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Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to understanding the impact of entrepreneurial team composition on new venture performance. Different types of entrepreneurship motivation among founding team members are defined. Using a relatively recent theory as a framework (i.e. self-determination theory), the authors group these motives into two categories: autonomous and controlled motivation. The business impact of the level of each type of motivation within the team, as well as the impact of having team members with different motivational drivers, is examined. New venture performance is modelled in two different ways: financial performance (i.e. return on assets) and innovation performance. Design/methodology/approach: The analyses are based on 66 founding teams active in diverse activity sectors. The teams represent a total of 142 business founders. Data was collected through structured interviews, a company questionnaire and a secondary data source (i.e. certified financial statements). Findings: The results confirm that the level of autonomous motivation within the team contributes to start-up financial performance, whereas the level of controlled motivation hampers innovation performance. No direct effects of diversity of team member motivation on start-up performance were discovered. Originality/value: This is one of the first papers to study multiple firm performance effects of the composition of entrepreneurial founding teams in terms of motivation.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to suggest that different start-up motivations make entrepreneurs pursue different kinds of new business performance, which in this study are expressed in financial terms (i.e. return on assets). The authors posit that so-called extrinsic motivation urges entrepreneurs to be more short-term oriented, while their intrinsic motivation encourages a longer-term business vision. Additionally, this paper explores how intrinsic and extrinsic entrepreneurship motivations combine and produce financial dilemmas for entrepreneurs. Design/methodology/approach: The analyses are based on 300 entrepreneurs across diverse industries in Belgium. Data was collected for this study through structured interviews with entrepreneurs combined with a company questionnaire. Financial data was obtained through a government database. Findings: Results confirm that extrinsic entrepreneurship motivation boosts new business short-term financial performance, whereas intrinsic motivation contributes to the firm’s longer-term financial returns. This paper also shows that a mix of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations directs entrepreneurs toward different profitability levels during the organization’s survival and early-establishment phase. Originality/value: Research on entrepreneurship has not yet corroborated that motivations can be personally conflicting, thereby saddling the entrepreneur with dilemmas that may manifest into different levels of business performance.