Human capital of entrepreneurial teams in nascent high-tech sectors: a comparison between Cleantech and Internet

Abstract

We use an inductive approach to understand what types of founders' human capital, at individual and team levels, are necessary to recognize and exploit entrepreneurial opportunities. A sample of 195 founders who teamed up in the nascent phases of Cleantech and Interned-based sectors is analysed. The results suggest a twofold moderating effect of the sectoral context. First, a more hard science-based and complex sector like Cleantech demands technically more skilled entrepreneurs, but at the same time, it still requires fairly commercially experienced and economically competent individuals. Furthermore, the business context also appears to exert an important influence on team formation dynamics: individuals are more prone to team up with cofounders possessing complementary know-how when they are starting a new business venture in the Cleantech rather than in the Internet-based sector. Overall, these results stress the role of the specific high-tech business context at stake when analysing entrepreneurial team composition patterns.

Effective Collaboration of Entrepreneurial Teams—Implications for Entrepreneurial Education

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Competence at technology entrepreneurship: an interpretive view

“…It must be perceived according to the meaning of components within a whole in context. As Garrone et al (2018) support, technology entrepreneurship especially in complex sectors demands an expressive combination of technical skill, commercial experienced and economical proficiency. Having competence does not necessarily lead to competent behavior, but also depends on the situational conditions whether or not the competences are enacted in behavior (Peltonen, 2015).…”