The Entrepreneurial Founding Team - Unveiling the Dual Formation Strategy

Abstract

The entrepreneurial founding team formation literature provides a continuum where the economics lens focuses on 'resource dependency and the social psychology lens focusing on 'interpersonal attraction' occupy the opposing ends. Subsequently, studies found that resource dependency and interpersonal attraction are not mutually exclusive. Instead, both thew collectively explains the EFT formation. This is referred to as the 'dual formation' strategy. However, the existing studies do not solve the debate on how the 'dual formation strategy' reveals itself in the decision-making process. Considering this, we employ a temporal, longitudinal perspective to investigate EFT formation processes in the context of the emerging economy of India. We collected primary data from the founders and co-founders of 13 entrepreneurial firms each year for a period of three years (2017- 2019). Our provides insights that could inform both the literature on entrepreneurial team formation and practitioners involved in the design and delivery of founder pair-up and matching platforms.