ABSTRACT
This study focused on management teams and other teams participating in the management of small fi rms, and on the reasons and situational factors for team formation. The importance of teams has been largely recognized in the recent management and entrepreneurship research. Several studies have suggested that fi rms founded and managed by teams are on average more successful than fi rms founded and managed by single persons (Lechler 2001; Rosa and Scott 1999; Vyakarnam et al. 1999). Although the impact of these managerial teams has been widely studied in large fi rm settings, such studies in the fi eld of small business are rare. Only a few empirical studies of management teams in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been published (e.g., van Gils 2005; Weinzimmer 1997; Nicholson and Cannon 2000; Reuber and Fischer 1997). However, team management (i.e., management teams and entrepreneurial teams) in small fi rms is more common than previously believed (van Gils 2005; Lechler 2001; Vyakarnam et al. 1997). For example, the few empirical studies about the prevalence of teams reveal that around two-thirds of SMEs have a management team or an entrepreneurial team (Cooper et al. 1990; Pasanen 2003). Similarly, nearly 80 percent of all small fi rms in this study were team managed, i.e., they had a management team or some other team (an internal team such as a board or entrepreneurial team, or a family team such as a husband-wife team, a sibling team or a team of two generations), that participated in fi rm management but not in the working groups operating at lower levels.
