Entrepreneurial Team Formation

Entrepreneurial team formation—the process through which founders establish a team to

start a new venture—has important implications for team performance and entrepre-

neurial success. Although research on entrepreneurial team formation is gradually

growing, it is at a critical juncture and marked by considerable fragmentation. In part, this

is because scholars have examined entrepreneurial team formation through different

disciplinary lenses and within very different contexts. Our structured content analysis

situates the literature based on questions addressed for new venture team formation, such

as why, how, when, and where entrepreneurial teams are formed. The resulting in-

tegrative framework delineates the dynamic nature of the formation process, the origins

of new venture teams, primary formation strategies used to initiate cofounding relations,

and their effects on team characteristics, processes, and performance. Two key insights

emerge to guide future research. One, the need for integration, especially across disci-

plines and contexts, acknowledging the role of the latter in shaping the formation process.

Two, the need to embrace (self-) selection and endogeneity of founding characteristics,

processes, and performance outcomes to the antecedent formation stage. We conclude that

entrepreneurial team formation research is a fertile ground that has met merely a fraction

of its potential to advance important knowledge in the field.

https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10144209