Diversity and Collaborative Dynamics in ASO Teams

ASO founders struggle with the commercial development of their ventures, due to the gap between their scientific background and the broader managerial competencies needed to run the business. One way to solve this problem is to increase their team diversity, i.e., the degree of variation in team members’ functional experiences. Team diversity is recognised as a positive and important aspect of a new venture team. In particular, diverse new venture teams have access to broader knowledge base, which benefits their information processing capacity and results in creativity, innovation and improved problem solving. Diversity, however, can also come with social setbacks. In particular, studies have shown that diverse teams are more prone to disagreements and conflict, making it difficult for members to integrate their differences into useful output. This suggests that diversity does not only position new venture teams with an information-processing advantage, but also with a social disadvantage. Therefore, this chapter offers insights into how ASO founders (typically academics) can productively leverage functional diversity to process information, without getting mired in dysfunctional social conflict between diverse team members.