A longitudinal project of new venture teamwork and outcomes

This chapter present a research project dedicated to better understand how new venture teams work together to achieve desired outcomes. Teams, as opposed to an individual, start a majority of all innovative new ventures. Yet, little research or theory exists in new venture settings about how members interact with each other over time—teamwork—to produce innovative technologies, products, and services. We believe a systematic study of social and psychological processes that underlie new venture teamwork and venture outcomes is timely and important. Unique features of our research project include: (1) a team level focus on social and psychological processes, to assess relations to proximal (e.g., innovation, first sales and team satisfaction), and distal value creation outcomes (e.g., sales growth, raised capital and profits). (2) Combined qualitative and quantitative research methodologies to provide both theory building and theory testing for the relations of interest. (3) A time-sequential design with data collection every three months over one year to allow us to investigate the relations of interest for new ventures.