2.1 The Entrepreneurial Personality

Question 1

How is a personality trait defined according to the trait approach?

Answer 1

individual differences
- consistent across various situations vs. stable over time

Also:

• quickly changing vs. slowly changing parts of personality
• specific traits (more powerful for bevavior) vs. broad traits (e.g. emotional stability)
• behaviour can also be against personality traits

Question 2

What are the main broad traits that characterise an entrepreneur according to the BigFive personality taxonomy by costa & McCrae?

Answer 2

BigFive: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism

1) Emotional stability (low neuroticism)
2) Openness to experience –> neg. related to start-up and survival
3) Conscientiousness –> pos.related to survival

Question 3

What are the 8 secific personality traits of entrepreneurs?

Answer 3

1) need for achievement
2) risk-taking propensity
3) innovativeness
4) need for autonomy
5) locus of control
6) tolerance for ambiguity
7) creativity
8) self-efficacy

Question 4

How is N-Ach defined and related to entrepreneurs?

Answer 4

• people with high n-ach want:
  1) to solve a problem/define goals themselfs
  2) know exactly how they performed
• entrepreneurs have higher n-ach than average, they go for medium level difficulty, otherwise they might fail
• mixed results for entrepreneurs vs. managers
• pos. corelated with success

Question 5

How is risk-taking propensity related to entrepreneurs?

Answer 5

H1) E. take more risks
H2) As E. have higher n-ach –> moderate risk-taking, otherwise they might fail and not “achieve”
- might not differ much to intrapreneurs, however E. go more for ambiguous risk

Question 6

How is innovativenes defined and related to entrepreneurs?

Answer 6

• person´s willingness to look for novel ways of action
• similar to creativity, but not all creative ideas might be innovations
• pos corr. to E.,
• mediator between n-ach and success: E. with both traits are successful!

Question 7

How is need-for autonomy defined and related to entrepreneurs?

Answer 7

• want to control environment, get out of restrictive working conditions
• pos. corr with E.
• no corr with small business owners: might have other reasons to found a business

Question 8

How is locus of Control defined and related to entrepreneurs?

Answer 8

“internals”: think conseuences of actions are within their own control
“externals”: believe in fate or coincidences

• relationship similar as with n-ach (slightly weaker) , more internals become entrepreneurs
• unclear rel. with sucess

Question 9

How is tolerance for ambiguity defined and related to entrepreneurs?

Answer 9

• people want to act also in unclear situation
• Knight: unc. is essential to the econ role of an E.
• mixed results and no results on sucess

Question 10

How is self-efficacy defined and related to entrepreneurs?

Answer 10

• belief we have in our own ability, to complete challanges
• very high corr. tu success
• up to a certain level, overconfidence is good
• Adversity Quotient: dealing with bad developments, mistakes
• higher AQ–> better income situation, AQ as general sucess driver