Abstract: Based on the media reports of 14 open conflict incidents of entrepreneurial teams, this paper summarizes the causes and specific manifestations of entrepreneurial team conflict by using qualitative research method and NVivo 11 software, and then uses clear set qualitative comparative analysis method to analyze the evolution of entrepreneurial team conflict based on csQCA 2.0. The results show that the main causes of entrepreneurial team conflict in China are interest disputes among founders, emotional problems, personality differences, communication, trust and management problems in entrepreneurial team. The evolution paths of entrepreneurial team conflict can be divided into three types, namely, relationship-oriented, benefit-oriented and cognitive-transmit-oriented through the integration analysis of antecedent configuration. Cognitive-transmit-oriented is the main evolution path of entrepreneurial team conflict escalation. Interest disputes among founders are the necessary conditions to trigger entrepreneurial team conflicts, and the evolution process mainly comes from the rlationship conflict(include individual differences and emotional problems)between founders. Communication and trust play a key role (buffer/aggravation) in the evolution of relationship conflict.

Key words: entrepreneurial team conflict, evolutionary path, qualitative comparative analysis