新创企业高管团队的团队过程与战略决策绩效 ——认知的调节作用

新创企业的成败很大程度上取决于战略决策绩效,具有决策权力的高管团队在创业情境下的认知和行为过程对战略决策绩效具有重要影响。本文结合创业研究和高管团队研究的现有成果,以122家新创企业为研究对象,从内部团队过程和外部团队过程两个维度考察高管团队的团队过程对战略决策绩效的影响,并从认知的视角分析新创企业高管团队认知需要和认知能力对团队过程与决策绩效关系的调节作用。研究结果表明,新创企业高管团队的内部团队过程和外部团队过程与决策的质量和满意度均有显著的正相关关系,且认知需要和认知能力对这种关系具有调节作用,在认知需要和认知能力较高的情况下,内、外部团队过程对决策质量和满意度的正向影响更强。

Top management team processes and decision-making performance in new ventures:The moderating effects of cognition

The success or failure of new ventures significantly relies on the performance of strategic decision-making.The decisionmakers′cognition and behavioral processes in new ventures essentially impact the performance of strategic decision-making.With the increasing popularity of team entrepreneurship,some scholars regard entrepreneurial teams as the first group of top management teams(TMT)in new ventures.They employ the upper echelons theory to elucidate the relationship between entrepreneurial team members′characteristics,behaviors,and new ventures′strategic decisions.Nevertheless,most of the previous studies focus on team members′static characteristics,while few empirical studies are on how TMT members acquire resources and information for decision-making via dynamic team processes and how team members′cognition influences the team processes of obtaining and distinguishing decisionmaking information.In the present research,the entrepreneurial team is regarded as the TMT of new ventures from the perspective of decision-makers.Combining with entrepreneurial research and the upper echelons theory,this research puts forward theoretical hypotheses and research framework.It conducts empirical research on 122 new ventures to analyze TMT′s influence on decision-making performance and the moderating role of TMT cognition.The TMT team processes include internal team processes and external team processes,and the TMT cognition includes cognitive ability and cognitive needs.Decision-making performance includes the quality and satisfaction of a decision.The research hypotheses are:TMT′s internal and external team processes have significant positive impacts on the quality and satisfaction of decision-making,which can be moderated by cognitive ability and cognitive needs.The first section discusses the relationship between TMT team processes and strategic decision-making performance.The establishment of an enterprise is a process of multi-element integration by TMT via interaction,including communication,communication,coordination,discussion,and even debate among TMT members and between members and the external relation network.Therefore,the present research argues that the research on the impact of the TMT team processes on strategic decision performance should include the analysis of TMT internal team processes and the external team processes.In a new venture,the TMT processes include team members′interactive behavior processes,both internally and externally,in which internal team processes include three dimensions:decision-making participation,open communication,and team cooperation.The TMT members′active participation in strategic decision-making,information exchange effectiveness,and in-depth communication may lead to high quality and satisfaction decisions.On the other hand,the external social network offers information resources for new ventures.The TMT can obtain resources and support from the external social network via external team processes.The cooperation with social capital in the external social network will positively impact decision-making performance.The second section discusses the moderating impact of TMT cognition on the relationship between team processes and strategic decision-making performance.The upper echelons theory asserts that TMT cognition is an essential factor impacting strategic decisionmaking.Entrepreneurial research has also commenced paying close attention to the cognitive and thinking process in the entrepreneurial context.It has been determined that successful entrepreneurs tend to possess the cognitive and thinking potential to effectively use and deal with uncertainty and fuzziness regardless of their different behaviors.Team decision-making is a process of recognizing and processing information.Whether a decision-maker has the cognitive ability to differentiate and process information and the cognitive needs to obtain and think about information initiatively is closely associated with decision-making performance.The TMT with high cognitive abilities can obtain useful information for decision-making during external team processes.Hence,the quality of knowledge and information for decision-making they share in internal team processes is high.The TMT members with high cognitive needs are willing to spend more energy on team processes,obtain and share more useful information with team members to make high-quality decisions.Besides,the TMT members who are deeply involved in the team processes agree to accept the decision outcomes.The present research selects five Shanghai research objects for in-depth interviews and designs a questionnaire based on domestic and foreign scholars′scale.Based on the data analysis of 122 new start-up enterprises,we found that:1.Both internal and external TMT team processes in new ventures have significant positive effects on decision-making quality and satisfaction.The TMT of new ventures can attain strategic consensus via full communication between internal and external team processes and influence each other.This is conducive to make highly acceptable and feasible strategic decisions and enhance strategic decisions′quality and satisfaction;2.TMT′s cognitive ability and cognitive needs moderate the relationship between the TMT team process and decision-making performance.With the enhancement of TMT′s cognitive needs and cognitive ability,the stronger TMT′s initiative to partake in the team process,the higher the quality of resource information acquired and shared.The positive effect on decision-making performance is also improved.The present research employs the upper echelon theory in entrepreneurship research and provides a new view for expanding new ventures′research.