Achievement motivation diversity and entrepreneurial team performance: the mediating role of cohesion

Abstract

Entrepreneurial teams often start innovative new ventures. Based on the fact that new venture teams share potential advantages compared to solo entrepreneurs, it is also acknowledged that differences in team members' personalities, attitudes and values can impair team performance and new venture growth. Our study therefore explores the relationships between team diversity in the motivational trait Need for Achievement (NAch) and team effectiveness and efficiency. Additionally, we test cohesion as a potential mediator in the diversity-performance link. The results show that diversity in NAch is negatively related to team efficiency but not to team effectiveness. Furthermore, we found that entrepreneurial team cohesion partially mediates the negative relationship between the NAch diversity and team efficiency.