Family entrepreneurial teams: antecedents driving the choice of university students

This study aims at contributing to the stream of literature on entrepreneurial team formation. Based on a sample, gathered from the “Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students Survey” (GUESSS), made of 19,164 university students who would like to have a career as entrepreneurs, regression analyses test the hypotheses built on the assumption that the family is a resource that influences the propensity of potential entrepreneurs to include prospect team members from their family. Relying on resource based view and social identity theory, both instrumental and relational motives are considered as antecedents of the choice to create a family entrepreneurial team. The role of the family and the family business background as well significantly affect the decision on how the entrepreneurial team is formed, thus providing implications for theory and practice, and offering avenues for further research.