PhD Defence: Timo van Balen
In his dissertation ‘Challenges of Early Stage Entrepreneurs: The Roles of Vision Communication and Team Membership Change’ Timo van Balen provides numerous practical and academic contributions to the fields of entrepreneurship, impression management, vision communication, and team dynamics.
Timo van Balen defended his dissertation in the Senate Hall at Erasmus University Rotterdam on Friday, 22 March 2019 at 11:30. His supervisors were Prof. Jan van den Ende (RSM) and Dr Murat Tarakci (RSM). Other members of the Doctoral Committee are Prof. Daan Stam (RSM), Prof. Fabian Sting (University of Cologne, Germany) and Dr Ashish Sood (University of California Riverside).
Timo van Balen's PhD research project is conducted within the Erasmus Doctoral Programme organised by Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), the joint research institute of Rotterdam School of Management (RSM) and Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) of the Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR).
About Timo van Balen
Timo van Balen (1989) obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the VU University Amsterdam in 2011, and graduated from the ERIM MPhil Research Master Program at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University in 2014. In October 2014, Timo joined the Innovation Management section at the Rotterdam School of Management to pursue his PhD. His research interests include early stage entrepreneurship, innovation, vision communication, leadership and team dynamics. He presented his research at several international conferences, including the INGRoup and the Academy of Management conferences. His work has been published in Journal of Management Studies and Harvard Business Review in 2018 and is currently under review in top management journals. Per January 2019, Timo has started as Operations and Innovation Lead at Innovation in Motion in Amsterdam and holds a position as part-time lecturer for the Innovation Management section at the Rotterdam School of Management.
Thesis Abstract
We increasingly expect start-ups to tackle the great systemic problems of the world, with a rising demand for game-changing innovations that are both sustainable, responsible and economically viable. However, most of these ventures fail to realize their envisioned growth, or do not even survive their first four years of existence. This is because entrepreneurs face three hard-to-overcome: acquisition of financial resources, the attraction of talent and the organization of this talent into an effective team. In this dissertation, I espouse the roles of vision communication and the management of team dynamics in facing these three challenges.
First, the dissertation investigates how entrepreneurs’ vision communication affects the way investors and potential recruits view the venture. Results point out that disruptive and social vision communication strongly affect their perception about the venture. Specifically, both types of visions may have unforeseen downsides in convincing investors and recruits to join the start-up’s pursuits.
Second, we show that the management of team membership change is elementary to sustaining the high performance of venture teams. We find that both entrepreneurs and managers should attempt to minimize membership change in high performance teams. Overall, this dissertation provides numerous practical and academic contributions to the fields of entrepreneurship, impression management, vision communication and team dynamics.
Photos: Chris Gorzeman / Capital Images
