Entrepreneurial imaginativeness and new venture ideation in newly forming teams

Entrepreneurial imaginativeness is important for new venture ideation (the generation, evaluation, and development of ideas for new ventures), but its effects have only been examined at the individual level. Research suggests that new venture creation, including ideation, tends to involve multiple individuals, who are in the process of becoming a team for the first time. Given myriad possible combinations of individual imaginativeness in newly forming teams, we ask whether team configurations might vary in composition and performance when seeking to generate and develop new venture ideas. To answer this question, we conduct a field survey of 51 new venture teams in six different startup competitions. We find that various configurations among newly forming teams yield different new venture ideation performance outcomes and conclude by unpacking the theoretical and practical implications of our findings for new venture ideation, entrepreneurship, and team composition.