Two's Company: Human Capital Composition and Performance of Entrepreneurial Pairs

Alex Coad (alex.coad@gmail.com) and Bram Timmermans

No 12-12, DRUID Working Papers from DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies

Abstract: We study the effects of diverse team composition on the survival and growth of new ventures using the Danish Linked Employer-Employee database. To get cleaner measures of diverse team composition, we focus on entrepreneurial dyads, and also investigate the asymmetric effects of team composition by distinguishing between the `primary' and the `secondary' founder. We complement existing work by showing that heterogeneity in team composition is affected by the asymmetric hierarchical structure within the team, and that a unidimensional diversity indicator (which is usually applied) fails to capture a number of performance effects of heterogeneous team composition. Ventures with a STEM-educated primary founder and a Business-educated secondary founder have high employment growth, while the opposite combination (Business first, STEM second) has low employment growth. Pairs of younger individuals have lower survival chances but higher employment growth. Family firms have lower employment growth, especially when formed with your mother.

Keywords: Diversity; Entrepreneurial Teams; Survival; Growth; Team Composition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J21 L25 L26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent and nep-hrm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Working Paper: Two's Company: Human Capital Composition and Performance of Entrepreneurial Pairs (2012)
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