Dear colleagues,
We are pleased to announce a symposium at the 2026 Academy of Management Annual Meeting in Philadelphia:
Human Capital in Entrepreneurship: Founders, Joiners, and Inventors
Session 15849 | Sponsored by the STR, ENT, and TIM Divisions
Monday, August 3, 2026 | 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM
Pennsylvania Convention Center, Room 120B
Startups are built by people: the founders who start them, the early employees who join them, and the inventors whose ideas they commercialize. This symposium brings together four papers that examine how human capital-across founders, early joiners, and inventors-affects new venture performance. The papers ask how startups compete for scarce AI talent, whether young founders gain (and lose) by bringing a senior cofounder aboard, how the experience mix among first hires relates to scaling, and how framing an idea around the inventor rather than the invention shifts investor attention.
Presenters:
• Travis Howell (Arizona State University)
• Qian Wang (Cornell University)
• Alicia DeSantola (University of Washington)
• Melody Chang (University of Southern California)
Discussant: Martin Ganco (University of Wisconsin–Madison)
We hope the session will be of interest to colleagues studying human capital in entrepreneurship, strategy, and innovation, and we look forward to the discussion.
Best regards,
Qian Wang
PhD Candidate, Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University
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Qian Wang
Cornell University
Ithaca NY
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