The influence of team members’ exits and entries on nascent venture growth.

Given the importance of the entrepreneurial founding team (EFT) at the top of a venture and the frequently observed turnovers within those teams, we investigate how EFT entries and exits impact new venture growth post transition. As turnovers have a negative impact on team members’ relational embeddedness and cohesion, we hypothesize that turnovers negatively impact venture growth. We further hypothesize that this negative relationship changes when the transition occurs for dyadic versus triadic teams. Employing a database on German start-ups, we find a negative succession-growth relationship which is greater for triadic teams. With our research, we contribute to the literatures on firm growth and entrepreneurial teams.