Search results

We advance entrepreneurship research by developing a theoretical model of how founding teams form. Our neo-Carnegie model situates nascent founders in particular network-structural milieus, engaging in aspiration-driven search for and evaluation of prospective co-founders. The formation of co-founding ties between nascent founders can be divided into four theoretical steps, which we label activation, evaluation, approach, and reciprocation. Successful founding team formation is a consequence of mutually favorable evaluations by nascent founders in a multi-sided matching process. Nascent founders with higher and less flexible aspirations are more likely to undertake distant search for co-founders by seeking referrals, forming ties with strangers, and forming new ties to social foci where they might meet potential co-founders. Churn in newly formed founding teams emerges as a consequence of shifting dominant coalition dynamics in the founding team caused by organic venture evolution and intentional changes in strategic direction. Our theoretical model provides new insights on the formation pathways of founding teams, their initial task and relational resource endowments, and initial team dynamics.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of founding team experience (industry and venturing) in new venture creation. This paper posits the following questions: How does founding team experience influence the likelihood of new venture creation, in the nascent stage? How does industry context moderate this relationship? The study aims to fill an important gap in the literature by unpacking the impact of different types of founding team experiences on venture outcome, and by focusing on the influence of founding team in the venture creation process, specifically at the nascent stage.

The paper utilizes data from the Second Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics, a longitudinal data set of 1,214 nascent entrepreneurs in the USA. Logistics regression was employed to analyze the effect of founding team experience on new venture creation. Post hoc analysis was conducted to ensure the confidence of the findings.

The paper provides empirical insights about how founding team experience influences the likelihood of new venture creation in the nascent stage. At the nascent stage, founding team industry experience positively affects new venture creation while founding team venturing experience does not. However, in the high-technology industry environment, the influence of the founding team’s venturing experience on new venture creation is stronger than that in the low-technology industry environment.

Due to the design of the data set, there is a risk of “right-censoring” problem. Also, because the study used archival data on founding teams, the methodology did not allow for uncovering the underlying team processes and dynamics during the venture creation process based on learning from experience. Future studies are encouraged to examine other types of founding team experience and the underlying process-level factors on venture creation.

The paper provides important practical implications for nascent entrepreneurs/entrepreneurial teams on team assembling and composition. In general, a team with higher-level industry experience is critical for venturing success. A team with higher-level venturing experience is more desired in the high-technology industry.

This paper fulfills an important gap in the entrepreneurial team literature by highlighting the complex and nuanced ways in which founding team experience influences the likelihood of venture creation in the nascent stage of the firm, especially after incorporating the additional impact of the industry context.

The purpose of this paper is to apply the social cognitive theory and social learning theory to examine the different mechanisms through which entrepreneurs’ moral awareness and ethical behavior affect the product innovation of new ventures.

The authors collected survey data from 150 founders and 389 founding team members of new ventures in China in 2015. The final sample contained 113 questionnaires from entrepreneurs and 246 questionnaires from their founding team members. Regression analyses were used to test direct effects, and Preacher and Hayes’ (2004) formal mediation test approach with bootstrapping method was used to evaluate the mediation effects.

The findings indicate that the ethical levels of entrepreneurs can affect the product innovation of a new venture through two paths: entrepreneurs with low levels of moral awareness tend to be more individually creative, which facilitates product innovation, and entrepreneurs with high levels of ethical behavior can make founding teams more creative, which also promotes product innovation.

The findings of this study suggest that entrepreneurs are not negatively affected by their low moral awareness as long as they exhibit high ethical behavior with founding team members. But such low moral awareness has to be genuine. The best way to promote product innovation in the long run is to create an organizational culture of ethical behavior rather than to ignore moral issues in decision-making.

This study challenges the assumption that moral awareness and ethical behavior are always consistent. It takes an initial step to resolve the contradiction in the current literature regarding the relationship between the ethical levels of entrepreneurs and product innovation in the context of founders and founding teams in new ventures.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework to link founding team and start‐up competitive advantage in the context of the Taiwanese technology‐based ventures.

The paper analyzes 211 start‐ups of the technology‐based sector and verifies the relationship between entrepreneur resources, trust, founding team partners' commitments, and start‐up competitive advantage.

In technology‐based start‐ups, the competitive advantage of a start‐up is determined by the founding team partners' commitments and the resources an entrepreneur has.

This study is retrospective which relies on technology‐based founding team members as the primary research subjects, some respondents may observe the performance of their start‐ups today and then make attributions about the past to explain that performance.

Utilizations of personal networks are important in the early stage of technology‐based start‐ups; through networking and using trust, an entrepreneur can gain the critical resources and competitive advantage required in the development of a business.

In technology‐based start‐ups, trust, not the resources an entrepreneur has, is an effective way by which entrepreneurs can win founding team partners' commitments.

First, using the task-relationship dichotomy as a framework, the purpose of this paper is to examine the direct effects of team personality level and team personality diversity on new venture growth. Second, the study examines the interaction effects of team personality level and diversity on venture growth.

The sample consisted of 154 teams in a technology incubator in China. Data were collected through an online survey.

Results indicate that high level but low diversity of team task-oriented personality was beneficial for new venture founding teams. Diversity of team task-oriented personality would hurt the new venture growth more when the level of task-oriented personality was low. Relationship-oriented personality diversity, but not the level of relationship-oriented personality, influenced new venture growth.

These findings advance research in entrepreneurship, groups, and teams, and provide practical policy implications as well.

This study provides practical implications for policy makers regarding what supports should be provided in incubators and for entrepreneurs regarding team member selection.

This is one of the first papers to study the personality composition of new venture founding teams.

The entrepreneurʼs experience, personality, and values affect the entrepreneurʼs behaviors and decisions (Chrisman, Bauerschmidt, and Hofer 1998). Past research results show that (1) more experienced new venture founders have a greater likelihood of leading their ventures to early success than less experienced founders (Delmar and Shane 2006) and (2) founders who engage in legitimacy-seeking behaviors have a greater likelihood of leading their ventures to early success than founders who do not do so (Tornikoski and Newbert 2007). We propose that more experienced founders understand the importance of obtaining legitimacy for their ventures and therefore will engage in more legitimacy-seeking behaviors. In addition, we propose that entrepreneursʼ growth aspirations and internal locus of control are also associated with engagement in legitimacy-seeking behaviors. We test and find support for these propositions in a sample of new ventures and their founders.

Drawing on the Broaden-and-build theory, the study investigates the impact of team entrepreneurial passion (TEP) on team performance. This study further examines the mediating role of team cooperation between TEP and team performance. Thus, by expanding the conceptual model of TEP, the authors examine how three domains of TEP, namely inventing, founding and developing affect the entrepreneurial outcomes in the early stages of entrepreneurship.

Survey data were collected from 29 entrepreneurial teams, and the proposed relationships were assessed through Smart-PLS 3.2.8 structural equation modeling (SEM) tool.

Regarding the domains of TEP, the authors' findings show that the TEP for inventing is positively related to team performance. As for the influences of TEP for inventing and TEP for developing, both are the most beneficial for entrepreneurial outputs, such as team members' abilities to recognize and exploit opportunities.

Although there is an increased scholars' interest in entrepreneurial passion, there is a lack of research that examines the enabling factors and outcomes of entrepreneurial passion at the team level. This study is among the earliest research studies that not only empirically explores the relationships between TEP and team performance but also illustrates how each domain of TEP uniquely influences entrepreneurial outcomes by extending existing studies on entrepreneurial passion.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and compare what criteria novice and habitual entrepreneurs use while adding members to the founding team.

This paper uses conjoint analysis (CA) to provide the order of preference for the “choice attributes.” The logic of CA is that even if two or more attributes influence the choice, it is unlikely that those attributes will have equal importance for founders with different entrepreneurial experiences.

This paper found a significant difference in the ranking of the attributes by novice and habitual entrepreneurs. In novice entrepreneurs, the effect of direct ties in the form of kinship ties has the highest preference, followed by prior social contact and prior work relations. However, personal friendships and resource dependency received lesser importance than interpersonal attraction because of the similarity in vision, beliefs and values. Habitual entrepreneurs, however, valued resource dependency and prior work relations more than kinship ties. Also, unlike novice entrepreneurs, habitual entrepreneurs sought cofounders from their indirect ties.

There has been an explosion of interest and funding for programs that help entrepreneurs establish a cofounding team. The authors inform these programs related to the decision concerning assisting novice and habitual entrepreneurs.

While prior studies examined a single attribute at a time, the strength of this study lies in simultaneously tapping all attributes, along with multiple indicators for each attribute. Additionally, this study distinguishes the selection criteria of cofounders based on the entrepreneurial expertise of the lead founder.

Homophily, or the tendency for individuals to be attracted to those who resemble them, is significantly influential in the formation of startup founding and top management teams. But its role in subsequent stages of startup growth remains largely unclear. We consider the impact of homophily on matching of early workers to startups. We propose that, in the case of underrepresented minority groups, the tendency toward homophily plays an important role in this matching process, albeit in an asymmetric way. In particular, homophily exerts a stronger influence on the supply than the demand side: job candidates are more inclined to favor startups with demographically similar founders than startup founders are inclined to favor demographically similar job-seekers. Focusing on an important group of historically disadvantaged workers – women – we examine these arguments using unique data on the online recruiting of high-tech startups concentrated in the Silicon Valley. We find evidence suggesting that female candidates' propensity to apply to a job at a given startup increases with the proportion of female founders. However, startups with a higher proportion of female founders are not more likely than other startups to favor female candidates in personnel selection.

The high-growth potential has long been the dominant view on RBSUs among researchers and policy makers. Several researchers indicate that RBSUs, once they have reached a certain critical mass, exhibit faster average employment growth rates than non-high-tech starters (Mustar, 1995; Licht & Nerlinger, 1998; Storey & Tether, 1998; Delapierre, Madeuf, & Savoy, 1998; Autio & Parhankangas, 1998). However, in recent years several researchers showed that the idea of fast growth does not hold for most RBSUs. Rickne and Jacobsson (1999) found that the vast majority of new technology-based firms (NTBFs) remained very small. Also Autio and Yli-Renko (1998) reported that most NTBFs in Finland did not grow at all. Similar findings were reported in France (Mustar, 1997), Italy (Chiesa & Piccaluga, 2000) and in Cambridge, UK (Segal Quince Wicksteed, 2000). Delappiere et al. (1998) further argue that high-tech firms that concentrate on R&D and work primarily as research subcontractors for large groups show little employment growth. In contrast, firms that deal with turning technology into new uses tend to grow and create employment as they develop their manufacturing and marketing capabilities. Clearly, there is still much discussion and uncertainty regarding the growth potential of RBSUs.