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Entrepreneurship and Team Participation: An Experimental Study

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  • Cooper, David J.
  • Saral, Krista Jabs

Abstract

Entrepreneurs are surprisingly unlikely to have partners. In spite of the obvious advantages to forming partnerships, only a small minority of entrepreneurs (less than 10%, excluding family businesses) have partners. A number of possible explanations exist for this puzzling phenomenon, including an inability to locate suitable partners, fear of free-riding by partners, and a preference for not working in groups. Utilizing a diverse subject population with a high proportion of active entrepreneurs, we use a team production experiment to study whether entrepreneurs prefer to work alone or in a team. The data indicate that entrepreneurs, while no more likely to free-ride on their teammates, are substantially less interested in joining teams. This suggests that efforts to encourage partnership among entrepreneurs may run contrary to the preferences of this group.

Suggested Citation

  • Cooper, David J. & Saral, Krista Jabs, 2010. "Entrepreneurship and Team Participation: An Experimental Study," MPRA Paper 25144, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:25144
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    Cited by:

    1. David J. Cooper & Krista Saral & Marie Claire Villeval, 2021. "Why Join a Team?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(11), pages 6980-6997, November.
    2. Dutcher, E. Glenn & Salmon, Timothy C. & Saral, Krista J., 2015. "Is "Real" Effort More Real?," MPRA Paper 68394, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Jérôme Hergueux & Nicolas Jacquemet, 2015. "Social preferences in the online laboratory: a randomized experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(2), pages 251-283, June.
    4. Håkan J. Holm & Victor Nee & Sonja Opper, 2020. "Strategic decisions: behavioral differences between CEOs and others," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(1), pages 154-180, March.
    5. Philip Grossman & Catherine Eckel, 2015. "Loving the long shot: Risk taking with skewed lotteries," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 195-217, December.
    6. Balafoutas, Loukas & Batsaikhan, Mongoljin & Sutter, Matthias, 2021. "Competitiveness of Entrepreneurs and Salaried Workers," IZA Discussion Papers 14169, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Thomas Astebro & Holger Herz & Ramana Nanda & Roberto A. Weber, 2014. "Seeking the Roots of Entrepreneurship: Insights from Behavioral Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(3), pages 49-70, Summer.
    8. Prada-Medina, Laura & Mantilla, Cesar & Cortes, Darwin, 2022. "Procedural preferences for autonomy: an experimental study with Colombian workers," OSF Preprints s7tcb, Center for Open Science.
    9. Brown, Christopher L., 2024. "Team production in endogenous networks," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 217(C), pages 560-580.
    10. Francesca Melillo, 2023. "Going From Entrepreneur Back to Employee: Employer Type, Task Variety, and Job Satisfaction," GREDEG Working Papers 2023-21, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    11. Dianne H. B. Welsh & Eugene Kaciak & Caroline Minialai, 2017. "The influence of perceived management skills and perceived gender discrimination in launch decisions by women entrepreneurs," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 1-33, March.
    12. Peter Kuhn & Marie Claire Villeval, 2015. "Are Women More Attracted to Co‐operation Than Men?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(582), pages 115-140, February.
    13. Kaciak, Eugene & Welsh, Dianne H.B., 2020. "Women entrepreneurs and work–life interface: The impact of sustainable economies on success," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 281-290.
    14. Sander Hoogendoorn & Simon C. Parker & Mirjam van Praag, 2017. "Smart or Diverse Start-up Teams? Evidence from a Field Experiment," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(6), pages 1010-1028, December.
    15. Dianne H. B. Welsh & Eugene Kaciak & Silvana Trimi & Emerson Wagner Mainardes, 2018. "Women Entrepreneurs and Family Firm Heterogeneity: Evidence from an Emerging Economy," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 27(3), pages 445-465, June.
    16. Vanessa Mertins & Wolfgang Hoffeld, 2015. "Do Overconfident Workers Cooperate Less? The Relationship Between Overconfidence and Cooperation in Team Production," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(4), pages 265-274, June.
    17. Hendrik Hakenes & Svetlana Katolnik, 2018. "Optimal Team Size and Overconfidence," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 27(4), pages 665-687, August.
    18. Mongoljin Batsaikhan & Louis Putterman, 2019. "An Honest Day's Pay: Cooperation among Entrepreneurs vs. Students, and Linkages to Real‐World Business Success," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(2), pages 478-502, October.
    19. Iván Arribas & Penélope Hernández & Amparo Urbano Salvador & Jose E. Vila, 2012. "Are social and entrepreneurial attitudes compatible? A behavioral and self-perceptional analysis," Discussion Papers in Economic Behaviour 0512, University of Valencia, ERI-CES.
    20. Simone Haeckl & Rupert Sausgruber & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2018. "Work Motivation and Teams," Discussion Papers 18-08, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    21. Welsh, Dianne H.B. & Kaciak, Eugene & Thongpapanl, Narongsak, 2016. "Influence of stages of economic development on women entrepreneurs' startups," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(11), pages 4933-4940.
    22. Welsh, Dianne H.B. & Kaciak, Eugene & Shamah, Rania, 2018. "Determinants of women entrepreneurs' firm performance in a hostile environment," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 481-491.
    23. Sabrina Artinger & Nir Vulkan, 2016. "Does Group Size Matter for Behavior in Online Trust Dilemmas?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(11), pages 1-10, November.
    24. Rocha, Vera & van Praag, Mirjam C. & Folta, Timothy B. & Carneiro, Anabela, 2016. "Entrepreneurial Choices of Initial Human Capital Endowments and New Venture Success," IZA Discussion Papers 9919, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    25. Cooper, David J. & Ioannou, Christos A. & Qi, Shi, 2018. "Endogenous incentive contracts and efficient coordination," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 78-97.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Entrepreneurship; Teams; Artefactual Field Experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments

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