WHERE THE MAGIC HAPPENS: Opening the Black Box of Entrepreneurial Team Functioning

Entrepreneurial teams contribute substantially to the foundation and success of new firms, particularly in high-tech and knowledge-intensive industries. While entrepreneurship research has started to acknowledge the importance of entrepreneurial teams, we still do not sufficiently understand how entrepreneurial teams function. The previous literature has mainly taken an upper echelons perspective, studying how team members’ characteristics impact venture outcomes without explaining the social psychological mechanisms connecting inputs and outcomes. In our systematic literature review, we focus on illuminating the black box how team members work together when developing their venture. Building on the growing but fragmented insights available, we offer a future research agenda for entrepreneurial team research inspired by insights from social psychology.