect; opportunity identification has a full mediating effect between cognitive adaptability and decision-making speed, and a partial mediating effect between cognitive adaptability and decision-making effect; entrepreneurial efficacy plays a moderating role between opportunity identification and decision-making speed, and a same role between opportunity identification and decision-making effect.

First, in setting the research model, the study does not take other moderators into consideration, which might be improved. Second, the study ignores the origin and formation of entrepreneurial team’s cognitive adaptability, the predisposing factors of which might be discussed in the future research.

The practical implication of this paper is to guide the entrepreneurial team to turn their focus on the impact of highly implicit cognitive adaptability on decision making, which might be divided into two aspects: the first is to enhance the cognitive adaptability of the entrepreneurial team, cultivate team members’ self-examination awareness and self-monitoring habits. The second is to strengthen team’s psychological capital and value the cultivation of entrepreneurial efficacy.

This paper breaks through the team process and structure perspectives, explores the driving mechanism of entrepreneurial team risk decision making from team cognition perspective, and deconstructs the logical framework of cognitive adaptability’s influence on risk decision making. This paper applies Johnson–Neyman technology to quantify the mediating effect entrepreneurial efficacy exerts on cognitive adaptability and decision-making speed, as well as on cognitive adaptability and decision-making effect.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of team entrepreneurial competence, a team-level construct representing the level of shared abilities toward entrepreneurial activities within a new venture team. A multilevel model of the influence of team entrepreneurial competence and team entrepreneurial experience on the cognitive strategies of team members is developed and tested.

Using a sample of 47 early stage entrepreneurial teams (144 individuals), a set of hypotheses regarding the effect of team entrepreneurial competence on team member reliance on effectual and causal reasoning, together with the moderating effect of team entrepreneurial experience, are tested.

The results provide support for a positive multilevel association between team entrepreneurial competence and the reliance by team members on both causal and effectual reasoning strategies; members of teams with higher entrepreneurial competence and more entrepreneurial experience are more likely to engage in effectuation.

Understanding how team-level predictors and moderators have a role in determining individual effectuation and causation strategies offers promise in advancing effectuation theory.

Teams develop entrepreneurial competencies that transcend those of individual team members; where teams have more collective entrepreneurial experience, the effect on the tendency of individuals to engage in effectual reasoning is enhanced, which can be beneficial in highly uncertain contexts.

The results of this study are a step forward for effectuation theory, as it demonstrates the role of team-level variables in explaining individual causal and effectual reasoning.

While it is important for entrepreneurship educators to understand the dynamics behind the formation of an individual entrepreneurial identity, challenges remain if they are to facilitate this process. Furthermore, while managing conflicts in entrepreneurial teams is a key to effective entrepreneurial learning, very few studies have focused on the relationships between individual entrepreneurial characteristics, interpersonal conflicts and the construction of an individual entrepreneurial identity. The purpose of this paper is to explore these relationships in a learning-by-doing educational context.

This study adopts an in-depth dual case study design to explore the relationships between individual characteristics, interpersonal conflicts and the construction of individual entrepreneurial identity in a learning-by-doing entrepreneurship educational context.

A theoretical framework that addresses the construction of the entrepreneurial identity of entrepreneurial team members in a learning-by-doing environment from the perspectives of conflicts and entrepreneurial characteristics is developed.

The research findings illustrate the influence of differences in individuals’ entrepreneurial characteristics on the occurrence of interpersonal task and relationship conflicts and, consequently, on individuals’ entrepreneurial identity. A number of intervening factors that mediate the relationships between entrepreneurial characteristics, interpersonal conflicts and entrepreneurial identity are also identified.

This study is among the first research efforts to connect individual entrepreneurial characteristics, interpersonal conflicts and the construction of the individual entrepreneurial identity.

This paper aims to focus on the role of team and entrepreneurial experience for firm performance of serial entrepreneurs in the multi‐media industry.

The research assumes that serial entrepreneurs have certain advantages over novice entrepreneurs, such as the development of effective start‐up teams and entrepreneurial experience effects. Disadvantages, however, are also mentioned in the literature, and these are assumed to out‐balance the advantages, leading to mixed research findings. The hypotheses are tested on a sample of 52 European multimedia companies.

The results show a positive impact of relevant entrepreneurial experience and evidence both team advantages as well as disadvantages. Team diversity had a positive impact on performance while the extent of repeated partnerships (or relative team stability) had a negative impact on performance. Moreover, entrepreneurial experience helps to build better diverse teams but has no impact on repeated partnerships.

The degree of experience of serial entrepreneurs in the same industry matters, and suggests that more experience is better. The findings challenge a general assumption about serial entrepreneurs: that the building of superior teams creates performance differences. Team diversity drives performance and the study could also show that habitual entrepreneurs are better in building diverse teams (through a positive moderation of team diversity by entrepreneurial experience). However, relying heavily on previous partners is counter‐productive. Limitations of this study are due to self‐reported data, small sample size and survivor bias.

Entrepreneurs need to focus on opportunities and resource needs linked to these opportunities, and use their experience to build stronger teams but to resist the temptation of replicating perceived past success formula by over‐relying on previous partners. The latter is also important for stakeholders in the entrepreneurial venture.

This paper tests various assumptions and propositions about serial entrepreneurship that are rarely based on sound evidence. The role of entrepreneurial experience to build better diverse teams and the role of repeated partnerships constitute an original contribution to habitual entrepreneurship research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between team heterogeneity and team performance in entrepreneurial team and is also of significance in guiding the management practice of an entrepreneurial team.

The study is carried out based on an experiment, in which a 2×2 experimental group is devised to collect data concerned with the heterogeneity of entrepreneurial team’s expertise and the attitude toward heterogeneity.

The entrepreneurial team’s heterogeneity has a significant effect on entrepreneurial performance; the entrepreneurial team’s heterogeneity influences entrepreneurial performance through team task conflict; attitudes toward heterogeneity play a mediating role in the above process.

This paper is carried out based on an experiment which can be used to determine the mediating effects of team conflict on the relationship between team expertise heterogeneity and the entrepreneurial performance.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role various forms of social capital play in the performance of entrepreneurial teams in a virtual context.

The relationships between various social capital dimensions – i.e. relational capital, cognitive capital, entrepreneurial orientation and team‐efficacy – and entrepreneurial team performance are investigated. Students in an upper division course were assigned to a project team in which they consulted with a company and collaborated virtually among team members to develop a database to add value to an existing company's operations. Respondents’ perceptions of team social capital were measured via an online survey. Team performance was evaluated independently by course instructors.

Results reveal that the perceptions of social capital in the form of relational capital, cognitive capital and entrepreneurial orientation are significantly positive predictors of team‐efficacy. Moreover, team‐efficacy is a strong positive predictor of entrepreneurial team performance in a virtual context. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

This study makes three contributions to entrepreneurship research. First, it extends previous theory by systematically identifying the influence of a number of social capital dimensions as antecedents to entrepreneurial team performance. Second, empirical results extend our understanding of the impact of social capital by highlighting the distinction between social capital as a static and dynamic resource. The third contribution of this study is our explicit focus on how social capital resources might be identified and strategically leveraged in contemporary (e.g. virtual) contexts.

Cognition, conflict and cohesion constitute an inseparable body of group dynamics in entrepreneurial teams. There have been few studies of how entrepreneurial team members interact with each other to enhance venture performance. The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a model that explains the trinity of cognition, conflict and cohesion in terms of social interaction between entrepreneurial team members.

Drawing upon the existing literature concerning entrepreneurial teams, the hypothesized model posits that shared cognition influences team cohesion through the mediating effects of intra-team conflicts. The model also postulates that team cohesion is positively associated with new venture performance and entrepreneurial satisfaction. Structural equation modeling is used to test the hypothesized model, using data that were collected from 203 entrepreneurial teams from technology-based companies in Taiwan.

The results show that shared cognition in entrepreneurial team members maintains team cohesion by restraining conflict and that team cohesion has a positive influence on entrepreneurial members’ satisfaction and new venture profitability.

The leader of a new venture team must endeavor to improve shared cognition between entrepreneurial members. To strengthen shared cognition, the leader can hold formal workshops to build consensus, informal meetings to share views, or use social media to enhance common understanding.

This paper verifies the connections between shared cognition, conflicts and cohesion in entrepreneurial teams in predicting new venture success and highlights the importance of cultivating a shared cognition in an entrepreneurial team to manage conflicts.