Tapping Multiple Sources: Temporal Sequences of Relational Pluralism and Start-Up Performance

Entrepreneurial start-ups have a high need for resources yet face significant risks in the formation of partnerships to access those resources. We propose that relational pluralism–forming multiplex and multifaceted ties with other firms–can mitigate these risks by offering a relational safeguard against resource misappropriation and opportunistic behavior by more powerful partners. Hence start-ups benefit from engaging in relational pluralism, and particularly so in instances where off-setting gains in stability and control outweigh the cost of redundancy. Empirically observing the co-evolution of start-ups’ interlocking directorate and strategic alliance networks in the Australian mining industry over a 10-year period, we find that start-ups that engage in relational pluralism move toward central network positions more rapidly than those firms that form stand-alone ties, and that they perform better as a result. Intriguingly, we find that the geography and temporal sequence of relational pluralism deter...