The workforce composition of young firms and product innovation: Complementarities in the skills of founders and their early employees

Bettina Müller and Martin Murmann

No 16-074, ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

Abstract: We investigate the extent to which complementarities between technical and business skills of founders and employees matter for the generation of market novelties by new ventures. Using data about German start-ups, we find that there are no complementarities between technical and business skills within the group of founders, but that there are significant complementarities between technically trained founders and employees who have business skills. This suggests that the innovation potential of start-ups by technically trained founders is best explored by hiring employees who are trained in business. However, a reverse relationship does not exist: There are no complementarities between founders with business skills and employees with technical skills.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Innovation; Human Capital; Skills; Complementarity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 L23 L26 M13 M51 Q31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-ent, nep-ino, nep-lma, nep-sbm and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:zewdip:16074

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