Frédéric DELMAR

This chapter present a research project dedicated to better understand how new venture teams work together to achieve desired outcomes. Teams, as opposed to an individual, start a majority of all innovative new ventures. Yet, little research or theory exists in new venture settings about how members interact with each other over time—teamwork—to produce innovative technologies, products, and services. We believe a systematic study of social and psychological processes that underlie new venture teamwork and venture outcomes is timely and important. Unique features of our research project include: (1) a team level focus on social and psychological processes, to assess relations to proximal (e.g., innovation, first sales and team satisfaction), and distal value creation outcomes (e.g., sales growth, raised capital and profits); (2) Combined qualitative and quantitative research methodologies to provide both theory building and theory testing for the relations of interest; and (3) A time-sequential design with data collection every three months over one year to allow us to investigate the relations of interest for new ventures.

In this chapter, we suggest links between previous and future research into the psychology, more specifically the motivation of entrepreneurs using a self-regulation perspective. Recent research in work motivation has shifted its focus from the single concept of goal setting and intentions towards a broader understanding of self-regulation processes (Diefendorff & Lord, 2008). Self-regulation, as we see it, is the capacity of individuals to guide their activities over time and across changing circumstances (Kanfer, 1990). We aim to incorporate this broader understanding into entrepreneurship research, as we believe it allows for a better understanding of the function and form of the entrepreneurial mindset. In addition, a self-regulation perspective permits integration of empirical findings about the dynamic nature of the entrepreneurial process, while keeping goal directed individuals as the central protagonists in that process.