There is ample anecdotal evidence, as well as an emergent body of literature, which examines the role of entrepreneurial teams in the success and growth of businesses. Earlier research by the authors has demonstrated that the core competence required by founding entrepreneurs is the ability to build and manage relationships. Their more recent work suggests that this core competence must be based around a clear vision for the business. In other words, the founding entrepreneur must be able to build a team to deliver the business vision. A review of literature is provided in this paper, offering a definition of the concept and some of the core issues that have to be addressed by entrepreneurs and small firm policies if businesses are to continue growing. This is supported by some preliminary findings from empirical research into how entrepreneurial teams are formed. The paper continues with propositions that can lead to further research in this relatively unexplored field.

This article draws together accumulated research regarding top management teams with the more general literature of work on small groups, and adds detailed interpretation, thereby contributing to the literature on founding/management teams of new ventures. Prior TMT (Top Management Team) research has commonly linked demographic variables to team effectiveness. However, a growing understanding of the effects of teams on organizational performance suggests that besides team demographic variables, more fine-grained variables concerning team and individual processes have to be taken into account in order to better understand the link between entrepreneurial teams and organizational performance. Drawing on a large body of literature, four themes are proposed to illuminate these links in new ventures: resources, structural and process effects of teams, task leadership, and the effects of team members’ personal integration into the task process.