New Venture Teams Research Articles

Team internal social capital and entrepreneurial learning: a dual-path exploration in new venture teams

The mechanisms of team internal social capital and entrepreneurial learning relationships in new venture teams (NVT) are relatively under-studied. This study investigates the association between internal social capital and entrepreneurial learning and the mediating roles of shared mental models and organisation-based self-esteem. Study 1 collected data from 284 participants from 111 NVTs in Eastern China. The hypotheses were tested using a multilevel structural equation modelling technique. The findings showed that (1) team internal social capital positively influenced entrepreneurial learning, and (2) shared mental models and organisation-based self-esteem both mediated this relationship, unveiling a dual-process mechanism. In Study 2, we conducted semi-structured interviews with a convenience sample of 14 participants from 6 NVTs in Eastern China. The results showed that internal social capital shared mental models, and organisation-based self-esteem influenced entrepreneurial learning in NVTs. This study is one of the first to use qualitative and quantitative analyses to investigate the mechanisms underlying the relationship between team internal social capital and entrepreneurial learning. The results suggest that team internal social capital promotes positive entrepreneurial behaviour, highlighting the importance of team internal social capital and entrepreneurial learning in organisational development. It can also provide indicators for those wanting to support new ventures.

Development of transactive memory systems in new venture teams

This article examines how new venture teams (NVTs) develop transactive memory systems (TMSs) to integrate and coordinate their member’s collective expertise. Applying a longitudinal case study of five Norwegian NVTs in their first year, we find that the development of TMSs in NVTs unfolds in three stages. At the pre-formation stage, NVTs undergo a TMS enabling process that includes member motivation, self-declaration and member expectations, which lead to initial specialisation in NVTs. Subsequently, at the formation and collaboration stages, NVTs proceed with TMS processes of encoding, storage and retrieval that encompass self-assessment, assessment of co-members, shared understanding, role formalisation, decision-making and task performance, which enhance specialisation and result in the gradual development of credibility and coordination in NVTs. Furthermore – through member motivation, trust and shared ownership – NVTs engage in a TMS-reinforcing process that helps NVTs to strengthen their TMSs over time, enabling them to increase their ability to integrate and coordinate NVT collective expertise.

Polychronicity in New Technological Venture Teams: The Influence of Founder-CEOs’ Tertius Iungens Orientation and the Implications for Venture Growth

Team polychronicity, or a team's preference to engage in multiple events simultaneously, in new ventures has attracted increasing research attention. However, research on the antecedents that cultivate the polychronicity of new venture teams (NVTs) and the boundary conditions under which NVT polychronicity influences new ventures’ outcomes has remained underdeveloped both theoretically and empirically. Delving into new technological ventures, we address these issues by developing and testing a model in which founder-CEOs’ tertius iungens orientation (TIO) is suggested as an antecedent and new technological venture growth as an outcome of NVT polychronicity, particularly in industries with abundant growth opportunities. The findings based on founder-CEOs and NVT members from 79 new technological ventures lend support to our arguments and offer theoretical insights to the research of NVT management.

A Cyclical Model of Passion and Performance in New Venture Teams: Cross-Level Interactions With a Lead Entrepreneur’s Passion and Passion Diversity

Recent studies indicate that a team with entrepreneurial passion performs positively. To understand the dynamics of new venture teams (NVTs), however, more research is needed on cross-level interactions and the cyclical relationship between passion and performance. We hypothesize that the perception of a lead entrepreneur’s passion and entrepreneurial passion diversity are team-level constructs that influence the relationship between entrepreneurial passion and performance. Furthermore, utilizing the input-mediator-output-input (IMOI) model, we investigate whether the performance of NVTs affects members’ pre- and post-entrepreneurial passions while developing their businesses. We collected and analyzed multi-wave data from 160 individuals nested in 53 NVTs. The results indicate that entrepreneurial passion predicts perceptions of performance in general. However, the focal relationship is moderated by how NVT members perceive the lead entrepreneur’s passion. Our findings also suggest that entrepreneurial passion diversity directly hinders performance perception, although it does not influence the passion-performance link. Moreover, this study reveals that the perception of NVT performance mediates the effect of prior passion on subsequent passion, supporting the cyclic nature of the passion-performance relationship in NVTs. The theoretical and practical implications of this study are discussed.

Unequal implies success? How initial ownership split impacts team entry and new venture performance

Unequal implies success? How initial ownership split impacts team entry and new venture performance

Emotions in New Venture teams (NVTs): The Valuation Effects of NVTs‘ Affects in Crowdfunded Projects

This study relates New Venture Teams’ (NVTs’) emotional displays to firm valuations in blockchain-based crowdfunding (i.e., Initial Coin Offerings, ICOs). Tracking 2,520 NVT members in 165 ventures over the course of their crowdfunding campaigns, I exploit the neurological link between the central nervous system and facial muscle contraction-relaxation patterns to identify NVT members’ affective traits from their facial expressions. The results suggest that the level of NVTs’ negative affects is associated with lower ICO firm valuations, while within-NVT “emotional diversity” has a value-increasing effect. Intuitively, negative affects are associated with traits, such as relative risk intolerance and analytical perfectionism, which may be prejudicial in dynamic entrepreneurial markets, but could be valuable if balanced by opposite traits in emotionally diverse NVTs. The results for positive affects are diametrically opposed, albeit non-significant. Overall, this study extends the focus of the affective entrepreneurship literature to the NVT level, introduces the concept of emotional diversity, and explores the role of emotions in entrepreneurial finance.

Holding Back or Letting Go? The Effect of Emotion Suppression on Relationship Viability in New Venture Teams

Drawing on emotion regulation theory, this study investigates if and how emotion suppression informs relationship viability within new venture teams (NVTs) when such teams face obstacles. In particular, we use a dyadic approach to examine the suppressor’s authenticity and team members’ perceptions of appropriateness as mediators in the link between emotion suppression and relationship viability. A round-robin study with 93 respondents nested in 37 NVTs, which generated 167 observations, provides empirical support for the theoretically derived model by showing that both authenticity and appropriateness fully mediate the relationship between emotion suppression and relationship viability. In particular, the findings show that the negative indirect effect of emotion suppression on relationship viability via authenticity is larger than the positive indirect effect via appropriateness. A follow-up study after two years indicates that relationship viability and emotion suppression significantly predict venture survival. Together, these findings make ample contributions to the literature and provide interesting opportunities for further research.

Laughing All the Way to the Bank: The Joint Roles of Shared Coping Humor and Entrepreneurial Team-Efficacy in New Venture Performance

Why are some new venture teams (NVTs), but not others, able to effectively cope with the demands of environmental uncertainty? Addressing this question from an intrateam dynamics perspective, we draw from the transactional theory of stress to delineate when NVTs’ use of shared coping humor and level of entrepreneurial team-efficacy might conditionally influence the relationship of perceived environmental uncertainty with new venture performance. Results from a national (USA) sample of startups found shared coping humor to positively moderate the relationship of environmental uncertainty with firm performance. Moreover, this moderated relationship was enhanced when entrepreneurial team-efficacy was high.

United or divided? Entrepreneurial passion and faultlines in new venture teams

ABSTRACT Research has yielded accumulated insights that new venture team (NVT) compositional diversity is a driving force behind the NVT success. However, studies have largely examined diversity attributes in isolation and tended to focus on demographic diversity as the primary source of identification separation with a static approach. In this study, we adopted the team faultline perspective to examine the alignment effect of NVTs’ multiple diversity attributes on NVT performance. Meanwhile, we identified entrepreneurial passion as an alternative and affective source of identification, and investigated the joint influence of these two distinct sources of identification on NVT performance across four stages of competition. Our findings indicate that NVT faultline strength is negatively related to team performance; High team entrepreneurial passion (TEP) mean mitigates the negative effect, whereas high TEP focus variety exaggerates the same negative effect. Our study has important implications for the literature on NVT diversity and entrepreneurial passion.

The Contingent Effects of Intrateam Abusive Behavior on Team Thriving and New Venture Performance

The Contingent Effects of Intrateam Abusive Behavior on Team Thriving and New Venture Performance

Manage the unmanageable? The illusion of control of new venture teams coping with dynamic environmts

Behavioral decision theory and the hubris theory of entrepreneurship suggest that entrepreneurs' uncertainty in dynamic environments leads to cognitive biases. Despite the elaborated theory, empirical evidence of the dynamism - bias relationship is scarce and has produced unexpected results. Further, the role that mechanisms applied to cope with environmental dynamism play in the emergence of cognitive biases, remains unclear. This study investigates how the interplay of environmental dynamism and environmental scanning relates to the illusion of control bias of new venture teams (NVTs). The NVT illusion of control describes an NVT’s tendency to systematically overestimate the degree to which their skills and performance, instead of chance, will influence uncontrollable events. We test our hypotheses by applying structural equation modeling with a sample of 123 NVTs in Germany. Our findings reveal a lack of direct relationship between environmental dynamism and NVT illusion of control but discover an indirect relationship between the two mediated by environmental scanning. These findings suggest that NVTs regularly overestimate their ability to manage their largely unmanageable environment when applying the coping mechanism of environmental scanning.

It Is A “Game of Thrones”: New Venture Team Power Hierarchy Skewness and New Venture R&D Intensity

This study examines how power configurations of new venture teams (NVTs) are associated with R&D intensity in new ventures. Drawing on the functional perspective of power hierarchy, we propose that the proportion of NVT members with high versus low power (i.e., power hierarchy skewness) has a positive effect on new venture R&D intensity. Moreover, this positive effect will be strengthened by hierarchy mutability and weakened by organizational slack. Based on a nine-year panel data of 363 new ventures with 1277 observations listed on the Growth Enterprises Market (GEM) in China, our hypotheses received general support. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings on new venture teams, power hierarchy and new venture innovation.

Fostering Resilience in New Venture Teams: The Role of Behavioral and Affective Integration

Resilience has begun to receive attention in entrepreneurship research. However, most studies focus on organizational and individual resilience; little is known about team resilience in the entrepreneurship field. To fill the gap, this study explores team resilience and its formation and function in a specific context: new venture teams (NVTs). Conceptualizing team resilience as a second-order emergent state with first-order dimensions being resilience-efficacious beliefs and resilience-adaptive capacity, this study articulates the role of behavioral integration in cultivating team resilience and tests the effect of team resilience on NVT performance. Furthermore, a double-edged sword effect of affective integration is proposed: it strengthens the link between behavioral integration and team resilience but weakens the tie between team resilience and performance. Survey data collected from 488 entrepreneurs in 110 NVTs lend support to our hypotheses. These findings add to the knowledge of team resilience in a unique entrepreneurship setting, expand our understanding of NVT effectiveness, and provide implications to NVTs in terms of resilience building and team climate management.

How cultural tightness interacts with gender in founding teams: Insights from the commercialization of social ventures

How cultural tightness interacts with gender in founding teams: Insights from the commercialization of social ventures

Keeping a keen edge: Social support among new venture team members and venture goal commitment

ABSTRACT Some recent studies have focused on how social support explains the variability of entrepreneurs’ venture goal commitment. These studies have exclusively featured solo entrepreneurs, however, examining the support available to individuals from external ties, while neglecting the social support shared among team members in new venture teams (NVTs). Using data on 81 NVTs and 335 individuals from the Haier Entrepreneurship Platform in China, we investigated the effects of the level of support, perceived heterogeneity of support, and balance between instrumental and emotional support in NVTs on their members’ venture goal commitment. Overall, with variations for the two kinds of support, we found that all of these facets—the level and heterogeneity of the support, as well as the balance between instrumental and emotional support—affected venture goal commitment among NVT members.

Achieving coherence: towards a model of the nascent-stage behavioral dynamics of new venture teams

While research has begun to identify Team Entrepreneurial Passion (TEP) and Team Entrepreneurial Competencies (TEC) as drivers of new venture team (NVT) dynamics, current literature fails to account for how these cognitive elements interact to influence team behavior, particularly throughout the nascent stages of the entrepreneurial process. Previous research has almost exclusively investigated NVT dynamics at later stages, once the NVT is established, has successfully created the venture and begun capturing value from an opportunity they have capitalized on. The purpose of this paper is to fill this void by investigating NVT behavioral dynamics throughout the nascent stages of the entrepreneurial process–from initial venture idea generation, to venture opportunity development, and ultimately action to exploit that opportunity. We conduct multiple longitudinal case studies and observations of NVTs in the food service and fintech industries as the teams progress through the nascent stages of the entrepreneurial process. Bridging three formerly disparate constructs of shared cognition, TEP, and TEC, through the lens of construal-level theory, a conceptual model - of the coherence process of NVTs is developed. Construal levels accounts for the coherence of a NVT towards shared cognition, TEP and TEC and explain how and why differences in these constructs drive varying perceptions and ultimately team behavior and performance. Case study observations illustrate our theory that differences in construal level create conflict in entrepreneurial behavior which hinders NVT performance while congruency in construal level enables NVT coherence and performance. Through construal levels, this research offers novel insights into drivers of abstract, thinking and planning-type behaviors versus concrete, doing-type behaviors. This could inform the management of distinct behavioral approaches in an NVT context. Business incubators, NVTs and various entrepreneurial support programs can empirically test and use this model to understand when and how Shared Cognition, TEP and TEC develop and interact between a NVT’s members to impact team-level behaviors and outcomes.

Does new venture team power hierarchy enhance or impair new venture performance? A contingency perspective

Does new venture team power hierarchy enhance or impair new venture performance? A contingency perspective

Beyond Knowledge, Skills, and Ability: The Impact of Neurodiversity in New Ventures

Recent entrepreneurship literature highlights the adaptive benefits of neurological differences for lone entrepreneurs. However, it is not known how neurological diversity plays out within new venture teams (NVT). This paper adopts a strengths-based lens to define neurodiversity and empirically test our neurodiversity model by analysing more than 5,452 Danish NVTs over a nine-year period. Our findings reveal that the inclusion of a neurodiverse founding member enhances team performance; this effect is enhanced for founders who have received treatment. This study contributes to entrepreneurship theory by empirically showing the adaptive benefits of multiple neurodiversity conditions and the positive benefits for founding teams composed of neurodiverse entrepreneurs.

Does New Venture Team Power Hierarchy Enhance or Impair Venture Performance? It Depends

Does power hierarchy in new venture team (NVT) enhance or impair venture performance? In this paper, we integrate the functional and dysfunctional views of power hierarchy and propose that the effect of NVT power hierarchy on new venture performance is contingent upon NVT characteristics (i.e., functional background diversity and team familiarity) and powerholder characteristic (i.e., prior founding experience). Specifically, we argue that the relationship between NVT power hierarchy and new venture performance is positive when team functional background diversity is high but negative when functional background diversity is low. Similarly, the relationship between NVT power hierarchy and new venture performance is positive when team familiarity is low but negative when team familiarity is high. Furthermore, these two sets of interaction effects are strengthened by the powerholder’s prior founding experience. Our hypotheses are supported based on a five-year panel data of 460 observations from 285 NEEQ-listed new ventures in China.

Muddling through Akerlofian and Knightian uncertainty: The role of sociobehavioral integration, positive affective tone, and polychronicity

To address recent calls for a more nuanced understanding of the role of uncertainty in entrepreneurial processes, we distinguish between cross-sectional uncertainty, which arises from the uneven dispersion of knowledge across people and places, and longitudinal uncertainty, which arises from the dispersion of knowledge across time. We argue that new venture team (NVT) sociobehavioral integration (the extent to which NVT members function as a team), NVT polychronicity (the extent to which NVT members prefer to be engaged in multiple tasks simultaneously), and NVT positive affective tone (the extent to which NVT members consistently experience positive emotions) help NVTs cope with challenges arising from the dispersed nature of knowledge in different ways. Evidence from a sample of Scandinavian science-based new ventures supports this view.