Drawing upon the resource-based view and transaction cost economics, this study aims to examine how various types of managerial resources (i.e., political networking and functional experience) can be beneficial to new ventures in a transitionIt has long been argued that new ventures experience liabilities from their newness and have a high failure rate, because they often have limited resources and their stable links to clients, supporters, and customers have not yet been established (Stinchcombe, 1965). The literature suggests that top managers play an important role in new venture success (e.g., Eisenhardt and Schoonhoven, 1990;Keeley and Roure, 1990;McGee, Dowling, and Megginson, 1995). Managers can generally offer two types of resources: human capital as indicated by their experience (Eisenhardt and Schoonhoven, 1990;McGee et al., 1995) and social capital as indicated by their external ties (Granovetter, 1985;Shane and Cable, 2002 develop competitive advantage, and to achieve better performance (Barney, 1991).Previous studies in this area are mainly limited to new ventures operating in Western developed markets with relatively stable institutional environments. Yet little is known about how managerial resources are related to new venture performance in transition economies that are experiencing significant institutional changes in moving from central planning to market competition. While several scholars have demonstrated the importance of managerial ties in transition economies (e.g., Peng and Luo, 2000;Xin and Pearce, 1996), this line of research has mainly focused on firms in general rather than specifically examined new ventures. In addition, no study has examined the roles of managerial ties and experience simultaneously. This narrow focus limits theoretical completeness and is a significant gap in the literature. Since the market mechanism (i.e., the allocation of resources mainly by market forces) and the redistributive mechanism (i.e., allocation mainly by governmental agencies) coexist in transition economies (Nee, 1989;Zhou,
