Should competencies be broadly shared in new ventures' founding teams?
Reese, Daniel; Rieger, Verena; Engelen, Andreas
Abstract
Building on human capital theory, this study establishes the concept of the “sharedness” of competencies in founding teams. Based on prominent entrepreneurship research, we differentiate among entrepreneurial, managerial, and technical competencies. We test our model with 1,863 founding teams of US-based new ventures by means of a multisource dataset that uses the LinkedIn skills and endorsements sections to measure competencies in a novel way. The results suggest that strong sharedness of entrepreneurial competencies is positively related to new ventures' performance, while sharedness of managerial skills is negatively related to performance. These results have theoretical implications for human capital and entrepreneurship research and practical implications for investors and founders.
Keywords
entrepreneurship; human capital; new ventures; performance; strategic entrepreneurship