Project 5 presentation by Jonathan Levie. ERC projects 2016 - 2018.

1. Team size and entrepreneurial
ambition in the UK
June to November 2016
Project team: Jonathan Levie, Karen Bonner,
Enrico Vanino, Mark Hart
Completion date: November 2016

2. Main Goals of the Project
• This project explores the potential impact of
ambition and team size (the number of owner-
managers in a business).
• Potential impact is measured in a variety of ways,
including realized organization size, export
propensity and intensity, and innovativeness.
• The effect of owner-manager education level and
business complexity on this relationship will also be
studied.

3. How will we achieve this?
• This project will commence with a meta-
analysis of studies linking team size to
business performance*.
• The project will then employ the combined
2004 to 2015 UK GEM database to test
hypotheses that link ambition and team size.
*updating and expanding on Mayer-Haug, K., Read, S.,
Brinckmann, J., Dew, N. and Grichnik, D. (2013), ‘Entrepreneurial
talent and venture performance: A meta-analytic investigation of
SMEs’, Research Policy, 42, 1251-1273.

4. Previous research
Previous work has tended to treat team size as a control
variable, and research on cognitive and affective conflict
within teams generates different hypotheses on the
effects of team size on performance.
This issue has not been satisfactorily tested empirically*,
with most studies being conducted in the US and on high
technology ventures.
*But see Levie, J. and De Borst, J. (2016) The more the merrier: How owner-
manager team size influences the economic contribution of owner-managed
businesses across the world. In: Cyrine Ben-Hafaïedh and Thomas Cooney (eds.)
Research Handbook on Entrepreneurial Teams, Edward Elgar. Publication date:
late 2016.

5. • We would expect the complexity of the business
to affect the relationship between ambition and
team size.
• Ambitious businesses in complex environments
are more likely to need larger team sizes to
address these complexity issues, and more highly
educated owner-managers.
• The UK GEM database is large enough to test
such hypotheses for both early-stage
entrepreneurs and established entrepreneurs.
What we expect to find

6. Policy issues that could be
informed by this research
• Is ambition reflected in investment in teams?
• Is team size associated with greater investment in
financial capital?
• When it comes to top management team size, is more
better or is there an optimal team size?
• How important is context?
• Does education make a difference?
• Is entrepreneurial ambition and venture team size in the
UK changing over time?

7. Proposed Schedule
Part 1: June, July August
1. Meta-analysis on owner-manager team size and impact
(Enrico Vanino and Jonathan Levie).
Output: A formal but non technical research paper, similar
to “Levie, J. and Autio, E. (2013). Growth and growth
intentions- a meta-analysis of existing evidence. ERC White
Paper, April.”
2. Preparation of combined GEM UK database for 2004 to
2015 (Karen Bonner, Jonathan Levie, Mark Hart)

8. Proposed Schedule
Part 2: September, October, November
1. Analysis of relationship between ambition, and owner-
manager team size and performance using combined
GEM UK database for 2004 to 2015 (Karen Bonner,
Jonathan Levie, Mark Hart)
Output:
• A set of presentation slides
• A short easy read 2-4 page Insight Paper with key
research highlights
• A blog post and tweets covering the key ‘stylised facts’
and headlines from the research

9. Measures
• Ambition: based on “Approximately how many
people will be working for this business, not
counting the owners but including all exclusive
subcontractors, five years from now?”
• Owner-manager team size: “How many people,
including yourself, (will) both own and manage
this (new) business?”
• Impact: Realized organizational size, export
propensity and intensity, and innovativeness.

10. Contact us:
If you would like any more information about this
research please contact
Jonathan Levie at j.levie@strath.ac.uk