The Impact of Top Management Team Characteristics and Board Service Involvement on Team Effectiveness in High-Tech Start-Ups

In this paper, we unite upper echelon theory and the attention based view of the firm to provide a deeper understanding of which top management team (TMT) characteristics, directly, or indirectly through board service involvement, result in TMT effectiveness in high-tech start-ups. In order to do so, we build upon data collected from 103 Norwegian academic spin-outs. The findings demonstrate that diversity and cohesion among TMT members directly and positively affect TMT effectiveness, and that board service involvement mediates the relationship between TMT diversity and TMT effectiveness. Finally, we find that higher proportions of board outsiders positively moderate the relationship between board service involvement and TMT effectiveness.