The influence of team heterogeneity on team processes of multi-person ventures: an empirical analysis of highly innovative academic start-ups

摘要

In current publications on start ups founded by more than one person contradictory and inconsistent results are presented regarding the outcome of team heterogeneity on venture performance. This can be traced back to the inconsistent measurement of team heterogeneity. Harrison and Klein (2007) present a theoretical concept, which divides heterogeneity into three forms: separation, variety and disparity. The aim of this paper is to test empirically this theoretical concept. We analyse the influence of the three introduced types of heterogeneity on team processes which further correlate with venture performance and show that different types of heterogeneity influence team processes in different ways. By doing this, we apply multi-level models to consider the level structure of our data. The data consists of 59 technology orientated academic start-ups from Austria, supported by academic incubator programmes.