Co-leadership and performance in technology-based entrepreneurial firms

The notion of co-leadership, de!ned as a structural arrangement where the formal responsibilities at the top of the company are attributed to multiple persons, is receiving increasing attention in recent years as one of the possible conceptualizations of the leadership “in plural form”. Our research aims at exploring the performance implications of co-leadership arrangements in the top management teams (TMTs) of technology based entrepreneurial !rms, and at evaluating how such impact is likely to occur. The study is carried out on a sample of technology based entrepreneurial !rms operating in Italy. Our study contributes mainly to the literature on co-leadership, by identifying different structural con!gurations of plural leadership and by shedding some light on the paths through which co-leadership arrangements have an impact on company performance.