Are You Experienced or Are You Talented?: When Does Innate Talent versus Experience Explain Entrepreneurial Performance?
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Roberts_Are you experienced.pdf
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614.56 KB
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Author(s)
Eesley, Charles E.
Roberts, Edward B.
Date Issued
September 2012
Journal
Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal
Publisher
John Wiley & Sons, Inc
Citation
Eesley, Charles E., and Edward B. Roberts. “Are You Experienced or Are You Talented?: When Does Innate Talent Versus Experience Explain Entrepreneurial Performance?” Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal 6, no. 3 (September 2012): 207–219.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
We explore whether entrepreneurial performance is due to innate talent or the accumulation of entrepreneurial experience. Using a novel data set with multiple observations of founding attempts per individual, we generate a unique measure of entrepreneurial talent. In contrast to prior findings, the relative importance of experience versus talent changes with the context. When the current market or technology is familiar, experience dominates. However, when the venture context is unfamiliar, talent is more important. Individuals with experience and talent handle both familiar and unfamiliar aspects and may extract more from a given level of experience. The findings advance our understanding of how the drivers of venture performance shift with the broader technological and industry environment and places limits on when experience aids performance.
MIT Department
Sloan School of Management
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1002/sej.1141
