Entrepreneurial team diversity and start-up growth in consulting and hospitality

This study examines how human capital diversity in entrepreneurial teams relates to new venture growth in two distinct service industries: hospitality and knowledge-based consultancy. Drawing on longitudinal linked employer-employee data from Portugal, we use large representative samples of start-ups founded and managed by entrepreneurial dyads to identify configurations of team members’ human capital resources linked to high venture growth. We find that high-growth entrepreneurial dyads are strongly homogeneous in hospitality but rather more diverse in knowledge-based consulting. We propose that differences in successful entrepreneurial teams across these sectors are likely associated with industry context concerning human capital requirements and environmental uncertainty: while team homogeneity succeeds in the relatively stable environment of hospitality services, volatility in knowledge-based consulting favors greater diversity.