Family Founding Teams, Internal and External Collaboration, and New Venture Growth

Abstract

Despite the prevalence of spousal, sibling, and parent–child ties within venture founding teams, little research has examined how family relationships among founders influence early entrepreneurial processes. This chapter explores how family relationships within founding teams influence internal and external collaboration. Within the firm, the chapter focuses on collaboration issues related to recruitment, changes in the management team, and strategic decision making. Beyond the firm’s boundaries, the chapter focuses on collaboration with external investors, strategic partners, potential acquirers, and post–initial public offering stakeholders. It draws upon the literatures on family businesses and high-growth new ventures to explore how family ties may influence collaboration processes over three broad stages of venture development: seed, commercialization, and growth and exit. The chapter concludes by highlighting unanswered research questions and by identifying relevant methodologies, settings, and data sources with which to address these gaps.