Modeling entrepreneurial team faultlines: Collectivism, knowledge hiding, and team stability

Abstract

New ventures often rely on entrepreneurial teams as a key resource for success. However, presence of multiple teams in entrepreneurial firms may create unexpected faultlines. With a categorization–elaboration model, this study tests the relationships of entrepreneurial team faultlines with knowledge hiding and team stability, as well as the potentially moderating role of team collectivism, as an important aspect of team dynamics. A test of the proposed theoretical model, among 66 entrepreneurial teams in China, reveals that social faultlines promote team knowledge hiding, but informational faultlines diminish it. Team knowledge hiding also mediates the process by which social and informational faultlines affect team stability. Team collectivism conditions these relationships in notable ways.