Effective Collaboration of Entrepreneurial Teams—Implications for Entrepreneurial Education

Abstract

In the situation of a permanent change and increased competition, business ventures are more and more often undertaken not by individuals but by entrepreneurial teams. The main aim of this paper is to examine the team principles implemented by effective entrepreneurial teams and how they differ in nascent and established teams. We also focused on the relationship between the implementation of these rules by entrepreneurial team members and their evaluation of venture performance and personal satisfaction. The quantitative method was used: a list of nine items describing the principles important for the entrepreneurial teams’ collaboration was included in a questionnaire conducted in a group of 106 Polish entrepreneurs who run their businesses as members of entrepreneurial teams. The results of the research showed that all the collaboration principles included in the prepared scale are implemented by the tested entrepreneurial teams; in the case of two particular items, the obtained scores were higher in nascent teams. The correlation between principle implementation and venture performance as well as the correlation between principle implementation and entrepreneurs’ professional satisfaction was confirmed. In addition, the goal was to emphasize the importance of the entrepreneurial team’s collaboration due to its effectiveness, and propose the prepared scale as a tool for entrepreneurial reflective learning. Finally, statements by members of two entrepreneurial teams concerning team collaboration are presented to deliver case studies that can be used during entrepreneurship courses.

The congruence of mental models in entrepreneurial teams – implications for performance and satisfaction in teams operating in an emerging economy

“…Our findings corroborate previous results that emphasise the importance of congruence among people who jointly manage a company (Floyd and Wooldridge, 1992;Knight et al, 1999). This study reaches a similar conclusion and indicates that, at least in established teams, higher performance level are associated with higher congruence (Carrington et al, 2019;Rapert, Lynch, and Suter, 1996).…”

“…In this paper, the term "mental model congruence" is used to refer to the degree to which members of an entrepreneurial team display a shared mental model of running a venture. Few studies using that concept of similar congruence in entrepreneurial teams were focused on the strategic consensus of team members (Floyd and Wooldridge, 1992;Knight et al, 1999;Miller et al, 1998). The strategy is crucial for ventures, but the similarity regarding the way of thinking about conducting business can be analysed beyond this area.…”

“…The concept of the team mental model has been underexplored in entrepreneurial research. It has been studied in the context of the strategic consensus defined as the extent to which members of a management team are in agreement about the company's objectives that should be pursued (Floyd and Wooldridge, 1992;Knight et al, 1999;Miller et al, 1998). However, strategies of companies comprise only one aspect of running a venture even if it is a crucial one.…”

“…Recently, there has been a shift from the traditional perception of entrepreneurs as lonesome decision-makers to an increased approach to entrepreneurship as a team-level phenomenon (Klotz et al , 2014). As entrepreneurial teams are becoming more prevalent, studying their composition and intrateam interactions becomes an important task (Krawczyk-Bryłka et al , 2020; Stankiewicz et al , 2020). It seems that it is particularly important in emerging economies where entrepreneurial activity is one of the possible ways of accelerating the development of a country (Villegas Mateos and Amorós, 2019).…”

Team Formation Strategies Among Prospective Entrepreneurs – Evidence From a Large-Scale Survey Experiment

“…Most recently, the frontier of EE has taken an ‘experiential turn’ focusing on action learning, realistic and simulated business start-ups in venture creation programs (Hägg & Gabrielsson, 2020; Hägg & Kurczewska, 2020; Neck & Greene, 2011; Piperopoulos & Dimov, 2015; Rasmussen & Sørheim, 2006). Following this ‘experiential’ turn, team formation has started to enjoy renewed focus in EE research (e.g., Backs et al, 2019; Krawczyk-Bryłka et al, 2020; Pearlstein, 2020, 2021; Warhuus et al, 2021). Recent research points toward team formation being central to learning in the experiential classroom (Warhuus et al, 2021).…”