Financial management competence of the top management team and the develoment of new technology-based firms

The competence of the executive team of New Technology Based Firms (NTBFs) is expected to be critical for the development of new ventures. Based on the Entrepreneurial-Management-Concept (EMC) this work focuses on the specific impact of financial management competence on the development of new ventures. First, theoretical relationships between financial management competence and financial success and growth are delineated drawing fundamentally on the theory of the growth of the firm, the resource based view, and the resource dependency perspective. Second, the impact of the Financial Management Competence on the performance of the firm is empirically evaluated. Our current study reflects data from 212 high technology ventures in the field of micro-technology, nanotechnology, electronics, optics and lasers. We use a measurement model to establish valid and reliable constructs and apply a path model to examine the effects of different financial competence sub-domains on two success measures of venture development: financial success and growth.