Effects of Top Management Team Heterogeneous Background and Behavioural Attributes on the Performance of New Ventures

摘要

Using the data collected from 527 new ventures in China, this research evaluates the effects of top management team (TMT) heterogeneous background and behavioural attributes on firm's performance. Behavioural aspects of cognitive and emotional conflicts within the team are served as mediators. The results of the study indicate that the TMT functional background heterogeneity is positively related to both cognitive conflicts and emotional conflicts within the TMT. Moreover, team conflicts are found to mediate the effects of TMT functional background diversity on new ventures' performance. However, TMT functional background diversity alone is not significantly related to financial performance or growth performance of new ventures.