John Haltiwanger, University of Maryland

Welcome to seminar with Professor John Haltiwanger, University of Maryland

Abstract: We investigate the idea that the success of a startup may derive from the organizational capital that is created at firm formation and inalienable from the founding team itself. We find that the exogenous separation of a founding team member due to premature death has a persistently large, negative, and statistically significant impact on post-entry size, survival, and productivity. While losing a founder has an especially large adverse effect, losing an early joiner exhibits a significant negative effect, lending support to our inclusive definition of founding teams. Effects are stronger in contexts where the role of organizational capital is amplified.