INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING SERIES Entrepreneurship Volume 1 by Sciencenetwork

INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING SERIES – Entrepreneurship Volume 1

Publisher: Science Network ISBN: 978-0-9869554-8-8 First published in January, 2014 Printed in Canada

A free online edition of this book is available at www.sciencenetwork.ca Additional hard copies can be obtained from reprint@sciencenetwork.ca

INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING SERIES

Entrepreneurship Volume 1

 Science Network Online Open Access Publisher

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. P채ivi Ovaska Saimaa University of Applied Sciences Skinnarilankatu 36, 53850 Lappeenranta, Finland

Dr. P채ivi Ovaska is a researcher, lecturer and team coach specializing in the fields of information systems development, implementation and adoption in organisations, team learning and team entrepreneurship. She has degrees (MSc, Lis.Tech and Dr.Tech) from Lappeenranta University of Technology in Finland. She has gained a long experience from software industry while working as a software designer, project manager and head of department in several software firms in Finland over 15 years. Now she is working at Saimaa University of Applied Sciences as a degree programme manager and team coach. She is also herself an entrepreneur.

She has been acting as an associate editor and in

programming committees in several conferences, such as European Conference in Information Systems, American Conference on Information Systems and Information Systems Development. She has participated in six European funded projects under various programmes since 2000. She is also actively writing of her research in top IS and entrepreneurship journals.

Table of contents

Team Entrepreneurship Abstract

Introduction

1- Team Entrepreneurship

1-1 Team Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurial Teams

1-2 Organizational learning and learning organization

1-3 Team leadership

1-4 Entrepreneurial networks

2- Team Learning and Entrepreneurship Environment

2-1 Background

2-2 Team Entrepreneurship Model

2-3 Team Learning Toolset

2-3-1 Team learning tools

2-3-2 Team entrepreneurship tools

2-3-3 Leading and coaching tools

3- Research settings

3-1 Studied team venture

3-2 Research question and method

4- Findings

4-1 Identified challenges

4-2 Team narrative

5- Discussion

Conclusion

References

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Team Entrepreneurship Dr. PĂ¤ivi Ovaska Saimaa University of Applied Sciences, Skinnarilankatu 36, 53850 Lappeenranta, Finland E-mail :

paivi.ovaska@saimia.fi

raditionally entrepreneurship is often considered as an economic battle of a single person, the lonely hero. This chapter introduces a team learning and entrepreneurship environment (TLE) to coach university students to collective entrepreneurship. In this environment, a group of students established a cooperative and worked together as a team. The team learning and entrepreneurship environment includes model and tools, which are based on organizational learning principles. We present the findings of the empirical study of the main challenges the team entrepreneurs faced during their first years learning in this environment. According to our findings the team entrepreneurs did not really commit themselves to mutual objectives or either trusted each other. Furthermore they realized that their team was too homogenous. However, the most important challenge to overcome for the team venture in the near future is to form a team entrepreneurial culture and grow out from knowing to learning.

Introduction Traditional entrepreneurship literature often views entrepreneurship as an economic battle of a single person, the lonely hero. â&#x20AC;&#x2022;For a long time it has been a great myth that entrepreneurship implicitly describes the battle of a lonely hero against economic, governmental and social forcesâ&#x20AC;&#x2013; [1]. In the early 90s scholars talked about a very important but almost undiscovered field in the entrepreneurship research and especially team entrepreneurship [2] . In contradiction to the myth of the lonely hero, entrepreneurial teams are not just more frequent than it might appear [3,4] but can also be tracked back to the very beginnings of the industrial revolution: Werner von Siemens and Georg Halske have jointly founded Siemens AG in 1847. Other later examples of known and successful team ventures are Hewlett Packard, Intel, Apple, Melitta, 1

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Adidas, Haribo [5]. As an example [6] describes Apple Computers where people tend to immediately think about Steve Jobs, although it was Steve Wozniack who invented the first PC model and Mike Markkula who offered the business expertise and access to venture capital. This shows that although a venture seemingly has one entrepreneur â&#x20AC;&#x2014;who started it allâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;, this is rarely the case, as most entrepreneurs will have a team around them to making the venture successful. The goal of this chapter is to introduce team learning and entrepreneurship environment (TLE) along with results of empirical study of the main challenges the team entrepreneurs faced during their first years learning in this environment. The rest of the chapter is structured as follows. Section two describes the basis for team entrepreneurship, team learning and organizational learning. Section three represents the team learning entrepreneurship environment including it's model and tools. In section four the research settings are introduced. Section five outlines findings of the research study. Finally, we discuss the findings and summarize the chapter along with topics for further studies.

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1- Team Entrepreneurship 1-1 Team Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurial Teams As is frequently the case in research, the question for a precise and generally accepted definition of entrepreneurial team does not exist. Ensley, Carland, & Carland [7] combined elements from other definition found in the literature and establish three conditions which identify an individual as member of an entrepreneurial team: they have either (1) jointly established a firm, (2) a financial interest in, or (3) a direct influence on the strategic alignment of the venture. From definition of entrepreneurial teams as ―two or more individuals who jointly establish a firm in which they have a financial interest‖ [2] there has been several variations of the definition. Gartner et al. [8] broadened the definition to cover those individuals who have direct influence on strategic choice. In the study of [9] the authors combined both the definitions above and said that individuals have to fulfil all three criteria in order to be considered members of the entrepreneurial team. Others recognised the evolutionary nature of teams and investigated factors associated with member entry and exit [10]. Cooney [6] identified an entrepreneurial team as ―two or more individuals who have a significant financial interest and participate actively in the development of the enterprise―. In this chapter, we combine several definitions related to entrepreneurial teams and organizarionl learning. Team entrepreneurship is collective form of entrepreneurship, in which entrepreneurship occurs in a team of two or more persons [2]. Team is a group of people, who has

complementary knowledge and skills and who has

committed to common goals and approach and are together responsible of their performance [11]. An important objective of a team is to learn together as a team (team learning). Team learning is the process by which team members seek to acquire, share, refine, or combine task-relevant knowledge through interaction with one another [12]. Team learning include asking questions,

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challenging assumptions, seeking multiple perspectives and reflecting on past actions [13]. The team learning literature has focused on how successful groups reach better decisions by assimilating the knowledge residing in individual members. The team learning forms a basis for organizational learning and learning organizations, which are discussed in the next section.

1-2 Organizational learning and learning organization Senge [14] defined a learning organization as ―an organization where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free and where people are continually learning how to learn together‖.

Senge [14] also presented five disciplines required to build a

learning organization: 1) Systems thinking 2) Personal Mastery 3) Mental models 4) Building shared vision 5) Team learning. Systems thinking is an ability to see invisible fabrics, patterns of behavior and connections between interrelated actions. It is the ability to see the conceptual framework of ―what is happening‖. Personal mastery means that an individual is committed to become better in whatever he is committed to do in his professional life. Mental models [14-16] are everyone‘s hidden assumptions that affect to how we think and act. One way to diminish mental models effect is trying to make them visible. Building a shared vision deals with the ―picture of the future‖, the aim at which the team or group want to go. Shared vision cannot be a vision that some individual have, it is rather build up from personal visions that are melted together in the course of time and with practice. Team learning is crucial because teams have for a long time been the basic unit of learning. Team learning deals with patterns of defensiveness and tries to lift them to surface to get rid of them. By practicing dialogue it is in a longer run possible to achieve extra-ordinary results by really thinking together [14,17]. The purpose of a dialogue is to go beyond any individuals understanding [14]. This will require time and development of mutual trust between team members. 4

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Based on [16] individuals are defensive by nature because they tend to avoid feeling vulnerable, incomplete and ignorant. This will result defensive reasoning which prevents individual learning and therefore also organizational learning. DeGeus [18] suggested that fear for the unknown makes individuals to repeat practices that used to lead to success. The fear for trying new practices can lead to learning disabilities within a team. Argyris and Schön [16] proposed use of dialogue with planned interventions by researchers to solve the human defensiveness. Senge [15] claimed that our mental models – the way we each make sense how the world works – might be a major breakthrough for building a learning organization. Marquardt [19] pointed out the role of action learning. He defined action learning as ―powerful problem-solving tool that has the amazing capacity to simultaneously build successful leaders, teams and organizations. It is a process that involves a small group working on real problems, taking action, and learning as individuals, as a team and as an organization while doing so‖ [19, p. 2].

1-3 Team leadership Chen [20] suggested that a lead entrepreneur, or an entrepreneurial leader, is central to the entrepreneurial team. This is because such a leader is the one who has to create visionary scenarios that are necessary for selecting and mobilizing a team of supporting members. Gupta et al. [21] defined entrepreneurial leadership as ―leadership that creates visionary scenarios that are used to assemble and mobilize a ‗supporting cast‘ of participants who become committed by the vision to the discovery and exploitation of strategic value creation.‖ Others such as Hogan and Kaiser [22] claimed that the leader is the one organizing the collective effort and is also argued to be the key to organizational effectiveness. One definition of leadership is that it is ―a process of social influence in which one person is able to enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task‖ [23]. As in [23] is suggested, the major points of this definition is that leadership is a group activity based on 5

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social influence, which revolves around a common task. The leader needs to keep the team focussed on the vision but does not necessarily need to select his or her team to accomplish this. A lack of leadership is often seen as a roadblock to the team performance. As Stewart and Manz [24] wrote, ―More specifically, work team management or supervision is often identified as a primary reason why teams fail to properly develop and yield improvements in productivity, quality, and quality of life for workers.‖ Rather than focusing on ineffective teams, Larson and LaFasto [25] looked in the opposite direction by interviewing excellent teams to gain insights to what enables them to function to a high degree. They came away with the following conclusions: 

A clear elevating goal — they have a vision



Results driven structure — visions have a business goal

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Competent team members with right number and mix

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Unified commitment — they are a team not a group

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A collaborative climate — aligned towards a common purpose

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High standards of excellence — they have group norms

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Principled leadership — the central driver of excellence

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External support — they have adequate resources

The leadership moment theory proposed by Ladkin [26] can also be applied to entrepreneurial leadership. It recognizes that the nature of leadership is interactive and context-dependent, and that leadership is a moment of social relation. The leadership moment identifies pieces of leadership that interact in order for leadership to be experienced. These pieces are identified as context, purpose, leader and follower. In Ladkin‘s book [26] the importance of leader ‗face‘ in times of crisis is put up as an example of leadership moments: she uses for example the Mayor of New York, Rudy Guilliani‘s active presence at Ground Zero in the aftermath of the World Trade Centre strikes as an 6

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illustration of visible â&#x20AC;&#x2014;leadingâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC; in times of national difficulty. As a parallel to this (and far less dramatic) one can think that one member of an entrepreneurial team can in some situations lead the team better than perhaps the formal CEO. This could for example be that the member of the team have the most specialized knowledge for the task that needs to be tackled and hence could have more natural leadership abilities in that context. The leadership moment theory can be said to be quite closely linked with another theory on leadership also studied by [26], which is the concept of distributed leadership. A research study performed by the Australian psychologist Cecil Gibb in the 1950s showed that in the most successful group works, leadership followed the task rather than being held by only one individual. Distributed leadership contest the possibility of identifying individual leaders and measuring the level of impact they have on any taskâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s outcome. One of the results of this research was the distinction between headship and leadership and the fact that they can exist independently of each other. Headship is held by the person in a group with the highest level of hierarchical power and authority, while leadership is a process of influence which moves between the individuals in the group [26].

1-4 Entrepreneurial networks Uzzi and Dunlap [27] argued that for entrepreneurs building their networks there are three unique advantages the entrepreneur should consider. In a good network there will be access to private information, access to diverse skill sets and power. Private information offers significantly more competitive advantage than public information as it is gathered from personal contacts and offers something unique. With skill sets one can say that expertise has become more specialized during the past 15 years. Organizational, product, and marketing issues have become more interdisciplinary and that individual success is related to the ability to utilize the skills of the contacts in ones network. Highly diverse ties to contacts, helps develop more complete, creative, and unbiased view of issues. Trading information or skills with people 7

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whose experiences differ from your own â&#x20AC;&#x201C; provide one another with unique, exceptionally valuable resources. Access to power in networks is also an important factor. An entrepreneurial team who has a large network with many non-redundant contacts which supply private information, have a diverse skillset and are in power-positions, should be in a position of competitive advantage if utilized correctly [27].

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2- Team Learning and Entrepreneurship Environment 2-1 Background Team Learning and Entrepreneurship (TLE) environment is applied from Jyv채skyl채 University of Applied Science's Team Academy Partus Methods in Finland. Team Academy is a unit that specializes in coaching team entrepreneurs who study to become Bachelors of Business Administration. Partus Ltd is a private sector company that produces adult education programs as continuum education. Thus they are separate organizations but they share the same coaching methods. Saimaa University of Applied Sciences applied these methods for technology entrepreneurship, especially information technology. TLE environment consists of a Team Entrepreneurship Model (TEM) and a Team Learning Toolset (TLT), which are described in the next sections.

2-2 Team Entrepreneurship Model The Team Entrepreneurship Model (TEM) is tightly built on the principles of learning organization [14] and knowledge theory [28]. The model is based on four basic phases: 1) dialogue, 2) combining explicit knowledge, 3) learning by doing and 4) building new knowledge (See Figure 1).

Figure 1. SECI model (applied from [28])

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Tacit to Tacit (Socialization) - This dimension explains Social

interaction as tacit to tacit knowledge transfer,sharing tacit knowledge through face-to-face or share knowledge through experiences. Dialogue support this kind of interaction. Since tacit knowledge is difficult to formalize and often time and space specific, tacit knowledge can be acquired only through shared experience, such as spending time together or living in the same environment. Socialization typically occurs in a traditional apprenticeship, where apprentices learn the tacit knowledge needed in their craft through hands-on experience, rather than from written manuals or textbooks. 2.

Tacit to Explicit (Externalization) - Between tacit and explicit

knowledge by Externalization (publishing, articulating knowledge),developing factors, which embed the combined tacit knowledge which enable its communication. For example, concepts, images, and written documents can support this kind of interaction.When tacit knowledge is made explicit, knowledge is crystallized, thus allowing it to be shared by others, and it becomes the basis of new knowledge. Concept creation in new product development is an example of this conversion process. 3.

Explicit to Explicit (Combination) - Explicit to explicit by Combination

(organizing, integrating knowledge), combining different types of explicit knowledge, for example building prototypes or products. The creative use of computerized communication networks and large-scale databases can support this mode of knowledge conversion. Explicit knowledge is collected from inside or outside the organisation and then combined, edited or processed to form new knowledge. The new explicit knowledge is then disseminated among the members of the organization 4.

Explicit to Tacit (Internalization) - Explicit to tacit by Internalization

(knowledge receiving and application by an individual), enclosed by learning by what you doing, on other hand explicit knowledge become a part of indivitual's knowledge and will be assets for organazation. Internalization is also a process of continuous individual and collective reflection and the ability

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to see connections and recognize patterns and the capacity to make sense between fields, ideas, and concepts. In the TLE environment, each of these phases include its own tools for improving team learning and business development. These tools are described in the next section.

2-3 Team Learning Toolset One of the most important parts of the team entrepreneurship process is learning to share. This is a core ability in a new knowledge creation process. Dialogue and reflection are learned in the training sessions of each team; these are called fertilization sessions. These fertilization sessions take place twice a week (four hours per session) with younger teams and once a week with older teams. Through sharing, the teams operate more and more on a basis of communities of practice [29], in which each member brings his or her own knowledge into the process and helps others to learn more. As important as it is to share in each team, this process should take place with as well as with customers. Team entrepreneurship process as a continuous process needs suitable learning tools. The Team Learning Toolset (TLT) consists of three kinds of learning tools: team learning tools, team entrepreneurship tools,

and leading and

coaching tools (Figure 2). They are discussed in more detail in the next. Figure 2. Learning tools in the TLE environment

2-3-1 Team learning tools The tools for team learning in TLE include reading books (building new knowledge), running customer projects (learning by doing) and fertilization sessions (dialogue). Team entrepreneurs reads books of different subjects, such as learning, self development and business. They conduct projects for customers, billing them and getting money. They attend fertilization sessions for eight hours a week. In the fertilization sessions they share information

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about their learning experiences from the books read by them, customer projects and all the other issues related to team and business.

2-3-2 Team entrepreneurship tools As seen from Figure 2, the tools for team entrepreneurship consist of various tools for developing business. These tools are shortly described in Table 1. Table 1. Fundamental team entrepreneurship tools Tool A short description Setting up Cooperative is a business organization owned and operated by a and starting group of individuals for their mutual benefit, it is the most a suitable way to organize team entrepreneurship learning. It is cooperative also cheap to start. Team Team will select a team leader for a team organization. The role leader may change as often as the team decides. Creating Leading thoughts are team entrepreneurs source of inspiration, leading that are based on mutual trust, self-discipline and courage. thoughts Leading thoughts are created by team entrepreneurs and remind (mission, them why they exist and what they are fighting for. vision and strategy) Team The team has also an external team coach, who guides them by coach asking questions, helping their learning process and giving feedback. Learning Each individual creates his or her own learning contract in which contract he or she defines their own goals, dreams, competences, measurement tools etc. Through this, each team also creates a common learning contract. Creating Innovating and creating new knowledge is the basis for team new learning. Team entrepreneurs use different kinds of innovating knowledge, tools, such as modified brainstorming (where individual ideas are innovating emphasized before group session) and six thinking hats to aid the creation of new knowledge Networking The heart of team entrepreneurship model's is networking. Team entrepreneurs network with other teams and business organizations. The more they cooperate, the more they get new business ideas and products. 2-3-3 Leading and coaching tools In order for an entrepreneurial team to have a steep learning curve as described is often dependent on having a good external coach. Marquardt [19] listed the roles of a learning couch. He suggested that the primary role of the action 12

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learning coach is to enable the members to take responsibility for themselves to learn how to develop as a team, to increase their awareness of how they are doing, and to generate norms and processes that will improve their effectiveness [19, p.141]. Marquardt continued by presenting ways how the coach can make interventions to the team with questions, e.g. ask what actions will be taken between the current and next session [19, p.146]. In the TLE environment leading and coaching tools provide tools for leading, coaching and reflecting the learning process of the whole team and the individual team entrepreneur. The model consists 360 review model meaning customer, self, coach and peer reviews after customer projects. The tool for the team goal setting and reflecting is an enhanced balance score card. The coach and the team leader use development discussions and skill profiles for leading the learning process.

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3- Research settings This section will shortly present the studied team, a research question and method. It will also clarify how data for the study was gathered and analyzed.

3-1 Studied team venture This study was carried out in a first entrepreneurial team (called Alpha) learning in the TLE environment. They started their learning journey in the year 2010. The size of the team was twelve young persons, who wanted to learn as ICT entrepreneurs. Their background was heterogeneous: some of them had already been working in ICT field, some of them in other field and for some this was their first work place. All of them wanted to see and experience, if the ICT entrepreneurship is their future profession. Some of them new each other beforehand, some of them did not. Only two of them was women. The team had a team coach who was in this position first time. She was attending a team mastery coaching program in the same time when coaching the Alpha team. This first team had also a group of team entrepreneurs from Team Academy to help with methods and tools.

3-2 Research question and method The research question for the study within the team Alpha was formulated as follows: Q: What were the main challenges of the Alpha team entrepreneurs during their first two years learning in the TLE environment? We used case study method according to Yin [30] as a research method. Yin defines the case study research method as an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context; when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident; and in which multiple sources of evidence are used [30]. Data for the study was gathered from field notes and observations from team fertilization sessions and personal development discussions. Fertilization sessions were kept twice a week during 14

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two first years, each of these lasting four hours. Personal development discussions were kept twice a year lasting about two hours. The data was analyzed by categorizing the data by its frequency and importance.

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4- Findings 4-1 Identified challenges During the analysis, we observed four main categories of challenges the team entrepreneurs faced during their two first years in TLE environment. The identified categories were: 

The development of team entrepreneurial culture, i.e. respect each other, open doors to communication, ability to learn, ability to share knowledge



Heterogeneity of team members, i.e. behaving, contributing and interrelating with others in a heterogeneous way

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The achievement of trust between team members, i.e. ability to send the message to team members that you believe in their competence, honesty, and good intentions



Shared commitment to common goals i.e. common objectives to fight for.

A following team narrative traces how the team Alpha developed as an entrepreneurial team during their first two years through four episodes.

4-2 Team narrative Episode 1. Great enthusiasm, “the Honeymoon” In the beginning, the Alpha team members were anxious and positive towards their just established a team venture. They chose among them a team leader, Mike, who had a strong vision about what this team firm is achieving in the near future. Most of the team members of the team did not know each other beforehand and dialogue with them started from the beginning. In the fertilization sessions they discussed about how the team will work, which was frustrating for some members who simply wanted to get on with the team tasks. They tried to form leading thoughts for their team, namely vision, mission, strategy, but some members felt that these are not needed at all. 16

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It was noticeable in this stage that the team entrepreneurs did not trust each other. They did not trust that the other team members were able to work in such away he/she wanted to work. Also helping others was difficult. Many times the team members decided to share the knowledge and help each other but this did not happen. The tools in the TLE environment were new to them. They started to feel themselves uncomfortable with the new learning environment. Especially, the tools for innovating was quite a shock for them.

Episode 2. Resistance of everything After the period of honeymoon, the team started to resist everything. They disagreed about mission, vision, and approaches combined with the fact that team members were getting to know each other caused strained relationships and conflicts. They also resisted tools in the TLE environment, they thought they do not need such a tools. They even resisted coaches questions and suggestions. This is exemplified by the following quotation: ― Those tools do no fit to learning information technology. The domain where these tool comes from is different. We want to learn information technology, nothing else.‖(Diane in fertilization session Nov 28, 2010). In the fertilization sessions they started to disagree with everything and feelings were sometimes angry. At that time, one team member, Andrew, red a book named ―Never become a entrepreneur‖ and they discussed about it in one fertilization session and even agreed with most of the opinions in the book. The following conversation between team members in a fertilization session (Nov 14, 2010) exemplifies the situation in a team venture: John: ―I am annoyed of this situation. I would like to ask, what are our goals in our venture?‖ Jeremy answers: ―I think we must have our actions routinised. Matthew answers: ―I think we have to know more about different technologies‖ 17

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Jenny thinks: ―I really do not know what I would like to do‖ Andrew: ―We have to have more customer projects‖ William.‖ I am annoyed of our customer projects, they are not proceeding well‖ From this conversation can be noticed, that everybody were annoyed and thought the goals in a different way. They thought everything from their own perspective. The practice how they communicated with each other was negative and from each ones own perspective. Very seldom the word ―we‖ or ―us‖ was heard, but ―I‖ and ―me‖ frequently. In this kind of situation the common goals were impossible to form. The other notable thing from many conversations was that they did not wanted to anything that they did not know beforehand. They always ignored team coaches question if it is possible to learn something. In many fertilization sessions they discussed about how to reward team members. Every time they came into conclusion that rewarding some individual members is wrong for others. In this stage, Mike, the team leader get frustrated and he was mostly absent from fertilization sessions. He felt that he cannot do anything to the situation. Also other team members commitment was questionable. They competed each other for their status and acceptance of their ideas. Team coach did not want to intervene the situation. He wanted to let the team entrepreneurs themselves find the ways to the solution. For those team members who did not like the conflicts this was difficult time to go through. The following example identifies this: ― I cannot stand this team. I would like to go on and learn, and this team prevents me to do so‖ (Diane in development discussion Jan 3, 2011). Episode 3. Diving into the ground In the beginning of the year 2011 the team changed the team leader. Matthew accepted the challenge. While Mike had a vision, Matthew game into situation without any vision for the team. The situation was challenging to the new team leader and soon he game frustrated. His problem was, that he was a good 18

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communicator but the actions remained among. Everybody of team members had a lack of motivation, and they did not have enough customer projects to carry out. The team dived into the ground. If in the fertilization sessions one offered ideas, the rest of the team members turned into ―knowers‖. They categorically knock down each idea with phrases like ―we already tried that‖ or ―it would never work‖ or ―I do not want that‖. When they went to their vacations, they knew that during it something happens. Everybody remained waiting for it. Episode

Residing

team

members,

understanding

the

team

entrepreneurship After vacations, five of the Alpha team members decided to resign from the team. In

this situation team coach decided to intervene the situation by

requiring they must do something for the situation or she is not coaching them any more. When this happened, they changed the team leader. Andrew took the team leader challenge. They had now much smaller team venture, and they started to understand that they must be the team with common goals, vision, mission and strategy. They realized also, that the tools of the TLE environment are aimed to help them, also innovating tools. They understood also that perhaps they are too homogeneous team, and they have to find ways to increase heterogeneity, like form networks. In the following is exemplified the results of the Belbin [31] team role test in the Alpha team.

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Table 2. Results of the Belbin team role test among Alpha team Jacob William John Jenny Jeremy Andrew Matthew 13

Co-ordinator Ability to cause others to work to shared goals Shaper Lot of nervous energy and a great need for achievement

Plant Innovator and inventor and can be highly creative 10

Resource Investigator Good communicator both inside and outside the organisation

Completer-Finisher 16 Have a great capacity for follow-through and attention to detail, and seldom start what they cannot finish Implementer Well organised, enjoy routine, and have a practical common-sense and self-discipline

Team Worker Mild, sociable and concerned about others with a great capacity for flexibility and adapting to different situations and people.

Monitor Evaluator Serious-minded, prudent individuals with a builtin immunity from being over-enthusiastic.

In the table 2, each team member has three main roles, and the scores shows how strong each role is. The strongest role of each member is marked in bold.

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As seen from the table 2, there did not exist any innovator role in the team Alpha (see Plant). When the main use of a Plant is to generate new proposals and to solve complex problems. Plants are often needed in the initial stages of a team or when some project is failing to progress. Plants have often made their marks as founders of companies or as originators of new products, the team Alpha was lacking this kind of team member. This can be one reason for the problems in team. The other notable factor in the Alpha team was, that they had five implementor persons in a team and only one complementor-finisher. As they both are described as persons, who do what needs to be done and do all necessary work. In addition Complementer-Finisher seldom starts the work what he/she cannot finish. These roles are crucial in a team venture, but without plant quite difficult because of the lack of new ideas to implement and complement. Epilogue The second year of team Alpha can be described as a year of understanding. The team and their business has clearly a lot of potential, but the team members had to find how to use this potential. After intervening the team process, the team coach found herself in the middle of the team (not outside), when team entrepreneurs started to find solutions for her, not for themselves. In the beginning of the third year, they have now better understanding of the team entrepreneurship. Now it's their showcase for gain both a successful business and a high performance team. In the TLE environment they are both related to each other. Alpha has a lot of challenges ahead, such as the use of benefit of heterogeneous networks of other team companies from various disciplines. Team coach has a challenge to go to the stage of non-intervention and outside the team as soon as possible. Perhaps the most important challenge for them is to grow out from a knowing culture to a learning culture.

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5- Discussion

As the first entrepreneurial team in the TLE environment, it was obvious that the team Alpha had a challenging situation. Achieving team entrepreneurial culture in environment, which traditionally appreciates eight hours working days in a big firm and knowing things, takes time, if even is never possible. In literature, the trend to explain regional economic success in terms of noneconomic factors has resulted in numerous concepts generally referring to the role of an entrepreneurial culture, like ‗regional innovative capacity‘ [32], ‗enterprise culture‘ [33], ‗entrepreneurial ability‘ [34], ‗entrepreneurial human capital‘ [35], ‗entrepreneurial climate‘ [36,37] and ‗regional cultures of innovation‘ [38,39]. These authors argue that local social conditions play an important role in the genesis and assimilation of innovation and its transformation into economic growth. Entrepreneurial culture is seen as an important element of a regional culture facilitating the success of regional economies. In entrepreneurial literature is considered a consensus emerging saying that businesses started by a team accounts for a greater number of high-growth firms and therefore are becoming more and more interesting for investors [40]. Cooney [6] also points out that there is a growing body of evidence in academia to suggest that new ventures formed by teams achieve faster growth and are more successful, as it is more likely that a group will collectively have the traits required for success. Our study suggest that team entrepreneurship has a lot of potential, but like any other approach, is not automatically a success. Experiences with team Alpha suggests, that it is essential to have heterogeneous team. People with varied backgrounds will use their experience, network and knowledge to the team entrepreneurial venture benefit. There is a stream of research that suggests diversity, conceived as variety or heterogeneity within a team, is deemed beneficial for achieving desirable outcomes [41]. The key idea is that the team can be viewed as an information22

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processing instrument

[42] and that teams that maintain a ‗‗requisite

variety‘‘[43] are better able to parlay greater information richness into positive outcomes. Simply stated, teams whose members represent heterogeneous information pools, via their knowledge, functional background, experience or external social ties are likely to outperform more homogeneous teams [44]. It was obvious that Alpha team members protected themselves from feeling ignorant and vulnerable, so they utilized their primary inhibitory loops, which is in line with Argyris and Schön study [45]. Our culture tends to advocate ―knowing‖ and sometimes people even pretend that they know what they are doing even if they don‘t [46, p. 260 – 261]. If Alpha team entrepreneurs trusted each other enough to admit their incomplete knowledge and realized that everyone else has the same challenge it might help them to establish more effective knowledge sharing practices. Alpha team entrepreneurs seemed to avoid challenging themselves with issues they are not familiar with. Based on [45] individuals are defensive by nature because they tend to avoid feeling vulnerable, incomplete and ignorant. This will result defensive reasoning which prevents individual learning and trust. [18, p. 63] suggests that fear for the unknown makes individuals to repeat practices that used to lead to success. The fear for trying new practices can lead to learning disabilities within a team. Another issue which clearly fostered trust development between team entrepreneurs was the practices how to communicate with each other. According to [47,48] study of low, medium and high performance teams, the amount of positive feedback in high performance teams is three times higher compared to medium performance level teams and six times higher compared to low performance teams. The utilization of increased positive communication requires more positive thinking. It is crucial that positive communication is genuine and comes from the heart. Recognizing the success is also one of the practices of an exemplary leader [49]. When somebody was afraid in the Alpha team, the simplest way to feel stronger was to "knowingly" knock down his/her ideas. Shutting down ideas is 23

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a symptom of a knowing culture. Fear of failure makes growing, getting smarter, and becoming a learning organization impossible. Our fear turns us into a group of "knowers", who are afraid of admitting their shortcomings or conceding that we don't know everything. A learning organization readily acknowledges its incompetence and sees this as an opportunity to gain additional knowledge and improve. Perhaps most importantly, it sees mistakes as a natural part of learning and growing. Tuckam already in 1965 [50] published his theory of team development phases. The Alpha team seemed to follow precisely these phases during their first two years. So called Tuckman's Stages are the following: 

Stage 1: Forming



Stage 2: Storming



Stage 3: Norming



Stage 4: Performing

Team Alpha's forming stage lasted four months (Episode 1) when they were ―feeling each other out‖ and finding their way around how they might work together. The storming stage of the team Alpha was quite long, taking one year (Episode 2 and episode 3). The literature says that in this stage, the role of team leader in facilitating is crucial. The team leader should ensure that team members learn to listen to each other and respect their differences and ideas. The team leader of team Alpha was incapable of doing anything and team coach decided not to intervene. In the beginning of the year three, team Alpha is now in the norming phase. They are no longer focused on their individual goals, but rather are focused on developing a way of working together. They also respect more each others opinions. The experiences with the team Alpha suggests that the development of a team is linked to the development of business in team entrepreneurship. In the stages forming and storming, the team entrepreneurs did not have enough energy to make successful business. The team had to reach at least the norming stage before the business is running and in the performing stage the business is going 24

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to be successful. Not every team reaches the performing stage, some teams stop at the norming stage.

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Conclusion

In this chapter, we introduced the team learning and entrepreneurship environment

(TLE)

for

coaching

university

students

collective

entrepreneurship (team entrepreneurship) by presenting it's theoretical background from entrepreneurial teams and learning organization. We also presented the empirical study of the first team entrepreneurial venture and it's main challenges in their two first years learning in the TLE environment. We used case-study research methodology in the study by using field notes and observations as data collection methods. The data was analyzed by categorizing the data by its frequency and importance. According to our findings the main challenge during the team entrepreneurs two first years was a difficulty to develop a team entrepreneurial culture in which learning is appreciated instead of knowing. Team entrepreneur venture acted in a region, where traditionally was appreciated eight hour working days in a big organization and in the environment that appreciated knowing. Furthermore, the team entrepreneurs did not really commit themselves to mutual objectives, which caused anxiety between them. They were not able to send trustworthy messages to each other meaning that they believe each others competences, honesty and good will. This caused the lack of trust between the team entrepreneurs. More they realized that their team was too homogenous based on the team role test, and more heterogeneous team would use their experience, networks and knowledge better to the entrepreneurial venture's benefit. Now the first team entrepreneur venture is going to start its third and in the same time its last year in the TLE environment. The team has progressed following the general team development phases. This progress reflects also the progress of their business. It remains to be seen, if this team entrepreneur venture continues to develop as a team, or do their remain to this stage where they are now. At least they have a lot of challenges ahead. Perhaps the most

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important challenge is to develop the team entrepreneurial culture and crow out from the knowing culture to the learning culture. The study continues by following team Alpha progress as a team venture. Other team ventures have also been established in the TLE environment, and it will be interesting to see what kind of challenges they will face.

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References

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