Diversity and social capital of nascent entrepreneurial teams in business plan competitions

WEISZ, N.; VASSOLO, R. S.; MESQUITA, L.; COOPER, A.

Management Research

Emerald

Año: 2010 vol. 8 p. 39 - 63

1536-5433

We examine the influence of team member diversity and internal social capital on project performance within the context of business plan competitions. We conjecture that higher levels of functional diversity as well as higher levels of internal social capital enhance the performance of nascent entrepreneurial teams in the crafting of their business plans. However, as these constructs tend to be inversely correlated we conjecture that under this particular context, where the needs for information processing and decision making requirements are so high, those teams that in their formation decision favored diversity outperform those that favored internal social capital. We derive implications for theory and practice.