Personal Characteristics, Business Relationships and Entrepreneurial Performance: Some Empirical Evidence

The purpose of this paper is to examine the main factors that may influence economic success of new ventures. Particular emphasis will be given to personal attributes and business relationships (social and institutional). The present study relies on a survey questionnaire which was applied to a non-probabilistic sample of firms which were set up in the last 4-5 years. Results have shown that, concerning public and institutional business relationships, three main factors evidenced a difference of means along different categories of entrepreneurial performance. These are: the support from central government, the support from sector associations and support from a financial institution. With regard to social and business networks, particular emphasis goes to entrepreneur's family support. Concerning previous working experiences, the entrepreneur's previous knowledge about potential customers and entrepreneur's previous experience assumed particular relevance along different categories of entrepreneurial performance. Finally, with regard to entrepreneur's personal characteristics particular emphasis goes to entrepreneur's personal qualities, such as, his/her way of being, thinking and acting; entrepreneur's intuition that he/she is in the presence of an innovative and unique business and entrepreneur's need for self -achievement.