The Relational Antecedents of Project-Entrepreneurship: Network Centrality, Team Composition and Project Performance

The relational antecedents of project-based enterprises have not yet received systematic investigation. These ventures are typically created by individual freelancers who are usually embedded in networks of collaborative relationships that convey the information and resources required to carry out new projects. Using a relational perspective of entrepreneurial discovery and team composition, we analyze the performance determinants of project-entrepreneurs, namely the individuals who are responsible for launching and carrying out those projects. We argue that project entrepreneurs’ performance is related to their degree of centrality within the social network, and their familiarity with the selected project-team as captured by the distribution of ties among team members. We test our hypotheses within the Hollywood Film Industry over the period 1992-2003. The findings point to the existence of diminishing returns to centrality and performance benefits from assembling teams that combine old-timers and newcomers. The theoretical contributions and implications of the study are discussed.