Disentangling the Effects of New Venture Team Functional Heterogeneity on New Venture Performance Volume 4 Jena Economic Research Papers 2010-04-28 2010 2007 2010-029 Entrepreneurial teams New venture performance Team heterogeneity Team diversity Previous research on entrepreneurial teams has failed to settle the controversy over whether team heterogeneity helps or hinders new venture performance. Reconciling this inconsistency, this paper suggests a new conceptual approach to disentangle differential effects of team heterogeneity by modeling two separate heterogeneity dimensions, namely knowledge scope and knowledge disparity. Analyzing unique data on functional experiences of the members of 337 start-up teams, we find support for our contention of team heterogeneity as a two-dimensional concept. Results suggest that knowledge disparity negatively relates to both start-ups’ entrepreneurial and innovative performance. In contrast, we find knowledge scope to positively affect entrepreneurial performance, while it shows an inverse U-shaped relationship to innovative start-up performance. jportal_jpjournal_00000016 2010-05-03T12:29:56.279Z 2010-12-17T11:54:19.833Z