Determinants and Impact of Founder Turnover

Abstract

While my analyses in chapter 4 were exclusively based on data retrieved from an conjoint design, this chapter analyzes the determinants and the impact of founder turnover based on field data. It is structured as follows. In section 5.1, I introduce the research design used to collect data among entrepreneurs. Section 5.2 covers the description of the dataset including a discussion of sample selection, the data collection process, as well as selection and response biases. I describe all dependent, independent, and control variables used in subsequent analyses in section 5.3. Section 5.4 is concerned with descriptive statistics of the dataset. In section 5.5, I study the determinants of founder turnover, while in section 5.6 I look at performance implications of founder turnover in start-up companies. Section 5.7 summarizes the results in the light of the theoretical model.