Smart or Diverse Start-up Teams? Evidence from a Field Experiment

Sander Hoogendoorn, Simon C. Parker, Mirjam Van Praag

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

    Abstract

    This paper explores the relationship between cognitive abilities and team performance in a start-up setting. We argue that performance in this setting hinges on three tasks: opportunity recognition, problem solving, and implementation. We theorize that cognitive ability at the individual level has a positive effect on opportunity recognition and problem solving but no clear effect on implementation. Within teams, a combination of higher and lower cognitive ability levels may be productive insofar as some individuals can be assigned to mundane tasks (that are often involved in implementation), while others can be assigned to tasks that impose a greater cognitive load (problem solving or opportunity recognition). We present the results of a field experiment in which 573 students in 49 teams started up and managed real companies. We ensured exogenous variation in—otherwise random—team composition by assigning students to teams based on their measured cognitive abilities. Each team performed a variety of tasks, often involving complex decision making. The key result of the experiment is that the performance of start-up teams first increases and then decreases with ability dispersion. Strikingly, average team ability is not related to team performance.
    Original languageEnglish
    JournalOrganization Science
    Volume28
    Issue number6
    Pages (from-to)1010-1028
    Number of pages19
    ISSN1047-7039
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2017

    Bibliographical note

    Published online: November 17, 2017

    Keywords

    • Ability dispersion
    • Team performance
    • Field experiment
    • Entrepreneurship

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