The Importance of Context-Relevance: Entrepreneurial Personality Relates to Entrepreneurial Outcomes Beyond the HEXACO and Dark Triad

Abstract

Entrepreneurial Personality (EP) is a collection of traits that causes someone to be entrepreneurial, including both an attraction to and success in entrepreneurial activities. Although EP and its inclusion criteria is defined by its relevance to entrepreneurship, research has yet to support that it relates to entrepreneurial outcomes more strongly than extant frameworks of personality, causing uncertainty regarding its theoretical rationale and conceptual foundation. Applying the bandwidth-fidelity dilemma as our theoretical lens, the current article reports two studies to test whether EP relates to entrepreneurial outcomes beyond the HEXACO and Dark Triad dimensions. Using a sample of non-business owners, Study 1 supports that EP explains both more variance than and variance beyond the HEXACO and Dark Triad in outcomes associated with the earlier phases of the entrepreneurial process, such as entrepreneurial goal setting, goal striving, and goal achievement. Using a sample of business owners, Study 2 supports that EP explains both more variance than and variance beyond the HEXACO and Dark Triad in outcomes associated with the later phases of the entrepreneurial process, including entrepreneurial performance and well-being. These results encourage future research on EP by supporting the validity of the personality framework, and we suggest several directions for future research, such as broader applications of the bandwidth-fidelity dilemma.

Keywords:

• Entrepreneurship
• personality
• entrepreneurial personality
• HEXACO
• Dark Triad
• bandwidth-fidelity dilemma

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Because the Entrepreneurial Personality Scale was only recently created, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to assess its psychometric properties. As in the original work of Howard (2023), we loaded each set of four items onto their own first-order latent factor, and we then loaded each of the first-order latent factors into a second-order latent factor. The resulting fit indices (SRMR = .06, RMSEA = .06, CFI = .95, IFI = .95, and χ²/df = 2.78) met or closely approached most recommended cutoffs (Brown, 2015; Brown & Moore, 2012; Harrington, 2009). Each item loaded strongly onto its respective first-order latent factor (>.55), and each first-order latent factor loaded strongly onto the second-order latent factor (>.40). Together, these results provide strong support for the psychometric properties of the Entrepreneurial Personality Scale (Howard, 2023).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Matt C. Howard

Matt C. Howard is an associate professor in the Mitchell College of Business at the University of South Alabama. His research interests include statistics and methodology, health and well-being, personality and individual differences, as well as technology-enhanced training and development. He has published lead-author works in the Journal of Psychology, Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Research Methods, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Business Research, Applied Psychology, Information & Management, Human-Computer Interaction, Computers & Education, Virtual Reality, Vaccine, and many other outlets. He serves on the editorial boards of Human Resource Management, Human Resource Management Journal, Journal of Business and Psychology, and Journal of Health Psychology. He was recognized as an Association for Psychological Science Rising Star 2022.