IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v107y2014ipbp595-613.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Funding decisions and entrepreneurial team diversity: A field study

Author

Listed:
  • Vogel, Rick
  • Puhan, Tatjana Xenia
  • Shehu, Edlira
  • Kliger, Doron
  • Beese, Henning

Abstract

This study provides experimental evidence, using a large sample of 2894 individuals recruited via business media websites, about the impact of demographic attributes within entrepreneurial teams on funding decisions by external capital providers. In previous work the role of diversity with regard to personal characteristics within entrepreneurial teams, such as education, gender and nationality was not clear. Specifically, we focus on task-oriented (e.g., education, experience) and relations-oriented (e.g., age, nationality) dimensions of diversity. The participants of our experiment had to decide on providing early-stage funding to a team of start-up managers whereas the diversity of these teams varied across treatment groups. We find that task-oriented diversity is positively and significantly related to the willingness of respondents to provide capital. Interestingly, the same applies for relations-oriented diversity. This suggests social capital of an entrepreneurial team matters to a greater extent to funding decisions of external investors than the behavioral integration of the team's human capital. Entrepreneurial teams must therefore carefully balance the social costs of non-task-related diversity and the access to financial resources.

Suggested Citation

  • Vogel, Rick & Puhan, Tatjana Xenia & Shehu, Edlira & Kliger, Doron & Beese, Henning, 2014. "Funding decisions and entrepreneurial team diversity: A field study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PB), pages 595-613.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:107:y:2014:i:pb:p:595-613
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2014.02.021
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268114000602
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jebo.2014.02.021?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kelley A. Packalen, 2007. "Complementing Capital: The Role of Status, Demographic Features, and Social Capital in Founding Teams’ Abilities to Obtain Resources," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 31(6), pages 873-891, November.
    2. Petty, Jeffrey S. & Gruber, Marc, 2011. ""In pursuit of the real deal": A longitudinal study of VC decision making," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 172-188, March.
    3. Franke, Nikolaus & Gruber, Marc & Harhoff, Dietmar & Henkel, Joachim, 2006. "What you are is what you like--similarity biases in venture capitalists' evaluations of start-up teams," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 802-826, November.
    4. Hall, John & Hofer, Charles W., 1993. "Venture capitalists' decision criteria in new venture evaluation," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 25-42, January.
    5. Muzyka, Dan & Birley, Sue & Leleux, Benoit, 1996. "Trade-offs in the investment decisons of European venture capitalists," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 273-287, July.
    6. Beckman, Christine M. & Burton, M. Diane & O'Reilly, Charles, 2007. "Early teams: The impact of team demography on VC financing and going public," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 147-173, March.
    7. Amason, Allen C. & Shrader, Rodney C. & Tompson, George H., 2006. "Newness and novelty: Relating top management team composition to new venture performance," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 125-148, January.
    8. Jay D. Teachman, 1980. "Analysis of Population Diversity," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 8(3), pages 341-362, February.
    9. Melissa S. Cardon & Maw–Der Foo & Dean Shepherd & Johan Wiklund, 2012. "Exploring the Heart: Entrepreneurial Emotion is a Hot Topic," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 36(1), pages 1-10, January.
    10. Ensley, Michael D. & Hmieleski, Keith M., 2005. "A comparative study of new venture top management team composition, dynamics and performance between university-based and independent start-ups," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(7), pages 1091-1105, September.
    11. Monica A. Zimmerman, 2008. "The Influence of Top Management Team Heterogeneity on the Capital Raised through an Initial Public Offering," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 32(3), pages 391-414, May.
    12. Ensley, Michael D. & Pearson, Allison W. & Amason, Allen C., 2002. "Understanding the dynamics of new venture top management teams: cohesion, conflict, and new venture performance," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 365-386, July.
    13. Dean A. Shepherd & Andrew Zacharakis, 1999. "Conjoint analysis: A new methodological approach for researching the decision policies of venture capitalists," Venture Capital, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(3), pages 197-217, July.
    14. Vishal K. Gupta & Daniel B. Turban & S. Arzu Wasti & Arijit Sikdar, 2009. "The Role of Gender Stereotypes in Perceptions of Entrepreneurs and Intentions to Become an Entrepreneur," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 33(2), pages 397-417, March.
    15. Der Foo, Maw & Kam Wong, Poh & Ong, Andy, 2005. "Do others think you have a viable business idea? Team diversity and judges' evaluation of ideas in a business plan competition," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 385-402, May.
    16. Dean A. Shepherd, 1999. "Venture Capitalists' Assessment of New Venture Survival," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(5), pages 621-632, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Praag, Mirjam van & Zunino, Diego & Dushnitsky, Gary, 2017. "Badge of Honor or Scarlet Letter? Unpacking Investors’ Judgment of Entrepreneurs’ Past Failure," CEPR Discussion Papers 12329, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Diego Zunino & Mirjam (C.M.) van Praag & Gary Dushnitsky, 2017. "Badge of Honor or Scarlet Letter? Unpacking Investors' Judgment of Entrepreneurs' Past Failure," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 17-085/VII, Tinbergen Institute.
    3. Darova, Ornella & Duchene, Anne, 2024. "Diversity in Teams: Collaboration and Performance in Experiments with Different Tasks," MPRA Paper 120375, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. E. Erjiang & Ming Yu & Geng Peng, 2022. "Intermediation in reward-based crowdfunding: a cash deposit mechanism to reduce moral hazard," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 1227-1248, December.
    5. Francesco Maria Barbini & Marco Corsino & Paola Giuri, 2021. "How do universities shape founding teams? Social proximity and informal mechanisms of knowledge transfer in student entrepreneurship," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 46(4), pages 1046-1082, August.
    6. Shepherd, Dean A. & Breugst, Nicola & Patzelt, Holger, 2023. "A founding-team model of creating a venture's culture," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 38(2).
    7. Wise, Sean & Yeganegi, Sepideh & Laplume, André O., 2022. "Startup team ethnic diversity and investment capital raised," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 17(C).
    8. Kier, Alexander S. & McMullen, Jeffery S., 2020. "Entrepreneurial imaginativeness and new venture ideation in newly forming teams," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 35(6).
    9. Tonoyan, Vartuhi & Boudreaux, Christopher J., 2023. "Gender diversity in firm ownership: Direct and indirect effects on firm-level innovation across 29 emerging economies," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(4).
    10. Carolin Bock & Christian Hackober, 2020. "Unicorns—what drives multibillion-dollar valuations?," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 13(3), pages 949-984, November.
    11. Swarnodeep Homroy & Kwok Tong Soo, 2020. "Team diversity and individual performance," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 88(4), pages 507-530, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hoenig, Daniel & Henkel, Joachim, 2015. "Quality signals? The role of patents, alliances, and team experience in venture capital financing," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(5), pages 1049-1064.
    2. Poonam Khanna & Lemaro Thompson & Michael Mcdonald, 2015. "Research On Venture Capital Firms’ ‘Investment Behavior A Review’," Working Papers 0197mgt, College of Business, University of Texas at San Antonio.
    3. Chan, C.S. Richard & Park, Haemin Dennis, 2015. "How images and color in business plans influence venture investment screening decisions," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 732-748.
    4. Zhou Wencang & Rosini Elizabeth, 2015. "Entrepreneurial Team Diversity and Performance: Toward an Integrated Model," Entrepreneurship Research Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-30, January.
    5. Nuscheler, Daniela & Engelen, Andreas & Zahra, Shaker A., 2019. "The role of top management teams in transforming technology-based new ventures' product introductions into growth," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 122-140.
    6. Mirjam Knockaert & Tom Vanacker, 2013. "The association between venture capitalists’ selection and value adding behavior: evidence from early stage high tech venture capitalists," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 493-509, April.
    7. Townsend, David M. & Busenitz, Lowell W., 2015. "Turning water into wine? Exploring the role of dynamic capabilities in early-stage capitalization processes," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 292-306.
    8. Kourosh Shafi, 2021. "Investors’ evaluation criteria in equity crowdfunding," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 3-37, January.
    9. Block, Joern H. & De Vries, Geertjan & Schumann, Jan H. & Sandner, Philipp, 2014. "Trademarks and venture capital valuation," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 525-542.
    10. Knockaert, Mirjam & Bjornali, Ekaterina S. & Erikson, Truls, 2015. "Joining forces: Top management team and board chair characteristics as antecedents of board service involvement," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 420-435.
    11. Petra Moog & Christian Soost, 2022. "Does team diversity really matter? The connection between networks, access to financial resources, and performance in the context of university spin-offs," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 323-351, January.
    12. Will Drover & Matthew S. Wood & G. Tyge Payne, 2014. "The Effects of Perceived Control on Venture Capitalist Investment Decisions: A Configurational Perspective," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 38(4), pages 833-861, July.
    13. Juan Pablo Diánez-González & Carmen Camelo-Ordaz, 2016. "How management team composition affects academic spin-offs’ entrepreneurial orientation: the mediating role of conflict," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 530-557, June.
    14. Rafał Morawczyński, 2020. "Venture Capitalists’ Investment Criteria in Poland: Entrepreneurial Opportunities, Entrepreneurs, and Founding Teams," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-30, October.
    15. de Mol, Eva & Cardon, Melissa S. & de Jong, Bart & Khapova, Svetlana N. & Elfring, Tom, 2020. "Entrepreneurial passion diversity in new venture teams: An empirical examination of short- and long-term performance implications," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 35(4).
    16. Chan, Chien Sheng Richard & Park, Haemin Dennis, 2013. "The influence of dispositional affect and cognition on venture investment portfolio concentration," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 397-412.
    17. M. Knockaert & T. Vanacker, 2011. "The Association between Venture Capitalists’ Selection and Value Adding Behavior: Evidence from Early Stage High Tech Venture Capitalists," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 11/741, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    18. Shepherd, Dean A. & Zacharakis, Andrew, 2002. "Venture capitalists' expertise: A call for research into decision aids and cognitive feedback," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 1-20, January.
    19. Alexandra Moritz & Walter Diegel & Joern Block & Christian Fisch, 2022. "VC investors’ venture screening: the role of the decision maker’s education and experience," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 92(1), pages 27-63, January.
    20. Woike, Jan K. & Hoffrage, Ulrich & Petty, Jeffrey S., 2015. "Picking profitable investments: The success of equal weighting in simulated venture capitalist decision making," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(8), pages 1705-1716.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Decision-making; Online survey; Top management teams; Upper echelons; Venture capital;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • G02 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Behavioral Finance: Underlying Principles
    • G24 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Investment Banking; Venture Capital; Brokerage
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • M13 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - New Firms; Startups

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:107:y:2014:i:pb:p:595-613. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jebo .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.