Overcoming challenges in new venture team formation and functioning: A qualitative study among funded Greek startups

Abstract

Although Greece’s economy currently constitutes an uninviting environment for businesses, a startup movement has emerged and flourished in Greece over the past few years. This inevitably raises the question of how entrepreneurial teams manage to steer newborn businesses through troubled waters to successful company establishment. This study uses qualitative methods to unfold the challenges faced by entrepreneurs in Greece with regard to team formation and functioning and to explore how founders and new venture teams respond to them. Semi-structured interviews with six founders of Greek startups suggest that in the beginning founders lack the brand, knowledge and financial resources to attract, select and compensate team members with indispensable skills; they account for these deficiencies by leveraging their personal social network, available information resources and flexible cooperation agreements. As to the way founders select team members and perceive team competence, it seems to be considerably influenced by their own attitude towards challenges. In terms of team functioning, additional interviews with eight startup team members – on top of the aforementioned six interviews – revealed that the introduction of structural elements and individual learning have a positive effect on team cooperation, communication and conflict resolution and thus drive team performance and eventually new venture evolution. The speed of evolution appears to be dependent on the founder’s sense of urgency, which also affects the way changes are implemented in the organization.