As the broad link between small and medium-sized firm activity and key policy goals such as employment
or economic growth has become generally accepted, the conversation has focused on a more nuanced
understanding of the entrepreneurial engines of economic activity. A significant body of research looking
at antecedents to venture performance has identified that entrepreneurial talent variables account for
meaningful differences in venture performance and that significant heterogeneity exists across performance
measures. These are important issues for institutions and policy makers seeking to achieve specific
economic goals (e.g., survival or growth of ventures, employment or revenue). Using meta-analysis, we
integrate this work to view connections between aspects of entrepreneurial talent and different performance
outcomes. Our investigation includes 50,045 firms (K of 183 studies) and summarizes 1002
observations of small and medium-sized firms. Analysis of these data yields an unexpectedly weak connection
between education and performance. Furthermore, growth, scale (number of employees) and
sales outcomes are significantly related to planning skills, while profit and other financial and qualitative
measures are strongly connected with the network surrounding the firm founders. Moreover, we observe
that entrepreneurial talent is more relevant in developing economies.