The Entrepreneur's General Personality Traits and Technological Developments
Technological newness and innovativeness are
important aspects of small firm development, growth and wealth
creation. The contribution of the study to entrepreneurship
personality research and to technology-related research in
entrepreneurship is that the model of the general personality driven
technological development was developed and empirically tested.
Hypotheses relating the big five personality factors (OCEAN:
openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and
neuroticism) and technological developments were tested by using
multiple regression analysis on survey data from a sample of 160
entrepreneurs from Slovenia. The model reveals two personality
factors, which are predictive of technological developments:
openness (positive impact) and neuroticism (negative impact). In
addition, a positive impact of firm age on technological
developments was found. Other personality factors
(conscientiousness, extraversion and agreeableness) of entrepreneurs
may not be considered important for their firm technological
developments.
[1] R. P. Camagni, "The concept of innovative milieu and its relevance for
public policies in European lagging regions," Papers in Regional
Science, vol. 74, no. 4, pp. 317-340, 1995.
[2] M. Storper, "The resurgence of regional economics, ten years later: The
region as a nexus of untraded interdependencies," European Urban and
Regional Studies, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 191-221, 1995.
[3] A. Malmberg, "Industrial geography: location and learning," Progress in
Human Geography, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 573-582, 1997.
[4] J. J. Ritsila, "Regional differences in environments for enterprises,"
Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 187-
202, 1999.
[5] M. Feldman and P. Desrochers, "Research universities and local
economic development: Lessons from the history of the Johns Hopkins
University," Industry & Innovation, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 5-24, 2003.
[6] B. Antoncic, I. Prodan, R. D. Hisrich, and C. Scarlat, "Technological
innovativeness and firm performance in Slovenia and Romania, " Postcommunist
Economies, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 285-302, 2007.
[7] J. Gunther and O. Gebhardt, "Eastern Germany in the process of
catching up," Eastern European Economics, vol. 43, no. 3, pp. 78-102,
2005.
[8] M. Berger and J. R. Diez, "Technological capabilities and innovation in
Southeast Asia: Results from innovation surveys in Singapore, Penang
and Bangkok," Science Technology Society, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 109-148,
2006.
[9] B. Antoncic and I. Prodan, "Alliances, corporate technological
entrepreneurship and firm performance: Testing a model on
manufacturing firms." Technovation, vol. 28, no. 5, pp. 257-265, 2008.
[10] B. Antoncic, T. Bratkovic, G. Singh, and A. F. De Noble, "The big five
personality factors, gender, and entrepreneurship: Evidence from
Slovenia," in 2008 Annual Meeting Proceedings (Academy of
Management), Anaheim, CA, 2008, pp. 80-81.
[11] S. A. Zahra and J. G. Covin, "Contextual influences on the corporate
entrepreneurship-performance relationship: A longitudinal analysis,"
Journal of Business Venturing, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 43-58, 1995.
[12] G. III Pinchot, Intrapreneuring. New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1985.
[13] B. Antoncic and R. D. Hisrich, "Intrapreneurship: Construct refinement
and cross-cultural validation," Journal of Business Venturing, vol. 16,
no. 5, pp. 495-527, 2001.
[14] K. H. Vesper, New Venture Strategies. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-
Hall, 1990.
[15] G. R. Jones and J. E. Butler, "Managing internal corporate
entrepreneurship: An agency theory perspective," Journal of
Management, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 733-749, 1992.
[16] B. Antoncic and R. D. Hisrich, "Corporate entrepreneurship
contingencies and organizational wealth creation," Journal of
Management Development, vol. 23, no. 6, pp. 518-550, 2004.
[17] B. Antoncic, "Intrapreneurship: A comparative structural equation
modeling study," Industrial Management and Data Systems,vol. 107, no.
3, pp. 309-325, 2007.
[18] B. Antoncic and R. D. Hisrich, "Clarifying the intrapreneurship
concept," Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, vol.
10, no. 1, pp. 7-24, 2003.
[19] S. A. Zahra, "Environment, corporate entrepreneurship, and financial
performance: A taxonomic approach," Journal of Business Venturing,
vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 319-340, 1993.
[20] R. C. Dorf and T. H. Byers, Technology Ventures: From Idea to
Enterprise. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2005.
[21] S. Shane and S. Venkataraman, "Guest editors' introduction to the
special issue on technology entrepreneurship," Research Policy, vol. 32,
no. 2, pp. 181-184, 2003.
[22] M. L. Tushman and P. Anderson, Eds., Managing Strategic Innovation
and Change: A Collection of Readings. Oxford University Press, New
York, NY, 1997.
[23] R. A. Burgelman and R. S. Rosenbloom, "Technology strategy: An
evolutionary process perspective," in Managing Strategic Innovation
and Change: A Collection of Readings, M. L. Tushman and P.
Anderson, Eds. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 273-
286.
[24] J. R. Baum, M. Frese, R. A. Baron and J. A. Katz, "Entrepreneurship as
an area of psychology study: An introduction," in The Psychology of
Entrepreneurship, J. R. Baum, M. Frese, and R. A. Baron, Eds.
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc., 2007, pp. 1-18.
[25] R. H. Brockhaus, "The psychology of the entrepreneur," in
Encyclopedia of Entrepreneurship, C. A. Kent, D. L. Sexton, and K. H.
Vesper, Eds. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982, pp. 39-57.
[26] W. B. Gartner, ""Who is an entrepreneur?" is the wrong question,"
American Journal of Small Business, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 11-32, 1988.
[27] R. A. Baron, "Cognitive mechanisms in entrepreneurship: Why and
when entrepreneurs think differently than other people," Journal of
Business Venturing, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 275-294, 1998.
[28] W. H. Jr. Stewart, W. E. Watson, J. C. Carland, and J. W. Carland, "A
proclivity for entrepreneurship: A comparison of entrepreneurs, small
business owners, and corporate managers," Journal of Business
Venturing, vol. 14, pp. 189-214, 1998.
[29] K. G. Shaver and L. R. Scott, "Person, process, choice: the psychology
of new venture creation," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, vol.
16, no. 2, pp. 23-45, 1991.
[30] T. S. Hatten, Small Business: Entrepreneurship and Beyond. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1997.
[31] G. Singh and A. F. De Noble, "Views on self-employment and
personality: An exploratory study," Journal of Developmental
Entrepreneurship, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 265-281, 2003.
[32] D. McClelland, The Achieving Society. New York, NY: D. Van Nostrand
& Co., 1961.
[33] J. Rotter, "Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control
of reinforcement," Psychological Monographs: General and Applied,
vol. 80, pp. 609, 1966.
[34] A. Rauch and M. Frese, "Born to be an entrepreneur? Revisiting the
personality approach to entrepreneurship," in The Psychology of
Entrepreneurship, J. R. Baum, M. Frese, and R.A. Baron, Eds. Mahwah,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc., 2007, pp. 41-65.
[35] E. Chell, The Entrepreneurial Personality: A Social Construction. New
York, NY: Routledge, 2008.
[36] L. R. Goldberg, "Language and individual differences: The search for
universals in personality lexicons," in Review of Personality and Social
Psychology (Vol. 2), L. Wheeler, Ed. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1981, pp.
141-165.
[37] L. R. Goldberg, "An alternative "description of personality": The big
five factor structure," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol.
59, pp. 1216-1229, 1990.
[38] G. W. Allport and H. S. Odbert, "Trait names: A psycholexical study,"
Psychological Monographs, vol. 47 (whole no. 211), 1936.
[39] R. B. Cattell, "The description of personality: Basic traits resolved into
clusters," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, vol. 38, pp. 476-
506, 1943.
[40] W. T. Norman, 2800 Personality Trait Descriptions: Normative
Operating Characteristics for a University Population. Ann Arbor, MI:
University of Michigan, Department of Psychology, 1967.
[41] P. T. Jr. Costa and R. R. McCrae, The NEO Personality Inventory
Manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources, 1985.
[42] O. P. John, The ""Big Five" factor taxonomy: Dimensions of personality
in the natural language and questionnaires," in Handbook of Personality:
Theory and Research, L. A. Pervin, Ed. New York: Guilford Press,
1990.
[43] B. J. Carducci, The Psychology of Personality: Viewpoints, Research,
and Applications. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company,
1998.
[44] J. A. Schumpeter, The Theory of Economic Development. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1934.
[45] N. C. Churchill, "Research issues in entrepreneurship," in The State of
the Art of Entrepreneurship, D. L. Sexton and J. D. Kasarda, Eds.
Boston, MA: PWS-KENT, 1992, pp. 579-596.
[46] R. D. Hisrich, M. P. Peters and D. A. Shepherd, Entrepreneurship. 6th
Ed. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2005.
[47] W. B. Gartner, B. J. Bird and J. A. Starr, "Acting as if: Differentiating
entrepreneurial from organizational behavior," Entrepreneurship Theory
and Practice, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 13-31, 1992.
[48] P. J. Howard and J. M. Howard, The Big Five Quickstart: An
Introduction to the Five Factor Model of Personality for Human
Resource Professionals. Charlotte, NC: Center for Applied Cognitive
Studies, 1995.
[49] R. M. Ryckman, Theories of Personality. 7th Ed. Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2000.
[50] G. Saucier, "Mini-markers: A brief version of Goldberg-s unipolar bigfive
markers," Journal of Personality Assessment, vol. 63, pp. 506-516,
1994.
[51] L. E. Palich and D. R. Bagby, "Using cognitive theory to explain
entrepreneurial risk-taking: Challenging conventional wisdom," Journal
of Business Venturing, vol. 10, pp. 425-438, 1995.
[52] O. F. Collins and D. G. Moore, The Enterprising Man. East Lansing, MI:
Michigan State University, 1964.
[53] A. N. Licht and J. I. Siegel, "The social dimensions of
entrepreneurship," in The Oxford Handbook of Entrepreneurship, M.
Casson et al., Eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 511-539, 2006.
[54] M. Ruzzier, B. Antoncic, T. Bratkovic, R. D. Hisrich, Podjetnistvo.
Koper, Slovenia: Drustvo za akademske in aplikativne raziskave, 2008.
[1] R. P. Camagni, "The concept of innovative milieu and its relevance for
public policies in European lagging regions," Papers in Regional
Science, vol. 74, no. 4, pp. 317-340, 1995.
[2] M. Storper, "The resurgence of regional economics, ten years later: The
region as a nexus of untraded interdependencies," European Urban and
Regional Studies, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 191-221, 1995.
[3] A. Malmberg, "Industrial geography: location and learning," Progress in
Human Geography, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 573-582, 1997.
[4] J. J. Ritsila, "Regional differences in environments for enterprises,"
Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 187-
202, 1999.
[5] M. Feldman and P. Desrochers, "Research universities and local
economic development: Lessons from the history of the Johns Hopkins
University," Industry & Innovation, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 5-24, 2003.
[6] B. Antoncic, I. Prodan, R. D. Hisrich, and C. Scarlat, "Technological
innovativeness and firm performance in Slovenia and Romania, " Postcommunist
Economies, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 285-302, 2007.
[7] J. Gunther and O. Gebhardt, "Eastern Germany in the process of
catching up," Eastern European Economics, vol. 43, no. 3, pp. 78-102,
2005.
[8] M. Berger and J. R. Diez, "Technological capabilities and innovation in
Southeast Asia: Results from innovation surveys in Singapore, Penang
and Bangkok," Science Technology Society, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 109-148,
2006.
[9] B. Antoncic and I. Prodan, "Alliances, corporate technological
entrepreneurship and firm performance: Testing a model on
manufacturing firms." Technovation, vol. 28, no. 5, pp. 257-265, 2008.
[10] B. Antoncic, T. Bratkovic, G. Singh, and A. F. De Noble, "The big five
personality factors, gender, and entrepreneurship: Evidence from
Slovenia," in 2008 Annual Meeting Proceedings (Academy of
Management), Anaheim, CA, 2008, pp. 80-81.
[11] S. A. Zahra and J. G. Covin, "Contextual influences on the corporate
entrepreneurship-performance relationship: A longitudinal analysis,"
Journal of Business Venturing, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 43-58, 1995.
[12] G. III Pinchot, Intrapreneuring. New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1985.
[13] B. Antoncic and R. D. Hisrich, "Intrapreneurship: Construct refinement
and cross-cultural validation," Journal of Business Venturing, vol. 16,
no. 5, pp. 495-527, 2001.
[14] K. H. Vesper, New Venture Strategies. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-
Hall, 1990.
[15] G. R. Jones and J. E. Butler, "Managing internal corporate
entrepreneurship: An agency theory perspective," Journal of
Management, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 733-749, 1992.
[16] B. Antoncic and R. D. Hisrich, "Corporate entrepreneurship
contingencies and organizational wealth creation," Journal of
Management Development, vol. 23, no. 6, pp. 518-550, 2004.
[17] B. Antoncic, "Intrapreneurship: A comparative structural equation
modeling study," Industrial Management and Data Systems,vol. 107, no.
3, pp. 309-325, 2007.
[18] B. Antoncic and R. D. Hisrich, "Clarifying the intrapreneurship
concept," Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, vol.
10, no. 1, pp. 7-24, 2003.
[19] S. A. Zahra, "Environment, corporate entrepreneurship, and financial
performance: A taxonomic approach," Journal of Business Venturing,
vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 319-340, 1993.
[20] R. C. Dorf and T. H. Byers, Technology Ventures: From Idea to
Enterprise. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2005.
[21] S. Shane and S. Venkataraman, "Guest editors' introduction to the
special issue on technology entrepreneurship," Research Policy, vol. 32,
no. 2, pp. 181-184, 2003.
[22] M. L. Tushman and P. Anderson, Eds., Managing Strategic Innovation
and Change: A Collection of Readings. Oxford University Press, New
York, NY, 1997.
[23] R. A. Burgelman and R. S. Rosenbloom, "Technology strategy: An
evolutionary process perspective," in Managing Strategic Innovation
and Change: A Collection of Readings, M. L. Tushman and P.
Anderson, Eds. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 273-
286.
[24] J. R. Baum, M. Frese, R. A. Baron and J. A. Katz, "Entrepreneurship as
an area of psychology study: An introduction," in The Psychology of
Entrepreneurship, J. R. Baum, M. Frese, and R. A. Baron, Eds.
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc., 2007, pp. 1-18.
[25] R. H. Brockhaus, "The psychology of the entrepreneur," in
Encyclopedia of Entrepreneurship, C. A. Kent, D. L. Sexton, and K. H.
Vesper, Eds. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982, pp. 39-57.
[26] W. B. Gartner, ""Who is an entrepreneur?" is the wrong question,"
American Journal of Small Business, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 11-32, 1988.
[27] R. A. Baron, "Cognitive mechanisms in entrepreneurship: Why and
when entrepreneurs think differently than other people," Journal of
Business Venturing, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 275-294, 1998.
[28] W. H. Jr. Stewart, W. E. Watson, J. C. Carland, and J. W. Carland, "A
proclivity for entrepreneurship: A comparison of entrepreneurs, small
business owners, and corporate managers," Journal of Business
Venturing, vol. 14, pp. 189-214, 1998.
[29] K. G. Shaver and L. R. Scott, "Person, process, choice: the psychology
of new venture creation," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, vol.
16, no. 2, pp. 23-45, 1991.
[30] T. S. Hatten, Small Business: Entrepreneurship and Beyond. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1997.
[31] G. Singh and A. F. De Noble, "Views on self-employment and
personality: An exploratory study," Journal of Developmental
Entrepreneurship, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 265-281, 2003.
[32] D. McClelland, The Achieving Society. New York, NY: D. Van Nostrand
& Co., 1961.
[33] J. Rotter, "Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control
of reinforcement," Psychological Monographs: General and Applied,
vol. 80, pp. 609, 1966.
[34] A. Rauch and M. Frese, "Born to be an entrepreneur? Revisiting the
personality approach to entrepreneurship," in The Psychology of
Entrepreneurship, J. R. Baum, M. Frese, and R.A. Baron, Eds. Mahwah,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc., 2007, pp. 41-65.
[35] E. Chell, The Entrepreneurial Personality: A Social Construction. New
York, NY: Routledge, 2008.
[36] L. R. Goldberg, "Language and individual differences: The search for
universals in personality lexicons," in Review of Personality and Social
Psychology (Vol. 2), L. Wheeler, Ed. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1981, pp.
141-165.
[37] L. R. Goldberg, "An alternative "description of personality": The big
five factor structure," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol.
59, pp. 1216-1229, 1990.
[38] G. W. Allport and H. S. Odbert, "Trait names: A psycholexical study,"
Psychological Monographs, vol. 47 (whole no. 211), 1936.
[39] R. B. Cattell, "The description of personality: Basic traits resolved into
clusters," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, vol. 38, pp. 476-
506, 1943.
[40] W. T. Norman, 2800 Personality Trait Descriptions: Normative
Operating Characteristics for a University Population. Ann Arbor, MI:
University of Michigan, Department of Psychology, 1967.
[41] P. T. Jr. Costa and R. R. McCrae, The NEO Personality Inventory
Manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources, 1985.
[42] O. P. John, The ""Big Five" factor taxonomy: Dimensions of personality
in the natural language and questionnaires," in Handbook of Personality:
Theory and Research, L. A. Pervin, Ed. New York: Guilford Press,
1990.
[43] B. J. Carducci, The Psychology of Personality: Viewpoints, Research,
and Applications. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company,
1998.
[44] J. A. Schumpeter, The Theory of Economic Development. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1934.
[45] N. C. Churchill, "Research issues in entrepreneurship," in The State of
the Art of Entrepreneurship, D. L. Sexton and J. D. Kasarda, Eds.
Boston, MA: PWS-KENT, 1992, pp. 579-596.
[46] R. D. Hisrich, M. P. Peters and D. A. Shepherd, Entrepreneurship. 6th
Ed. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2005.
[47] W. B. Gartner, B. J. Bird and J. A. Starr, "Acting as if: Differentiating
entrepreneurial from organizational behavior," Entrepreneurship Theory
and Practice, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 13-31, 1992.
[48] P. J. Howard and J. M. Howard, The Big Five Quickstart: An
Introduction to the Five Factor Model of Personality for Human
Resource Professionals. Charlotte, NC: Center for Applied Cognitive
Studies, 1995.
[49] R. M. Ryckman, Theories of Personality. 7th Ed. Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2000.
[50] G. Saucier, "Mini-markers: A brief version of Goldberg-s unipolar bigfive
markers," Journal of Personality Assessment, vol. 63, pp. 506-516,
1994.
[51] L. E. Palich and D. R. Bagby, "Using cognitive theory to explain
entrepreneurial risk-taking: Challenging conventional wisdom," Journal
of Business Venturing, vol. 10, pp. 425-438, 1995.
[52] O. F. Collins and D. G. Moore, The Enterprising Man. East Lansing, MI:
Michigan State University, 1964.
[53] A. N. Licht and J. I. Siegel, "The social dimensions of
entrepreneurship," in The Oxford Handbook of Entrepreneurship, M.
Casson et al., Eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 511-539, 2006.
[54] M. Ruzzier, B. Antoncic, T. Bratkovic, R. D. Hisrich, Podjetnistvo.
Koper, Slovenia: Drustvo za akademske in aplikativne raziskave, 2008.
@article{"International Journal of Business, Human and Social Sciences:64119", author = "Bostjan Antoncic", title = "The Entrepreneur's General Personality Traits and Technological Developments", abstract = "Technological newness and innovativeness are
important aspects of small firm development, growth and wealth
creation. The contribution of the study to entrepreneurship
personality research and to technology-related research in
entrepreneurship is that the model of the general personality driven
technological development was developed and empirically tested.
Hypotheses relating the big five personality factors (OCEAN:
openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and
neuroticism) and technological developments were tested by using
multiple regression analysis on survey data from a sample of 160
entrepreneurs from Slovenia. The model reveals two personality
factors, which are predictive of technological developments:
openness (positive impact) and neuroticism (negative impact). In
addition, a positive impact of firm age on technological
developments was found. Other personality factors
(conscientiousness, extraversion and agreeableness) of entrepreneurs
may not be considered important for their firm technological
developments.", keywords = "Big five factors, entrepreneur, personality,
technology development.", volume = "3", number = "5", pages = "559-6", }
