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The effect of immigrants in the founding team on the international attention of new ventures

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Abstract

Do immigrants as part of founding teams lead to internationally recognized new ventures? Using secondary data from multiple sources, we find a positive relationship between immigrants on the founding team of digitized US-based new ventures and international attention of the firm and that this relationship is negatively moderated by both the financial situation of the new venture and the size of the new venture’s top management team. Our findings suggest that founders from foreign nationalities play a key role in the international attention attraction efforts of newly founded US firms. Thus, it is emphasized that immigrant entrepreneurs play a key role in enabling internationalization efforts of new ventures, especially by aligning available resources with international operations of new ventures.

Abstrakt

Führen Einwanderer als Teil von Gründungsteams zu international anerkannten Start-up-Unternehmen? Unter Verwendung von Sekundärdaten aus verschiedenen Quellen wird eine positive Beziehung zwischen Einwanderern im Gründungsteam von digitalisierten US-amerikanischen Start-ups und der internationalen Aufmerksamkeit der Firma festgestellt. Weiterhin wird gezeigt, dass diese Beziehung sowohl durch die finanzielle Situation des neuen Unternehmens als auch durch die Größe des Top-Management-Teams des Start-ups negativ beeinflusst wird. Unsere Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass Gründer ausländischer Nationalitäten eine Schlüsselrolle bei der internationalen Aufmerksamkeitsgewinnung neu gegründeter US-Unternehmen spielen. So wird herausgestellt, dass immigrierte Unternehmer eine Schlüsselrolle bei der Ermöglichung der Internationalisierung neuer Unternehmen spielen, insbesondere durch die Anpassung der verfügbaren Ressourcen an die internationalen Aktivitäten von Start-ups.

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  1. International and Strategic Management/TU Dortmund, Martin-Schmeißer-Weg 12, 44227, Dortmund, Germany

    Jana Drechsler, Jan-Thomas Bachmann & Andreas Engelen

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  1. Jana Drechsler
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Drechsler, J., Bachmann, JT. & Engelen, A. The effect of immigrants in the founding team on the international attention of new ventures. J Int Entrep 17, 305–333 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10843-019-00248-1

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