Abstract
The entrepreneurial team is at the heart of any new venture (Cooper and Daily, 1997); and it is fundamental to new venture success (Birley and Stockley, 2000). One reason for this is the fact that creating a new venture is a challenging and demanding task. Many ventures are started by an individual who turns to others for help with various aspects of the venture creation. Whereas others begin with a team, making venture creation a collective endeavor from the start (Kamm et al., 1990; Watson et al., 1995; Aldrich et al., 2002; Ruef et al., 2003). Despite its importance, little systematic research has been conducted on entrepreneurial teams (Cooper and Daily, 1997; Foo et al., 2006). Even though progress has been made and an emerging body of literature is developing (eg Watson et al., 1995; Birley and Stockley, 2000; Frances and Sandberg, 2000; Forbes et al., 2006; Harper, 2008), existing scholarly literature is still relatively limited. Considering the importance of the entrepreneurial team to the venture, its performance, and to the field of entrepreneurship, it is surprising that the entrepreneurial team as a research topic has been neglected (Foo et al., 2006; Ucbasaran et al., 2001). In an effort to draw attention to the topic of entrepreneurial teams and to stimulate academic research on entrepreneurial teams, this special issue of Management Research News is presented.