Entrepreneurial team formation, task allocation in new ventures and the theory of imprinting

Abstract

Organizational imprinting theory suggests that the social structures at the time of founding have a lasting effect on firms. Although there is a call for research to pay more attention to the sequence of decisive activities in the venture founding process, research in the field largely assumes that imprinting begins at venture founding. In this chapter I argue that the imprinting process might begin earlier and suggest the genesis of the imprinting process could be understood better by studying how entrepreneurial teams (ETs) behind entrepreneurial ventures are formed. I suggest that ET formation process is an antecedent for ET composition and the position imprinting process and could predict the organizational imprinting process. The chapter extends the imprinting literature to the team level by suggesting that ETs engaged in founding new ventures are not only imprinters but are also imprinted by the social conditions at the time of their formation.