The role of friendship in Top Management Teams

Abstract

Friendship in Top Management Teams remains an underexplored subject. Early research focused on few specific aspects of the venture to explain performance. The perspective is continuously growing - more elements and different aspects of the venture and the management team are being researched. Management is fundamentally a social activity and decisions are often affected by emotions. By understanding the underlying mechanisms of the milieu in which friendship is an influencing factor, managers can learn to use this knowledge to their benefit and researchers can create models with better explanatory power. I hope to direct more attention towards emotional aspects of TMTs and hope to inspire more research on the topic. The goal for this study is to identify the effects that friendship has on the performance of Top Management Teams and on the performance of the venture through quantitative analysis of empirical data. TMTs are seen in this study as a type of collaborative circles. Friendship is often the basis for the formation of TMTs and thereby it influences the venture and its performance in the early stages. As the venture ages, friendship within the TMT continues to play an important role; influencing the decision making process and the capability of the TMT to make critical decisions, thereby also influencing the venture as a whole. Using a questionnaire-based sample of 56 Norwegian high technology university spin-offs, this study shows that entrepreneurial teams are central to any venture, and that they influence the performance of that venture, supported by excising research alike. Friendship is found to influence the TMT. Empirical data indicates a direct positive influence on the performance of the TMT by friendship between members of the TMT. Entrepreneurs that cultivated friendship with other members of the TMT rated their team performance higher. An interesting opposite effect is evident in this study when it comes to friendship and venture performance. Friendship in TMT is shown to have a negative effect on the venture performance itself, which is contrary to expectations and requires further study. CEO ownership is also shown to have an effect on venture performance, but not on TMT performance. This study contributes to friendship and performance research related to Top Management Teams by providing a more emotional perspective on TMT dynamics.