IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/sbusec/v61y2023i1d10.1007_s11187-022-00686-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Resilient entrepreneurs? — revisiting the relationship between the Big Five and self-employment

Author

Listed:
  • Petrik Runst

    (Institute for Small Business Economics at the Georg-August-University Göttingen)

  • Jörg Thomä

    (Institute for Small Business Economics at the Georg-August-University Göttingen)

Abstract

The Big Five personality traits and their influence on entrepreneurial action have been repeatedly studied using a trait-based approach. The present paper partly deviates from this perspective by analysing the role of personality prototypes in relation to entrepreneurship. This person-centred approach suggests that combinations of Big Five traits form individual personalities. By using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we show that at least three prototypes can be identified, one of which — the resilient type — can be hypothesized to significantly increase the likelihood of entrepreneurial action. Our regression results provide evidence of a positive impact of this prototype on the likelihood of and transitioning into self-employment but not the likelihood of exit. We also show that the prototyping approach explains individual self-employment decisions over and above what can already be explained by the profiling approach, another person-centred Big Five approach. The paper concludes with implications for policy and research.

Suggested Citation

  • Petrik Runst & Jörg Thomä, 2023. "Resilient entrepreneurs? — revisiting the relationship between the Big Five and self-employment," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 61(1), pages 417-443, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:sbusec:v:61:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1007_s11187-022-00686-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s11187-022-00686-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11187-022-00686-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11187-022-00686-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Caliendo, Marco & Fossen, Frank M. & Kritikos, Alexander S., 2022. "Personality characteristics and the decision to hire," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 31(3), pages 736-761.
    2. Marco Caliendo & Frank Fossen & Alexander Kritikos, 2014. "Personality characteristics and the decisions to become and stay self-employed," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 42(4), pages 787-814, April.
    3. Martin Obschonka & Eva Schmitt-Rodermund & Rainer K. Silbereisen & Samuel D. Gosling & Jeff Potter, 2013. "The Regional Distribution and Correlates of an Entrepreneurship-Prone Personality Profile in the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom: A Socioecological Perspective," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 550, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    4. Maksim Belitski & Christina Guenther & Alexander S. Kritikos & Roy Thurik, 2022. "Economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on entrepreneurship and small businesses," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 593-609, February.
    5. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    6. Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. & Schurer, Stefanie, 2012. "The stability of big-five personality traits," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 11-15.
    7. Martin Gerlach & Beatrice Farb & William Revelle & Luís A. Nunes Amaral, 2018. "A robust data-driven approach identifies four personality types across four large data sets," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 2(10), pages 735-742, October.
    8. Nava Ashraf & Dean Karlan & Wesley Yin, 2006. "Tying Odysseus to the Mast: Evidence From a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(2), pages 635-672.
    9. Herbert Brücker & Nina Rother & Jürgen Schupp (Hrsg.), 2016. "IAB-BAMF-SOEP-Befragung von Geflüchteten: Überblick und erste Ergebnisse," DIW Berlin: Politikberatung kompakt, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, volume 116, number pbk116, Enero-Abr.
    10. Martin Obschonka & Michael Stuetzer, 2017. "Integrating psychological approaches to entrepreneurship: the Entrepreneurial Personality System (EPS)," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 203-231, June.
    11. Caliendo, Marco & Fossen, Frank & Kritikos, Alexander, 2010. "The impact of risk attitudes on entrepreneurial survival," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 45-63, October.
    12. Lang, Frieder R. & John, Dennis & Lüdtke, Oliver & Schupp, Jürgen & Wagner, Gert G., 2011. "Short Assessment of the Big Five: Robust Across Survey Methods Except Telephone Interviewing," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 43(2), pages 548-567.
    13. Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. & Schurer, Stefanie, 2012. "The stability of big-five personality traits," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 11-15.
    14. Jule Specht & Maike Luhmann & Christian Geiser, 2014. "On the Consistency of Personality Types Across Adulthood: Latent Profile Analysis in Two Large-Scale Panel Studies," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 687, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    15. Ingrid C. Chadwick & Jana L. Raver, 2020. "Psychological Resilience and Its Downstream Effects for Business Survival in Nascent Entrepreneurship," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 44(2), pages 233-255, March.
    16. Giesselmann, Marco & Bohmann, Sandra & Goebel, Jan & Krause, Peter & Liebau, Elisabeth & Richter, David & Schacht, Diana & Schröder, Carsten & Schupp, Jürgen & Liebig, Stefan, 2019. "The Individual in Context(s): Research Potentials of the Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) in Sociology," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 35(5), pages 738-755.
    17. Schröder, Carsten & König, Johannes & Fedorets, Alexandra & Goebel, Jan & Grabka, Markus M. & Lüthen, Holger & Metzing, Maria & Schikora, Felicitas & Liebig, Stefan, 2020. "The economic research potentials of the German Socio-Economic Panel study," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 21(3), pages 335-371.
    18. Konon, Alexander & Kritikos, Alexander S., 2019. "Prediction based on entrepreneurship-prone personality profiles: sometimes worse than the toss of a coin," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 53(1), pages 1-20.
    19. Ciavarella, Mark A. & Buchholtz, Ann K. & Riordan, Christine M. & Gatewood, Robert D. & Stokes, Garnett S., 2004. "The Big Five and venture survival: Is there a linkage?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 465-483, July.
    20. André Kerber & Marcus Roth & Philipp Yorck Herzberg, 2021. "Personality types revisited–a literature-informed and data-driven approach to an integration of prototypical and dimensional constructs of personality description," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(1), pages 1-27, January.
    21. Elias Hadjielias & Michael Christofi & Shlomo Tarba, 2022. "Contextualizing small business resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from small business owner-managers," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 59(4), pages 1351-1380, December.
    22. Jule Specht & Boris Egloff & Stefan C. Schmukle, 2011. "Stability and Change of Personality across the Life Course: The Impact of Age and Major Life Events on Mean-Level and Rank-Order Stability of the Big Five," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 377, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Runst, Petrik & Thomä, Jörg, 2022. "Resilient entrepreneurs? Revisiting the relationship between the Big Five and self-employment," ifh Working Papers 34/2022, Volkswirtschaftliches Institut für Mittelstand und Handwerk an der Universität Göttingen (ifh).
    2. Marco Caliendo & Frank M Fossen & Alexander S Kritikos, 2022. "Personality characteristics and the decision to hire [Do the unemployed become successful entrepreneurs?]," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 31(3), pages 736-761.
    3. Petrik Runst & Jörg Thomä, 2022. "Does personality matter? Small business owners and modes of innovation," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(4), pages 2235-2260, April.
    4. Marco Caliendo & Alexander S. Kritikos & Daniel Rodríguez & Claudia Stier, 2023. "Self-efficacy and entrepreneurial performance of start-ups," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 61(3), pages 1027-1051, October.
    5. Buehler, Dorothee & Sharma, Rasadhika & Stein, Wiebke, 2019. "Personality traits in Southeast Asia - Evidence from rural Thailand and Vietnam," TVSEP Working Papers wp-014, Leibniz Universitaet Hannover, Institute of Development and Agricultural Economics, Project TVSEP.
    6. Caliendo, Marco & Künn, Steffen & Weißenberger, Martin, 2016. "Personality traits and the evaluation of start-up subsidies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 87-108.
    7. Alexander Konon & Alexander Kritikos, 2018. "Prediction Based on Entrepreneurship-Prone Personality Profiles: Sometimes Worse Than the Toss of a Coin," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1012, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    8. Deborah Cobb-Clark, 2015. "Locus of control and the labor market," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-19, December.
    9. Alexander Konon & Alexander S. Kritikos, 2019. "Prediction based on entrepreneurship-prone personality profiles: sometimes worse than the toss of a coin," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 1-20, June.
    10. Block, Joern & Kritikos, Alexander S. & Priem, Maximilian & Stiel, Caroline, 2022. "Emergency-aid for self-employed in the Covid-19 pandemic: A flash in the pan?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    11. Marius Leckelt & Johannes König & David Richter & Mitja D. Back & Carsten Schröder, 2022. "The personality traits of self-made and inherited millionaires," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-12, December.
    12. Cabane, Charlotte & Hille, Adrian & Lechner, Michael, 2015. "Mozart or Pelé? The effects of teenagers’ participation in music and sports," Economics Working Paper Series 1509, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    13. Marco Caliendo & Frank M. Fossen & Alexander Kritikos & Miriam Wetter, 2015. "The Gender Gap in Entrepreneurship: Not just a Matter of Personality," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo, vol. 61(1), pages 202-238.
    14. Michael Kremer & Jonathan Robinson & Olga Rostapshova, 2014. "Success in Entrepreneurship: Doing the Math," NBER Chapters, in: African Successes, Volume II: Human Capital, pages 281-303, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Hille, Adrian & Schupp, Jürgen, 2015. "How Learning a Musical Instrument Affects the Development of Skills," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 44, pages 56-82.
    16. Michael Fritsch & Michael Wyrwich & Martin Obschonka, 2018. "Historical Roots of Entrepreneurial Culture and Innovation Activity - An Analysis for German Regions," Jena Economics Research Papers 2018-007, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    17. Fossen, Frank M. & Büttner, Tobias J.M., 2013. "The returns to education for opportunity entrepreneurs, necessity entrepreneurs, and paid employees," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 66-84.
    18. Elena-Loreni Baciu & Delia Vîrgă & Theofild-Andrei Lazăr, 2020. "What Characteristics Help Entrepreneurs ‘Make It’ Early on in Their Entrepreneurial Careers? Findings of a Regional Study from Romania," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-27, June.
    19. Marco Caliendo & Frank Fossen & Alexander Kritikos, 2014. "Personality characteristics and the decisions to become and stay self-employed," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 42(4), pages 787-814, April.
    20. Cabane, Charlotte & Hille, Adrian & Lechner, Michael, 2016. "Mozart or Pelé? The effects of adolescents' participation in music and sports," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 90-103.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Entrepreneurship; Self-employment; Big Five; Personality; Prototypes; Profiles;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • M13 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - New Firms; Startups

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:sbusec:v:61:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1007_s11187-022-00686-7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.