The Organizational Design of High-Tech Entrepreneurial Ventures

The Organizational Design of High-Tech Entrepreneurial Ventures addresses the organizational design of entrepreneurial ventures. While many definitions of organizational design exist, we consider it as consisting of two main dimensions -- the organizational structure of the firm and the human resource management practices. The authors focus on entrepreneurial ventures operating in high-tech industries because these firms have characteristics that generate salient organizational challenges and require appropriate design choices. First, high-tech entrepreneurial ventures operate in high-velocity environments where rapid changes require decision-makers to timely process a large amount of information and cope with uncertainty. Moreover, most high-tech entrepreneurial ventures are founded by teams of high-skilled individuals, who, in turn, hire highly skilled employees. The human capital of founders and key employees, as reflected in their education and work experience, is the main source of competitive advantage for these firms but creates major organizational challenges. After the initial introduction, Section 2 illustrates the general contextual characteristics of high-tech entrepreneurial ventures that pose organizational design challenges different from those of both incumbent firms and low-tech ventures. Next, the authors present the state of the art on the main dimensions of high-tech entrepreneurial ventures' organizational design. Section 3, in particular, focuses on the relevant elements of organizational structure while in Section 4, the literature on human resource management practices is reviewed. Section 5 moves from the premise that high-tech entrepreneurial ventures are heterogeneous across several dimensions and highlights prominent factors that shape their organizational design. Section 6 concludes by summarizing its main points and suggesting directions for future research.