How joiners differ from founders.

• Position: Business Start-ups - Brief article

A growing interest in start-ups has focused attention on company founders who often take great risks to launch new ventures, but what about the people who join these founders to help them develop new companies?

Researchers analyzed these "joiners" and noted that, while they resemble founders in their willingness to take risks and their desire for the freedom of a start-up, there are important differences. For instance, joiners are less interested in management and more interested in functional roles, such as research and development, making them more like those who go to work for established companies.

"Sometimes you can have a single founder who handles the full range of activities for a start-up but, especially in technology, you need additional people to research and develop the products," says Henry Sauermann, associate professor in the College of Business at the Georgia...