Challenges Faced by Mandatory-Working From-Home Start-up Teams

Abstract: The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has created a novel and unique situation forcing start-up teams to mandatory-work-from-home (MWFH). With everyday life coming to a halt, start-up teams suddenly adjust their ways of working and transform to virtual means of teamwork performed from home environments. Given the novelty and uniqueness of the situation, MWFH has yet to be academically explored within the context of start-up teams. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the challenges that start-up teams face with MWFH. By adopting an inductive approach, seven start-up team cases were researched. Through eight semi-structured interviews with individuals within start-up teams, the transition to MWFH and the period during Covid-19 were benchmarked against the period before the outbreak of Covid-19. A thematic analysis of the findings identified a framework of 15 challenges across six categories. The empirical findings show that start-up teams face challenges regarding (1) community building, (2) high degrees of uncertainty, (3) workspace, (4) virtual structures to communicate and collaborate, (5) evolving leadership styles, and (6) merging home-work life. Though highly dependent on one’s situation, MWFH forced new ways of working within start-up teams in terms of structured routines in communicating and collaborating. Establishing a sense of community to stay connected from a distance, and evolving leadership to facilitate trust, performance, and motivation, and creating the appropriate space to work from home shape MWFH start-up teams. The framework of challenges that start-up teams face provide a starting point for future academic work to explore further MWFH and expand this academic phenomenon.