Transferring expertise in startup companies
Subtitle: forlorn hope ?
By: Walter C. Swap, Dorothy A. Leonard
Contributors: Leonard-Barton, Dorothy; Harvard Business School. Division of Research
Series: Working paper / Division of Research, Harvard Business School -- 03-040; Working paper (Harvard Business School. Division of Research) -- 03-040
Publisher: Division of Research, Harvard Business School
Published: 2002
Place of publication: Boston]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 23
Description: A review of the literature on transferring expertise reveals that the task is daunting. The very nature of expertise is that it develops over a period of many years, primarily through experience and learning by doing. Yet in the complex, knowledge-intensive field of entrepreneuring, as in athletics, coaches are employed to attempt to speed the learning process for novices. The authors draw upon a two-year, international study of startup companies to illustrate the modes of knowledge transfer employed by venture capitalists and so-called "mentor capitalists" (experienced entrepreneurs engaged as mentors for startup CEOS) and to demonstrate both the value and the limits of such coaching.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.