The Organizational Design of High-Tech Entrepreneurial Ventures

The majority of the theoretical and empirical work in the field of organizational design has focused on large established companies, disregarding entrepreneurial ventures, although the organization of these firms is of paramount importance to their functioning and performance. This monograph aims to fill this gap by taking stock of extant knowledge and suggesting future research on the organizational design of hightech entrepreneurial ventures. To this end, we take the following steps. First, we illustrate how the fact that high-tech entrepreneurial ventures operate in high-velocity environments and base their competitive advantage on human capital influences their organizational design. Second, we briefly sketch the theories that we deem most pertinent to the study of the organizational design of high-tech entrepreneurial ventures. Third, we review the handful of studies that have examined the main structural elements (that is, hierarchy, delegation decision of authority, specialization, and formalization) and human resource management practices of high-tech entrepreneurial ventures. Finally, we acknowledge that these firms are heterogeneous across some relevant dimensions: the appropriability regime they face, the business models they adopt, and the identities of the entrepreneurial team’s members. Accordingly, we discuss how the organizational design of high-tech entrepreneurial ventures varies depending on aforementioned dimensions.