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Founder team interaction, customer and competitor orientation in software ventures
Mueller, Thilo A.; Georg Gemünden, Hans
Purpose – Developments in the software industry have shown the need for sustainable and effective management strategies, especially for new ventures. Entrepreneurship literature suggests marketing to be one of the pivotal predictors of business performance. Previous empirical studies have shown the importance of social interaction and team work quality for new venture performance. The purpose of this paper is to apply founder team interaction quality (IQ), and the customer and competitor orientation concept of marketing research to new software venture performance.
Design/methodology/approach – An empirical study using a fully standardized questionnaire was conducted in 101 young software ventures. Two founders in each company filled out the questionnaire separately allowing superior tests for reliability and validity of the research framework.
Findings – The results show team IQ to be a powerful predictor of both customer orientation and competitor orientation. Furthermore, a positive, linear relationship between competitor orientation and technological performance has been found. There is a curvilinear U-shaped relationship between customer orientation and all examined success dimensions, i.e. economic, market and technological success.
Originality/value – Based on a theoretical research framework and a comprehensive empirical study, the paper contributes to a limited body of research and provides insight for managers of young ventures in the nature of teamwork and IQ and its effects on market orientation and company performance.
- Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.
- This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.
