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Abstract
We examine how small and medium‐sized enterprise (SME) chief executive officers' (CEOs) social capital (as measured by strength of ties and structural holes) can help them bring business to their firms through the spread of positive referrals. Based on a sample of 408 French SME CEOs, we find a direct effect of social capital. Such effect is contingent on the CEO's personality, with social capital being most beneficial to CEOs with low levels of conscientiousness. CEOs' social ties facilitate the distortion of information, thereby leading personal contacts to give referrals to and endorse a focal CEO, even in the presence of negative signals, such as low conscientiousness.
* We would like to thank Roy Thurik and M. B. Sarkar as well as three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.
* We would like to thank Roy Thurik and M. B. Sarkar as well as three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.
Notes
* We would like to thank Roy Thurik and M. B. Sarkar as well as three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.
1 We did not select emotional stability, the fifth dimension of the big five, as previous research on how others make judgments based on personality traits has shown that emotional stability is the least observable trait. This is because emotional stability does not produce clear behavioral manifestations that can be observed in social interactions (Funder and Sneed Citation1993; Vazire Citation2010). Consequently, there is no theoretical foundation for assuming that this trait will be translated into favorable information diffusion.
2 Some authors focus on personality as an antecedent of social capital rather than as a moderator (Kalish and Robbins Citation2006; Kim and Kim Citation2007; Klein et al. Citation2004; Mehra, Kilduff, and Brass Citation2001; Oh and Kilduff Citation2008; Sasovova et al. Citation2010). Positioning personality as a moderator or an antecedent seems to depend on the exact trait being considered. Self‐monitoring (“the extent to which individuals are willing and able to monitor and control their self‐expressions in social situations,” Mehra, Kilduff, and Brass Citation2001, p. 124) was found to be an antecedent in five of the six previously cited studies, but other traits have received very limited attention as antecedents.
3 We used the European Union's definition of an SME as a firm with fewer than 250 employees.
4 See Appendices for the principal components analysis of business referrals.
5 NES codes are a standard classification used by the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies.
6 In line with Jaccard and Turrisi (Citation2003), we mean centered network and personality variables before processing the data, in order to avoid multicollinearity problems.
7 Correlations between network variables and personality traits are extremely weak (−11.2 percent for the strongest correlation). These results provide additional evidence that personality traits should not be considered as antecedents. This is line with recent works (Anderson Citation2008; Baer Citation2010; Zhou et al. Citation2009).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Barthélemy Chollet
Barthélemy Chollet is assistant professor at Grenoble Ecole de Management.
Mickael Géraudel
Mickael Géraudel is assistant professor at Groupe Sup de Co Montpellier Business School.
Caroline Mothe
Caroline Mothe is full professor at University of Savoy.