Скачать или смотреть Are You Experienced or Are You Talented? When Does Talent vs. Experience Drive Performance

Abstract: In this paper, we explore the conditions when entrepreneurial experience or skill drives the performance of new ventures. We use novel data from a survey of 2,111 entrepreneurs where we have detailed data on their entire career of founding attempts allowing us to control time-invariant individual effects. Our findings show that both entrepreneurial experience and selection on skill matter. When the current market or technology is more similar to the past, then entrepreneurial experience is more important. This reverses and underlying entrepreneurial skill becomes a stronger factor than experience when the industry is changing, undergoes a disruption or when the firm's technology is more innovative. These findings contribute to our understanding of congenital learning and the recent work on how previous industry experience influences new venture performance.