Entrepreneurs' Skill Diversity and Firm-Level Innovation: Implications for High Growth.

We advance a theory delineating the consequences of the entrepreneur's skill diversity for the firm's likelihood of high growth. We suggest that firms headed by jack-of-all-trades entrepreneurs are more likely to exhibit high growth, and this relationship is partially mediated by the firm-level innovation. Multilevel mediation analyses of 357 German start-ups lend overall support, showing that skill diversity has both a direct and an indirect effect on high growth through the firm's "depth of innovation", i.e., the frequency and degree of novelty of its new offerings. Industry dynamism acts as a catalyst for entrepreneurs possessing most diverse competencies and skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]