Interaction effects

For each of the two models, three interaction effects are significant, as shown in Table 6 and Table 7. The similarity of significant interaction effects between both models is not surprising due to the high positive correlation between the dependent variables of the two models (cf. Table 4). One interaction effect of each of the three experience categories is significant. First, in the team experience category, the interaction effect between joint team experience and intra-team trust is significant for both models. Second, the interaction effect between entrepreneurial experience, which is part of the human capital experience category, and intra-team trust is significant in Model A and in Model B. Third, for the opportunity-related experience category, the interaction effect between industry experience and intra-team trust is significant for both models. Figure 19 classifies the significant interaction effects in the applied categories.

Figure 19: Overview of significant interaction effects for Model A and Model B Source: Own illustration

In the following, I describe in detail the interaction diagrams for the significant interaction effects for both models. The interaction diagrams show the value for the dependent variable—in this case, the measurement for opportunity recog-nition performance, namely the quality of the selected opportunity for Model A, and the selection performance for

Model B—on the y-axis. The mean-centered respective experience variable is depicted on the x-axis in all diagrams.

Following prior research (Breugst, Patzelt, Shepherd, & Aguinis, 2012) on regression models with interaction effects, the relationship between the independent variable (the respective experience variable) and the dependent variable (the quality of the selected opportunity in Model A, and the selection performance in Model B) is shown for a high level and a low level of the moderator intra-team trust. A high level of intra-team trust is illustrated as the mean-plus-one standard deviation, whereas a low level of intra-team trust is depicted as the mean-minus-one standard deviation (cf.

Breugst et al., 2012).

The significant interaction effect between joint team experience and intra-team trust for Model A with the quality of the selected opportunity as dependent variable is depicted in Figure 20. For entrepreneurial teams with low joint team experience, i.e., those that do not have a long history of working together, the level of intra-team trust does not sub-stantially influence the value of the quality of the selected opportunity. The two lines, the one for a high level of intra-team trust and the one for a low level of intra-intra-team trust, are close together. The more joint intra-team experience an entre-preneurial team has, the more relevant the level of intra-team trust. This relationship is illustrated by the growing distance between the two intra-team trust lines. For entrepreneurial teams with high joint team experience, the condition of high intra-team trust leads to a low value for the quality of the selected opportunity, whereas the condition of low intra-team trust enables a high value for the quality of the selected opportunity. Thus, a high level of intra-team trust is disadvantageous for entrepreneurial teams with high joint experience.

Figure 20: Model A: Interaction diagram for joint team experience and intra-team trust Source: Own illustration

Figure 21 illustrates the significant interaction effect between entrepreneurial experience and the quality of the selected opportunity. The effect is similar to the interaction effect between joint team experience and the quality of the selected opportunity, which is shown in Figure 20. The influence of different intra-team trust levels on the quality of the selected

opportunity is not strong for entrepreneurial teams with low entrepreneurial experience, as the two intra-team trust lines, for high and for low intra-team trust, are close together. However, it is strong for entrepreneurial teams with high entrepreneurial experience, as there is a large distance between the two lines for intra-team trust. Entrepreneurial teams with low entrepreneurial experience, i.e., those in which the average number of start-ups already founded by the mem-bers of the team is small, achieves comparable values for the quality of the selected opportunity for low as well as for high intra-team trust levels. In contrast, entrepreneurial teams with higher entrepreneurial experience, i.e., those in which the team members have on average already founded more start-ups, reach only a low value for the quality of the selected opportunity in case of high intra-team trust, and a high value for the quality of the selected opportunity in case of low intra-team trust. Consequently, not trusting each other in entrepreneurial teams with high entrepreneurial expe-rience is beneficial for the quality of the selected opportunity.

Figure 21: Model A: Interaction diagram for entrepreneurial experience and intra-team trust Source: Own illustration

The significant interaction effect between industry experience and intra-team trust for Model A is depicted in Figure 22. Entrepreneurial teams with low industry experience, i.e., those in which the members of the team do not have experience in many different industries, reach only a low quality of the selected opportunity for both levels of intra-team trust. In contrast, entrepreneurial intra-teams with higher industry experience, based on prior experience in many dif-ferent industries, achieve a higher value for the quality of the selected opportunity compared to teams with lower in-dustry experience for both intra-team trust levels. The positive effect between inin-dustry experience and the quality of the selected opportunity is stronger for teams with a low level of intra-team trust than for teams with a high level of intra-team trust. That is, under the condition of low intra-team trust, entrepreneurial teams with high industry experience obtain a higher quality of the selected opportunity compared to the condition of high intra-team trust.

Figure 22: Model A: Interaction diagram for industry experience and intra-team trust Source: Own illustration

As explained above, the high positive correlation of 0.9 (p < 0.01) (cf. Table 4) between the dependent variables of both models leads to similar results for the analyzed interaction effects (cf. Table 6 and Table 7). Thus, it is not sur-prising that the interaction diagrams for the three significant interaction effects for Model B look similar to the inter-action diagrams for Model A.

Figure 23 shows the interaction effect between joint team experience and intra-team trust for model B with selection performance as the dependent variable. Analogous to Figure 20, which depicts this interaction effect for Model A, intra-team trust as a condition does not influence the selection performance for entrepreneurial teams with low joint team experience, whereas in entrepreneurial teams with high joint team experience, the influence of intra-team trust as a condition for the selection performance was strong. Entrepreneurial teams with low joint team experience show sim-ilar selection performance values for low as well as for high intra-team trust levels. In contrast, entrepreneurial teams with high joint team experience reach only a low value for the selection performance in case of high-intra-team trust, and a high value for the selection performance in case of low intra-team trust.

Figure 23: Model B: Interaction diagram for joint team experience and intra-team trust Source: Own illustration

The significant interaction effect between entrepreneurial experience and intra-team trust for Model B is illustrated in Figure 24, which is similar to the interaction diagram of this interaction effect of Model A (cf. Figure 21). Entrepre-neurial teams with low entrepreEntrepre-neurial experience achieve comparable values for selection performance under both intra-team trust conditions. However, entrepreneurial teams with high entrepreneurial experience achieve a better se-lection performance under the condition of low intra-team trust, whereas they show a worse sese-lection performance under the condition of high intra-team trust. Thus, intra-team trust is a negative condition for the selection performance for entrepreneurial teams with high entrepreneurial experience.

Figure 24: Model B: Interaction diagram for entrepreneurial experience and intra-team trust Source: Own illustration

Figure 25 shows the significant interaction effect between industry experience and intra-team trust for Model B, which is equivalent to Model A in Figure 22. Entrepreneurial teams with high industry experience achieve higher values for the selection performance than entrepreneurial teams with low industry experience for both intra-team trust levels.

However, for teams with lower levels of intra-team trust, the relationship between industry experience and the selection performance is more positive than for teams with higher levels of intra-team trust.

Figure 25: Model B: Interaction diagram for industry experience and intra-team trust Source: Own illustration