A start-up’s first employees: Understanding the supply side of the labor market in entrepreneurial recruitment
(2023) ENTN19 20231Department of Business Administration
- Abstract
- The liability of newness creates a different landscape for the start-up company that is trying to expand its team by hiring its first employees. Hence, the same hiring strategies that work for established corporations will not yield the optimal results for a start-up. The current literature focuses on understanding the needs of the start-up to devise a recruitment strategy. However, an understanding of the employee who accepts work with a start-up as their first employee, without being a part of the original founding team, is underexplored. This thesis aims to understand the journey of the candidate that joins a start-up as a first hire as well as their profile including motivations and perceptions. Through an inductive approach,... (More)
- The liability of newness creates a different landscape for the start-up company that is trying to expand its team by hiring its first employees. Hence, the same hiring strategies that work for established corporations will not yield the optimal results for a start-up. The current literature focuses on understanding the needs of the start-up to devise a recruitment strategy. However, an understanding of the employee who accepts work with a start-up as their first employee, without being a part of the original founding team, is underexplored. This thesis aims to understand the journey of the candidate that joins a start-up as a first hire as well as their profile including motivations and perceptions. Through an inductive approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a range of individuals who have accepted work with a start-up company as a first or early hire to understand their path towards working with the start-up as well as their reflections on the experience. Through an analysis of these interviews, distinct themes and dimensions were identified and these findings both challenged and contributed to the assumptions made by previous literature by understanding the needs of the employees. By understanding this landscape, a broader understanding of the optimal recruitment strategy for a start-up can be made. As a result, our thesis suggests future research should investigate (1) motivations, (2) cultural context, and (3) company fit to better understand the supply side of the labor market for start-up companies hiring their first employees. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9126369
- author
- Varga, Anita LU and Tipping, Paul LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- ENTN19 20231
- year
- 2023
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- Start-up Recruitment Strategy, Entrepreneurial First Hires, Start-up Employment, Start-up Employee Motivation, Start-up Career Development
- language
- English
- id
- 9126369
- date added to LUP
- 2023-06-19 10:35:10
- date last changed
- 2023-06-19 10:35:10
@misc{9126369,
abstract = {{The liability of newness creates a different landscape for the start-up company that is trying to expand its team by hiring its first employees. Hence, the same hiring strategies that work for established corporations will not yield the optimal results for a start-up. The current literature focuses on understanding the needs of the start-up to devise a recruitment strategy. However, an understanding of the employee who accepts work with a start-up as their first employee, without being a part of the original founding team, is underexplored. This thesis aims to understand the journey of the candidate that joins a start-up as a first hire as well as their profile including motivations and perceptions. Through an inductive approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a range of individuals who have accepted work with a start-up company as a first or early hire to understand their path towards working with the start-up as well as their reflections on the experience. Through an analysis of these interviews, distinct themes and dimensions were identified and these findings both challenged and contributed to the assumptions made by previous literature by understanding the needs of the employees. By understanding this landscape, a broader understanding of the optimal recruitment strategy for a start-up can be made. As a result, our thesis suggests future research should investigate (1) motivations, (2) cultural context, and (3) company fit to better understand the supply side of the labor market for start-up companies hiring their first employees.}},
author = {{Varga, Anita and Tipping, Paul}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{A start-up’s first employees: Understanding the supply side of the labor market in entrepreneurial recruitment}},
year = {{2023}},
}