UCL School of Management is delighted to welcome Linus Dahlander, ESMT, to host a research seminar discussing ‘Does Choice of Teams and Ideas Improve Performance in Entrepreneurial Teams? Evidence from a Field Experiment.’

Abstract

In a natural field experiment with 900+ subjects in 300+ teams, we study the effects of choosing team members versus ideas on entrepreneurial team performance. We use a two-by-two design in which subjects are randomly assigned to one of four treatments, in which they (i) choose both their team and the idea they pursue; (ii) choose their own team members, but not the idea; (iii) choose their own idea but not their team; or (iv) choose neither their team nor the idea. We find that teams who choose their own idea but not their members perform consistently better than those in the remaining treatments. We then explore a number of different mechanisms that can account for this finding.