Entrepreneurship as a twenty-first century skill: entrepreneurial alertness and intention in the transition to adulthood

Given the importance of entrepreneurial thinking and acting as a meta-skill in the future world of work, we focus on the emerging entrepreneurial mind-set in the transition to adulthood. We study the role of personality characteristics and age-appropriate entrepreneurial competencies (leadership, self-esteem, creativity, and proactivity motivation) in the prediction of entrepreneurial alertness and career intention. Using two-wave longitudinal data from high schools in Helsinki, Finland (N = 523), we tested a mediation model with competencies as mediators between personality and entrepreneurial alertness and intention. The findings suggest that entrepreneurial alertness and career intention (a) are rather independent career development constructs of the emerging entrepreneurial mind-set, (b) are both an expression of an entrepreneurial personality structure, and (c) are predicted by different underlying competencies: leadership and self-esteem mediated the personality—entrepreneurial intention link, and leadership, creativity, and proactivity motivation the personality—entrepreneurial alertness link. Consistent with the balanced skill approach to entrepreneurship, the intraindividual variety of these competencies was also a valid mediator; it did not show incremental predictive power though. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

The Influence of Personality Traits and Demographic Factors on Social Entrepreneurship Start Up Intentions

The sheer impact of the recent global financial turmoil and scandals (such as Enron and WorldCom) has demonstrated that unbridled commercial entrepreneurs who are allowed to pursue their short-term opportunities regardless of the consequences has led to a massive depreciation of the wealth of nations, social livelihood and environmental degradation. This article suggests that the time has come for entrepreneurs to adopt a more integrative view of business that blends economic, social and environmental values. Social entrepreneurs present such a proposition through their deep commitment towards the social vision, appreciation of sustainable practices, innovativeness, ability to build social networks and also generate viable financial returns. It could be expected that social entrepreneurs often possess certain distinct personality characteristics which define their behaviours/actions. Personality traits are partly developed by innate nurturing, socialization and education. These tacit traits are also formed values/beliefs held and play an important role in driving social entrepreneurial decision making. Thus, personality traits may influence the intentions and the manner in which the individual acts. We hold that if social entrepreneurship is to be effective and impactful, business and management education can facilitate the development of these critical personality traits. Thus, this study primes at determining the personality traits that influence social entrepreneurs’ start-up intentions. It also reinforces the findings that personality traits do influence entrepreneurship in general. This study examines the influence of the Big Five personality traits on social entrepreneurship dimensions. The findings reveal that agreeableness positively influences all dimensions of social entrepreneurship, whereas openness exerts a positive influence on social vision, innovation and financial returns. Methodologically, this study develops valid and reliable scales for social entrepreneurship and verifies the adopted Big Five personality measure of Schmit et al. (Pers Psychol 53:153–193, 2000) using the five-point Likert scale. The implication of this study is that element of appreciation of social responsibility, sustainability and character development needs to be integrated within the business education curriculum to support social entrepreneurs in realizing genuine value and impact to the causes and communities they serve. Future business leaders also need to be equipped with entrepreneurship skills, while exuding independent and reflective thinking in the pursuit life-long learning. The originality of this study lies in its focus on personality traits on social rather than commercial entrepreneurship. It is hoped that the findings will trigger a paradigm shift towards greater social entrepreneurship through education by nurturing sustainable development values in future business graduates.     

The digital entrepreneurial ecosystem

A significant gap exists in the conceptualization of entrepreneurship in the digital age. This paper introduces a conceptual framework for studying entrepreneurship in the digital age by integrating two well-established concepts: the digital ecosystem and the entrepreneurial ecosystem. The integration of these two ecosystems helps us better understand the interactions of agents and users that incorporate insights of consumers’ individual and social behavior. The Digital Entrepreneurial Ecosystem framework consists of four concepts: digital infrastructure governance, digital user citizenship, digital entrepreneurship, and digital marketplace. The paper develops propositions for each of the four concepts and provides a theoretical framework of multisided platforms to better understand the digital entrepreneurial ecosystem. Finally, it outlines a new research agenda to fill the gap in our understanding of entrepreneurship in the digital age.     

A new perspective on entrepreneurial regions: linking cultural identity with latent and manifest entrepreneurship

What are the entrepreneurial places in the USA? Although seminal theorizing on the determinants of entrepreneurship gives culture a unique and important role, systematic empirical evidence linking the distinct cultural identity of regions to their local entrepreneurial spirit and vitality is still scarce. This study offers a first, systematic overview on the nexus between regional cultural identity and latent and manifest entrepreneurship across the USA. To directly assess regional cultural identity, we apply the American Nations and Patchwork Community Types approaches and explore in which way these distinct spatially based cultural regions are reflected by significant differences in entrepreneurial activity and underlying biologically based propensities. We combine annual entrepreneurship rates at the county level with personality data collected in a large-scale, Internet-based study of 3,457,270 US residents. The findings suggest that entrepreneurship culture reflects the dynamic interplay between the region’s cultural identity and its latent and manifest entrepreneurship.     

A structural model of the effects of entrepreneurial characteristics on venture performance

Venture capitalists, “angel” investors, and experienced, successful entrepreneurs, when asked to identify the most important determinant of new venture performance, will undoubtedly answer “the entrepreneur.” Likewise, prominent academic scholars responsible for the accelerating development of entrepreneurship theory and research would almost always agree. Unfortunately, empirical and theoretical understanding of the influence of the entrepreneur on new venture performance (NVP) has long been stymied. Studies of entrepreneurial characteristics have failed to demonstrate convincing links with entrepreneurial states of being or with NVP, though studies of the former have shown more promise than have those of the latter. In an attempt to explain the failure to link entrepreneurial characteristics with performance and thus to stimulate and modify research agendas, this paper derives a structural, causal model of the relationships between entrepreneurial characteristics and performance. This derivation draws upon current psychological, management, economic, and entrepreneurship theory.Though there is considerable controversy in the field of psychology concerning the ability of personality traits to explain behavior, it is accepted by many that such traits do exist, that they are stable over time, and that they explain behaviors if the level of aggregation is wide enough. In 1988, Hollenbeck and Whitener noted that one of the problems in using personality traits to explain job performance was that such traits are mediated by motivation and moderated by abilities in their causal connection to performance. Thus personality traits are somewhat removed from performance in the causal chain of events. Applied to the study of the entrepreneur, this research suggests that an initial model of the “entrepreneurial characteristics → NVP” relationship must include the mediating role of motivation and the moderating role of entrepreneurial management abilities.This paper further redefines this emerging model of “entrepreneurial characteristics → NVP” by drawing upon other literature from the field of psychology. This literature suggests that “entrepreneurial behavior” and the context in which it is performed both intervene between motivation and ability in their relation to NVP. The paper concludes this section with a psychology-based model of the “characteristics → NVP” relationship that is more comprehensive and realistic than prior models in the entrepreneurship literature.The paper next draws from strategic management, entrepreneurship, and economics literature along with Sandberg's (1986) model of NVP [NVP = f(E,IS,S)] to show that any model of the connection between entrepreneurial characteristics and NVP must further recognize the relationship between strategy and NVP as well as industry structure and NVP. The resultant model suggests strategy and industry structure are “context” variables that interdependently interact with entrepreneurial behaviors to influence NVP. This adaptation of the model is reinforced and expanded by reviewing the management literature on matching managers to situations which in turn implies that the effects of entrepreneurial behaviors on NVP are contingent upon strategy and industry structure. Thus strategy and industry structure, though ultimately determined by entrepreneurial behavior, are themselves important inputs to the behavioral context of entrepreneurship.The last part of the paper examines decision-making, skills, aptitudes, and training as components helping to refine our understanding of the role of motivation as a mediator and ability as a moderator in a model of the “entrepreneurial characteristics → NVP” relationship. The intent here is to identify specific variables that can be studied or acted upon [in an applied sense] to improve the NVP impact of entrepreneurial behaviors.It is hoped that explication of this model will encourage future entrepreneurship research that seeks to examine causes of NVP to reintroduce “the entrepreneur” as the focus or a focus of the research. Hopefully a more fully developed model that includes motivations, abilities, skills, aptitudes, and training as elements in “modeling” entrepreneurial behavior along with the need for strategy and industry structure contexts provides a more compelling and risk-worthy starting point for such research. This should provide an impetus to put the entrepreneur back. into a central position in entrepreneurship research, where both theory and practitioners say he/she belongs.     

Indications of virtues in conscientiousness and its practice through continuous improvement

There is convergence among researchers of the ‘Big Five’ personality traits taxonomy, that the dimension of conscientiousness best explains differences in work performance. This research is a literature review on the interrelationship between certain traits of the conscientiousness dimension and human virtues, or character traits. It also analyzes whether or not it is rational to argue that the continuous improvement culture enhances the exercise of these character traits. The personal effort to develop one's conscientiousness enriches one's character or way of being, and this development is a consequence of character moulding through an intellectual and willful effort enabling one not only to develop personal habits but also to improve task performance. Continuous improvement culture, on the one hand, should provide a work environment where employees can practice virtues, including those contained in conscientiousness. On the other hand, the requirement is that continuous improvement culture should be developed in an environment that respects the freedom and purpose of the individual.     

Measurement Characteristics of Aaker's Brand Personality Dimensions: Lessons to be Learned from Human Personality Research

By referring to research on the measurement of the Big Five personality factors, this article investigates measurement characteristics of brand personality (BP) dimensions. The authors apply a meta‐analysis and investigate the intercorrelations and reliabilities of the BP dimensions of Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Sophistication, and Ruggedness, as suggested by Aaker (1997). Similar to the Big Five personality factors, the measurement of BP reveals interdependence of the dimensions and one General Personality Factor. Furthermore, the reliabilities reveal instability across method characteristics, for instance, the use of facets as opposed to traits in measuring BP drives up the reliabilities of those dimensions with a larger number of items (e.g., Sincerity). Finally, as with the Big Five, the BP dimensions show differential effects on performance measures (as assessed by brand attitude) and thus support the predictive power of the single dimensions. The findings provide insights into the dimensional structure of BP and its stability, and support the transferability of the Big Five personality factors to nonhuman domains. Importantly, the article outlines relevant avenues for future research on BP measurement.     

A Personality‐Competence Model of Opinion Leadership

Opinion leaders constitute a central consumer segment for targeted marketing strategies. By separating opinion leadership into a generalized and domain‐specific component, this study examines the psychological profile of N = 417 consumers from Germany and incorporates opinion leadership into a hierarchical framework of human personality. Results emphasize two major sources of domain‐specific opinion leadership (DSOL): personality in the form of a general, domain‐independent influencer trait and competencies in terms of product‐specific knowledge. Moreover, the study highlights a number of traits including the Big Five of personality, typical intellectual engagement, and general self‐efficacy that form a distinct personality profile of DSOL. The effects of these personality traits on DSOL are partially mediated by generalized opinion leadership and objective knowledge.     

Governance and strategy of entrepreneurial networks: an introduction

This special issue focuses on empirical and theoretical papers that help us to better understand the strategy and governance of entrepreneurial networks, such as franchise chains, alliances, and cooperative networks. The following central themes are covered: (I) Which formal governance mechanisms do entrepreneurial networks use in order to reduce transaction cost/agency cost and to increase strategic value? (II) What is the role of relational governance mechanisms (such as information exchange and social ties) for the performance outcomes in franchise chains and cooperatives? (III) Which alliance strategies do entrepreneurial firms pursue to realize a competitive advantage, and what is the impact of resources and capabilities on performance outcomes of entrepreneurial firms. To address these issues, insights from organizational economics (transaction cost theory, agency theory, signaling theory), strategic management perspectives (resource-based, knowledge-based and organizational capabilities theory), entrepreneurship theory and the relational governance view are used.     

Responsible Personal Finance: The Role of Conscientiousness in Bank and Pension Savings in Chile

We investigate the role of trait conscientiousness, from the Big Five personality traits, in explaining individual saving behavior. Conscientiousness is a disposition to be responsible and pursue non‐immediate goals; thus, we expect this trait to positively predict saving behavior. Using a nationally representative survey from Chile, we find the expected effect of conscientiousness on pension and bank savings.     

Personality and balanced psychological contracts: The mediating roles of epistemic curiosity and rule‐following behavior

This study extends prior research on the relationships between personality constructs and types of psychological contracts by exploring how the Big Five traits predict balanced psychological contracts. Further, we determine whether epistemic curiosity and rule‐following behavior are key mediators of the proposed relationships. We tested our proposed hypotheses using three‐wave time‐lagged data from 469 respondents. The results indicated that openness to experience was positively associated and both conscientiousness and neuroticism were negatively associated with balanced contracts. Extraversion and agreeableness were not associated with balanced contracts. We also established the mediating role of epistemic curiosity in the relationships between personality traits and balanced contracts, but there was no support for the mediating role of rule‐following behavior in the present study. These findings have important implications for managers and organizations in terms of selecting the right person for a job (person‐job fit) and ensuring employee retention (person‐organization fit), hence having a bottom‐line effect on firm performance. Future research directions are also discussed.     

Business accomplishments,gender and entrepreneurial self-image

Drawing on Bem's psychological theory of self-perception, this paper presents and tests a model that examines the impact of business accomplishments and gender on entrepreneurial self-image and explores the definition of entrepreneurship according to Vesper's entrepreneurial typology. Regression techniques are used to identify those business accomplishments that university alumni associate with self-perceptions of entrepreneurship. Experience as a small business person (founding, running, and/or owning a small business) most clearly predicts entrepreneurial self-image. Results also support predictions of both direct and indirect effects of gender as well as direct effects of education and business degree. Results of a separate expert panel study are used to rank business accomplishments according to degree of entrepreneurship. Results of both studies reveal stark contrasts in the implied definition of entrepreneurship between entrepreneurship experts (academic and practitioner alike) and the general business community (as represented by the alumni). This raises questions about the meaning of the term “entrepreneurship”, what the word “entrepreneur”, in particular, conveys to the general public, and the implications for practice and future research.     

Using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis for a finer-grained understanding of entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship theory has largely been developed and tested using symmetrical correlational methods, effectively describing the sample-average respondent and subsuming individual differences. Such methods necessarily limit investigation of asymmetries that are evident in entrepreneurship, and provide only a single explanation that belies the multiple pathways to entrepreneurship observed in practice. This paper employs a case-based approach—fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA)—to identify configurations of antecedent attributes of individuals in groups within samples, thereby revealing asymmetries and multiple entrepreneurial pathways that are otherwise hidden in the data. We explain the application of fsQCA to reveal these common issues in entrepreneurship; demonstrate how fsQCA complements correlational methods and offers finer-grained understanding of individual entrepreneurial behavior; and offer a comprehensive research agenda to build new entrepreneurship theory.     

Influence of professional drivers’ personality traits on road traffic safety: case study

The purpose of this paper is to present basic elements of the research directed at identifying and determining the personality traits of professional drivers that affect safe, secure and enjoyable ride on public roads. A quantitative method has been used here, whereas data were acquired from a questionnaire based on a sample of 59 professional drivers. Determining personality traits of professional drivers that are in correlation with a safe and pleasant ride on the roads has been enabled by applying the five-factor model of personality (‘Big Five’) and the Personality Inventory NEO-PI. From these results it was concluded that safe operation of the vehicle in traffic involves the successful ‘conduct’ of oneself, which recognises the importance of certain personality traits of professional drivers for traffic safety and the need for appropriate professional selection in the case of employment of professional drivers. Research results implicate development of educational programmes aimed at achieving harmony of psychological, physical and sensory health, that is, programmes for permanent informing, educating and training professional drivers for defensive driving. The research opens the way for new research tasks that should help in creating a specific structure of curricula that can be used in a variety of transportation companies and enterprises to improve general and public safety.     

The campus as entrepreneurial ecosystem: the University of Chicago

This paper employs Frederick Jackson Turner’s Frontier Thesis of American democracy to construct a framework for understanding the U.S. university campus as an entrepreneurial ecosystem. One question that immediately comes to mind when studying ecosystem performance is what the proper unit of analysis is: the country, the state, the city, the region, or something smaller, like an incubator or accelerator? This paper suggests that the open, innovative American frontier that closed at the end of the twentieth century has reemerged in the entrepreneurial economy on the U.S. campus. The contemporary campus entrepreneurial ecosystem offers the characteristics of Turner’s frontier: available assets, liberty, and diversity while creating opportunity, and fostering entrepreneurship and innovation. A case study of the University of Chicago explores governance of the campus as an entrepreneurial ecosystem and the output produced by that campus ecosystem.     

Designing a global standardized methodology for measuring social entrepreneurship activity: the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor social entrepreneurship study

Although there is a high level of practitioner, policymaker, and scholar interest in social entrepreneurship, most research is based on case studies and success stories of successful social entrepreneurs in a single country. We develop a methodology to measure population-based social entrepreneurship activity (SEA) prevalence rates and test it in 49 countries. Our results provide insights into institutional and individual drivers of SEA. Using the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) methodology of Total Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA), we find that countries with higher rates of traditional entrepreneurial activity also tend to have higher rates of social entrepreneurial activity. We develop a broad definition of social entrepreneurship and then explore types based on social mission, revenue model, and innovativeness.     

The Big Five,happiness, and shopping

This study assessed the relationships between the Big Five dimensions of personality and individual happiness with three indicators of shopping and spending for non-grocery items using a sample of 660 U.S. adults. The data from an online survey showed that all five of the Big Five traits correlated positively with self-reported happiness, even controlling for the effects of age and gender. Regression analysis showed, however, that the positive relationships between happiness and Agreeableness and Openness to Experience were no longer significant, indicating that they are real, but redundant to the other traits. The correlations also showed that happiness, Openness to Experience, and Extraversion correlated positively with the three shopping indicators. Finally, happiness appears to have a direct effect with shopping and mediates the influence of Emotional Stability, Agreeableness, and Extraversion on happiness.     

CEO personality and language use in CSR reporting

We explore the relationship between chief executive officer (CEO) personality traits and corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting. Upper echelons theory indicates that the values, experiences, and personalities of top organizational managers influence their organization's strategic decisions and effectiveness. We utilize IBM Watson Personality Insights software to infer CEOs’ personality traits based on their responses to questions raised by analysts during year-end conference calls; we obtain CEOs’ Big Five personality traits—openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism—from which we compute a measure of their risk tolerance. Using a longitudinal dataset of Standard and Poor's 500 firms for 2008–2015, we document that high CEO risk tolerance is related to lower CSR report readability and smaller CSR disclosure volume. This finding indicates that executives who are comfortable with greater risk are more willing to supply stakeholders with reports that are shorter and require greater effort to understand. Exploration of the association between CEO Big Five personality traits and CSR report readability and disclosure volume allows key stakeholders to better comprehend CSR disclosures and connotations thereof. Overall, our results contribute to the debate on how CEO personality traits affect organizations’ CSR disclosure reporting strategies, and support upper echelons theory in the CSR setting.     

International entrepreneurship in universities: Context,emergence and actors

This special issue presents an opportunity to explore the international aspects of academic and university based international entrepreneurship. Over the last decades much research attention has been focused on university spin-off firms (USOs) on issues such as, creation, risk, strategies and performance (see Druilhe and Garnsey, 2004; Link and Scott, 2005; Lockett and Wright, 2005; Walter et al, 2006; Wright et al., 2006). There has been a dearth of studies that have examined the international dimensions and aspects of university-based spin-off firms. The six articles presented in this special issue point towards interesting future research agendas at the interface between academic and international entrepreneurship. Three core themes emerge from this special issue: Context, Emergence and Actors. In sum, this special issue pinpoints: firstly, specific features of universities and research organizations as contexts for international technology entrepreneurship; secondly, the process of organizational emergence and entrepreneurial cognition; and thirdly, insight into learning processes of USOs and the role of non-academic actors. Our article concludes by identifying future avenues of research.