Talking Past Each Other: Construal Level, Utilitarian Motives, and Entrepreneurial Team Formation
研究发现，创业者和潜在联合创始人因认知和动机差异（解释水平与功利动机）而难以形成互补且兼容的团队，但创业者可通过强调人际兼容性的沟通来克服这一障碍。
Entrepreneurs often struggle to add cofounders who are both interpersonally compatible and who possess complementary resources (i.e., hybrid ties). In this paper, we suggest that there are cognitive and motivational differences between lead entrepreneurs and potential cofounders that complicate the formation of hybrid ties. We propose that lead entrepreneurs prioritize resources, whereas potential cofounders prioritize interpersonal compatibility, because of differences in construal level and utilitarian motives during the team formation process. Although these differences can complicate the formation of hybrid ties, we posit that lead entrepreneurs can overcome these differences by communicating in ways that highlight their interpersonal compatibility with potential cofounders. We find support for our theory across three studies with data from (1) the Y Combinator Co-Founder Matching online platform, (2) an online experiment with entrepreneurs, and (3) a networking event at an incubator. Our findings add novel contributions to the entrepreneurial team formation, entrepreneurial networking, and social networks literatures. Funding: This work was supported by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation [2016 Dissertation Fellowship Award]. Supplemental Material: The online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2022.16693 .