Decision Making Processes in New Venture Teams. Why motivation has an impact and the consequence for venture success

Master's Thesis from the year 2020 in the subject Business economics - Company formation, Business Plans, grade: 1,3, Technical University of Munich (Entrepreneurship), language: English, abstract: In this paper, I propose a triangular relationship between entrepreneurial motivation, decision making and success of new venture teams. Based on longitudinal qualitative case studies of six founder teams of technology ventures, I argue that maximizing wealth and maintaining control are the main motivational drivers for strategic decisions of individuals. However, not the individual motivations per se, but the interplay of individual motivations of all team members have an impact on a venture¿s strategic decisions. The study discloses that consistent team alignment regarding motivations over time is related to venture success. The implications of this study are discussed in terms of practical imprints. They suggest that further investigation into new venture team motivation and relation to success and decision making is warranted.

How do founders¿ motivations in new venture teams affect strategic decision making and shape decision making between team members over time? How do the outcomes of these team member interactions affect venture success?

To answer these questions, I have employed a qualitative research approach employing grounded theory based on case studies from six ventures. Each team member was interviewed twice with an interval of six months in time difference. The data was then analyzed by applying an inductive coding approach. Based on this, I have discovered four main findings:

First, the main strategic motivations of why founders keep running their ventures are either maximizing wealth or maintaining control. These two motivations have a trade-off relationship. Second, a founder who shows a clear preference towards one of the main strategic motivations has highly aligned personal motifs of why she or he wanted to start founding the venture initially. Third, there are several factors within a team that enable highly aligned strategic motivations between all team members. Fourth, teams who strive for one clear strategic motivation are more successful in achieving their goals than teams with entrepreneurs of mixed motivations.