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.

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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.

᭹Earlier studies of business clusters have been carried out at the level of companies and industries as units of analysis.This paper explores the Cambridge high-technology cluster with individuals as the principal focus as they help to shed light on entrepreneurial processes, particularly on how their prior work experience together has shaped many of the start-ups and spin-outs from the University of Cambridge, local consulting organizations and other companies. ᭹ This research explores serial entrepreneurship in the Cambridge high-technology cluster using a family tree and interlocking directorships approach. It reveals a mini-cluster of Cambridge entrepreneurs as the key influence on the success of the growth process and their links between the companies as the structural and relational social capital of the cluster.it relates to this context. At the centre of these networks is a mini-cluster of key individuals (investors, academics and serial entrepreneurs) who have an important influence on success.In The Cambridge Phenomenon, Segal et al. (1985) developed a complex family tree of spin-outs which provides a valuable basis for tracing the evolution of high-technology companies. This paper focuses at the level of individuals to illustrate the dynamics of social capital within the Cambridge cluster, to demonstrate that the role of individuals, especially of serial entrepreneurs, has been a significant contributory factor in explaining its emergence.This paper is also informed by the works of Rosa and Scott (1999) and New (2003), where they demonstrated that the most successful entrepreneurs tended to hold multiple direcStrat. Change 14: 165-177 (2005) Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).

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