EQ-nomics: Understanding the relationship between individual differences in Trait Emotional Intelligence and entrepreneurship

Past studies highlight the importance of Trait Emotional Intelligence (EI) in the prediction of career success. Given the evidence that trait EI predicts job performance and job satisfaction, it is reasonable to expect this construct to also predict other forms of career success. In this study, we examine whether EI predicts entrepreneurship; that is, whether higher trait EI is linked to entrepreneurial behaviours and entrepreneurial success, and whether any effects of trait EI on entrepreneurship are independent of the personality trait of Core Self-Evaluations, demographic variables, and individual differences in entrepreneurial personality. Results show that trait EI predicts only some entrepreneurial outcomes beyond other variables examined, and with small effect sizes. This suggests that individual differences in entrepreneurship result only in part from inter-personal differences in trait EI. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Pathways to successful entrepreneurship: Parenting, personality, early entrepreneurial competence, and interests

Personality traits and parenting may relate to entrepreneurial competence (EC) and entrepreneurial interests (EI), which both are central elements of Holland's E-type. Three hundred and twenty 10th grade students and 139 small business founders from East Germany were studied using structural equation modeling. Results showed that an entrepreneurial personality (low agreeableness and neuroticism, high extraversion, openness, and conscientiousness), and authoritative parenting were linked to adolescent EC in both samples. EC predicted stronger EI, which in turn related to entrepreneurial career prospects in the students, and to an earlier timing of the first business start-up in the founders. Concerning entrepreneurial success, an early start-up and an entrepreneurial personality of the founder were both found to be beneficial. The discussion concentrates on two implications of the findings: bank professionals dealing with venture capital loans would profit from a more thorough assessment of personality traits and programs to foster entrepreneurship should address adolescents in addition to adults.     

Change driven by nature: A meta-analytic review of the proactive personality literature

This study provides the first comprehensive review of literature examining proactive personality. The authors use career success as a broad organizing framework, meta-analyzing 313 correlations from 107 studies. Results indicate proactive personality is positively related to objective and subjective career success. Further, results indicate proactive personality relates to variables consistent with contest mobility (e.g., job performance) and sponsored mobility (e.g., taking charge/voice behavior) avenues to career success. Proactive personality’s relationship with supervisor-rated overall job performance is particularly noteworthy in that it is stronger than that reported for any of the Big Five factors or the Big Five collectively. Proactive personality is positively related to a variety of employability-related variables (e.g., learning goal orientation, career self-efficacy), four Big Five trait factors (extraversion, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and neuroticism), but is unrelated to social desirability. The authors’ literature review indicates only the original 17-item scale and 10-item scale tend to exhibit good internal consistency.     

Change driven by nature: A meta-analytic review of the proactive personality literature

This study provides the first comprehensive review of literature examining proactive personality. The authors use career success as a broad organizing framework, meta-analyzing 313 correlations from 107 studies. Results indicate proactive personality is positively related to objective and subjective career success. Further, results indicate proactive personality relates to variables consistent with contest mobility (e.g., job performance) and sponsored mobility (e.g., taking charge/voice behavior) avenues to career success. Proactive personality’s relationship with supervisor-rated overall job performance is particularly noteworthy in that it is stronger than that reported for any of the Big Five factors or the Big Five collectively. Proactive personality is positively related to a variety of employability-related variables (e.g., learning goal orientation, career self-efficacy), four Big Five trait factors (extraversion, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and neuroticism), but is unrelated to social desirability. The authors’ literature review indicates only the original 17-item scale and 10-item scale tend to exhibit good internal consistency.     

Person–city personality fit and entrepreneurial success: An explorative study in China

While the study of personality differences is a traditional psychological approach in entrepreneurship research, economic research directs attention towards the entrepreneurial ecosystems in which entrepreneurial activity are embedded. We combine both approaches and quantify the interplay between the individual personality make‐up of entrepreneurs and the local personality composition of ecosystems, with a special focus on person–city personality fit. Specifically, we analyse personality data from N = 26,405 Chinese residents across 42 major Chinese cities, including N = 1091 Chinese entrepreneurs. Multi‐level polynomial regression and response surface plots revealed that: (a) individual‐level conscientiousness had a positive effect and individual‐level agreeableness and neuroticism had a negative effect on entrepreneurial success, (b) city‐level conscientiousness had a positive, and city‐level neuroticism had a negative effect on entrepreneurial success, and (c) additional person–city personality fit effects existed for agreeableness, conscientiousness and neuroticism. For example, entrepreneurs who are high in agreeableness and conduct their business in a city with a low agreeableness level show the lowest entrepreneurial success. In contrast, entrepreneurs who are low in agreeableness and conduct their business in a city with a high agreeableness level show relatively high entrepreneurial success. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Testing the relationship between personality characteristics,contextual factors and entrepreneurial intentions in a developing country

Drawing upon the theory of planned behaviour (TPB ), we developed and tested a conceptual model which integrates both internal personality factors and external contextual factors to determine their associations with motivational factors and entrepreneurial intentions (EIs ). We then investigated if the model of EI applies in a developing country, namely Iran. We also set out to identify the most relevant factors for EI within this developing country context. Do distal predictors of EI including personality factors (i.e. need for achievement, risk taking and locus of control) and contextual factors (i.e. perceived barriers and support) significantly relate to EI via proximal predictors including motivational factors (i.e. attitudes towards entrepreneurship and perceived behavioural control [PBC])? Data were collected on 331 students from 7 public universities. The findings support the TPB for EI in Iran. All three motivational factors related to EI , but PBC showed the strongest association, which is different than in developed country contexts. Possible explanations for these differences are discussed. All three personality characteristics indirectly related to EI via the proximal attitudes towards entrepreneurship and PBC . Perceived contextual support and barriers indirectly related to EI via proximal PBC while perceived barriers also directly related to EI .     

Nascent entrepreneurship and the developing individual: Early entrepreneurial competence in adolescence and venture creation success during the career

What predicts a person's venture creation success over the course of the career, such as making progress in the venture creation process and multiple successful venture creations? Applying a life span approach of human development, this study examined the effect of early entrepreneurial competence in adolescence, which was gathered retrospectively by means of the Life History Calendar method. Human and social capitals during the founding process were investigated as mediators between adolescent competence and performance. Findings were derived from regression analyses on the basis of prospective and retrospective data from two independent samples (N = 88 nascent founders; N = 148 founders). We found that early entrepreneurial competence in adolescence had a positive effect on making progress in the venture creation process. Nascent founders' current human and social capital also had a direct effect, but it did not mediate the effect of early competences. Finally, the data revealed that early entrepreneurial competence in adolescence positively predicted habitual entrepreneurship (multiple successful venture creations) exhibited over a longer period of the individual career (specifically, 18 years). In line with the results from prospective longitudinal studies on early precursors of entrepreneurship, our findings underscore the long neglected importance of adolescent development in the explanation of entrepreneurial performance during the subsequent working life.     

Measurement of ability emotional intelligence: Results for two new tests

Emotional intelligence (EI) has attracted considerable interest amongst both individual differences researchers and those in other areas of psychology who are interested in how EI relates to criteria such as well‐being and career success. Both trait (self‐report) and ability EI measures have been developed; the focus of this paper is on ability EI. The associations of two new ability EI tests with psychometric intelligence, emotion perception, and the Mayer–Salovey–Caruso EI test (MSCEIT) were examined. The new EI tests were the Situational Test of Emotion Management (STEM) and the Situational Test of Emotional Understanding (STEU). Only the STEU and the MSCEIT Understanding Emotions branch were significantly correlated with psychometric intelligence, suggesting that only understanding emotions can be regarded as a candidate new intelligence component. These understanding emotions tests were also positively correlated with emotion perception tests, and STEM and STEU scores were positively correlated with MSCEIT total score and most branch scores. Neither the STEM nor the STEU were significantly correlated with trait EI tests, confirming the distinctness of trait and ability EI. Taking the present results as a starting‐point, approaches to the development of new ability EI tests and models of EI are suggested.     

Entrepreneurial intention as developmental outcome

What predicts adults' entrepreneurial intentions? Utilizing a cross-sectional sample of 496 German scientists, we investigated a path model for the effects of entrepreneurial personality (Big Five profile), control beliefs, and recalled early entrepreneurial competence in adolescence (early inventions, leadership, commercial activities) on two types of entrepreneurial intentions (conditional and unconditional intentions). As expected, entrepreneurial personality and early entrepreneurial competence on the one hand and both types of entrepreneurial intentions on the other were associated. Findings of structural equation modeling further revealed indirect effects via control beliefs (e.g., mediation effects). The results highlight the importance of a life span developmental approach in entrepreneurship research and support the idea that entrepreneurship can be promoted early in life. The findings are discussed against the backdrop of the economic and societal values that entrepreneurship has in today's societies.     

Assessing entrepreneurial inclinations: Some approaches and empirical evidence

Interest in entrepreneurship is intense in many parts of the world and this has arisen because of the association between new venture creation and economic development. Entrepreneurship is a process that often leads to the creation of new enterprises but in this article the concept is broadened to include innovative and enterprising behaviour within existing organizations. While it is recognized that entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship are the products of various societal, organizational, and individual factors, this article focuses on the inherent personal traits of individuals that dispose them to engage in entrepreneurial acts. Some approaches to assessing the entrepreneurial personality are examined, but the principal focus is on pencil and paper measures of entrepreneurial attributes. Various instruments that purport to measure key entrepreneurial characteristics such as need for achievement, locus of control, and creative tendencies are considered and relevant empirical evidence is reported. A consideration of the appropriateness of the Durham University Business School's General Enterprising Tendency test as a composite instrument for assessing enterprising or entrepreneurial tendencies follows along with some statistical norms for this test, which should prove useful for practitioners and academics alike. Finally, some problems with trait theories of entrepreneurship are discussed.     

主动性人格的研究现状与展望

近年来,越来越多的研究者与管理者开始关注员工的主动行为,主动行为能够改善组织的效率和提高竞争力。主动行为受到许多因素的影响,其中一个因素即主动性人格。主动性人格是一种稳定的主动行为倾向。许多研究表明：主动性人格与许多行为结果都有密切联系,包括工作绩效、职业生涯成功、领导能力、团队绩效、创业等。今后的研究需要探讨一些问题,如主动性人格与关系绩效、职业生涯成功新标准的关系     

Emotional intelligence, teamwork effectiveness, and job performance: the moderating role of job context

We advance understanding of the role of ability-based emotional intelligence (EI) and its subdimensions in the workplace by examining the mechanisms and context-based boundary conditions of the EI-performance relationship. Using a trait activation framework, we theorize that employees with higher overall EI and emotional perception ability exhibit higher teamwork effectiveness (and subsequent job performance) when working in job contexts characterized by high managerial work demands because such contexts contain salient emotion-based cues that activate employees' emotional capabilities. A sample of 212 professionals from various organizations and industries indicated support for the salutary effect of EI, above and beyond the influence of personality, cognitive ability, emotional labor job demands, job complexity, and demographic control variables. Theoretical and practical implications of the potential value of EI for workplace outcomes under contexts involving managerial complexity are discussed.     

Emotional intelligence and job performance: The role of enactment and focus on others’ emotions

The link between emotional intelligence (EI) and job performance was examined focusing on the interplay between self- and other-focused EI dimensions. Two diary studies were conducted among divorce lawyers and salespersons. We adopted a two-level perspective including individual differences in EI (person-level EI) and within-person fluctuations in the usage of EI (enacted EI). It was hypothesized that a focus on others’ emotions predicts job performance in social jobs. Multilevel analyses showed that others-emotion appraisal contributed more to subjective (Studies 1 and 2) and objective (Study 2) job performance than other EI dimensions. This link was more apparent in person-level EI in Study 1 and in enacted EI in Study 2. Furthermore, EI dimensions interacted with regard to job performance, such that appraising the emotions of one person was more effective than appraising the emotions of two persons (other and self), and appraising others’ emotions was more effective when one’s own emotions were also used or regulated.     

The relationship between trait emotional intelligence and creativity across subject domains

This study investigated the association between two creativity indicators: Divergent Thinking (DT) and Creative Personality (CP), and key aspects of cognitive ability, personality (Big Five), and trait emotional intelligence (trait EI or trait emotional self-efficacy). The sample consisted of 175 Spanish undergraduates and recent graduates from three university subject domains: Technical & Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, and Arts. Cognitive ability was found to bear little relationship to either index of creativity. In contrast, strong relationships were demonstrated between personality traits, including trait EI, and creativity, some of which varied significantly across subject domains. Results suggest that future research will have to pay particular attention to individual differences in the affective parts of the personality realm that are comprehensively captured by the construct of trait EI.     

A Theory of Individual Differences in Task and Contextual Performance

This article describes a theory of job performance that assumes that job performance is behavioral, episodic, evaluative, and multidimensional. It defines job performance as the aggregated value to the organization of the discrete behavioral episodes that an individual performs over a standard interval of time. It uses the distinction between task and contextual performance to begin to identify and define underlying dimen- sions of the behavioral episodes that make up the performance domain. The theory predicts that individual differences in personality and cognitive ability variables, in combination with learning experiences, lead to variability in knowledge, skills, and work habits that mediate effects of personality and cognitive ability on job perform- ance. An especially important aspect of this theory is that it predicts that the kinds of knowledge, skills, work habits, and traits that are associated with task performance are different from the kinds that are associated with contextual performance.     

创业人格研究述评

创业领域的人格研究在经过了繁荣发展后, 于20世纪90年代受到了广泛的批评。本文在简要介绍了创业人格的研究历程后, 首先介绍了创业者人格特征与成功模型, 然后总结了创业研究中的具体人格特质和一般人格特质, 并从概念、样本、工具等六个方面分析了这类研究受到广泛质疑的原因, 最后指出了创业人格研究的四个努力方向：(1)创业内涵的界定和理论模型的建构; (2)研究设计和测量的改进; (3)调节与中介变量的考察; (4)创业绩效变量的更细致区分。     

What Makes Muslim Women Entrepreneurs Successful? A Field Study Examining Religiosity and Social Capital in Tunisia

The present study sheds light upon critical factors that help explain the entrepreneurial success among Muslim women living in a democratic Tunisia, a Muslim-majority country considered by many to be the lone Arab Spring success story. We hypothesized that successful entrepreneurs need social capital, including the capital that comes from marriage and high levels of wasta (the Arabic concept of having personal connections with influential others). Moreover, given the lack of empirical attention paid to the role of the culture, language, and customs associated with Islam on women’s empowerment, we examine whether religiosity is related to entrepreneurial performance among Tunisian women. Data collected with 84 female entrepreneurs participating in entrepreneurship training programs across Tunisia reveal that two forms of social capital, marital status and wasta, are related to training center directors’ ratings of women entrepreneurs’ performance, suggesting that social capital is a critical asset for Muslim women entrepreneurs. Religiosity, on the other hand, had no statistically significant relationship with entrepreneurial performance. Our study contributes to research on entrepreneurship by identifying wasta as a form of social capital that may be necessary for women entrepreneurs to succeed in the Middle East and North Africa and by taking an initial step towards better understanding the empirical (and controversial) relationship between religiosity and career success among Muslim women. We recommend that training organizations supporting entrepreneurs directly assist women in the development of social capital and acknowledge, rather than ignore, that nepotism and wasta are linked to entrepreneurial success in some cultures.     

Vocational interests and Big Five traits as predictors of job instability

Although empirical research on this topic is scarce, personality traits and vocational interests have repeatedly been named as potential individual level predictors of job change. Using a long-term cohort study (N = 291), we examined RIASEC interest profiles and Big Five personality scores at the beginning of the professional career as predictors of subsequent job changes, both internal as well as external, over the next 15 years. Overall, results provide additional evidence for an individual difference perspective on job instability, although our findings vary across instability variables. Consistent with previous research, external job changes in particular related to individual differences. Specifically, scores on Investigative, Artistic, Enterprising and Conventional scales showed to be the most important interest related predictors. With regard to Big Five personality traits, strongest associations were found with Agreeableness and Openness. In addition, facet level analyses proved to be useful to further clarify linkages between personality and job instability.     

Greed is good? Assessing the relationship between entrepreneurship and subclinical psychopathy

Despite the stereotype of entrepreneurs as corporate psychopaths, there has been little research on the overlap between individual differences in entrepreneurship and subclinical psychopathy. In line with this issue, the current study investigated whether primary and secondary psychopathy are linked to a measure of entrepreneurial tendencies and abilities, as well as entrepreneurial activities and achievements. Participants were 435 working adults. Structural equation models revealed that individual differences in entrepreneurial tendencies and abilities were positively related to primary psychopathy, but unrelated to secondary psychopathy. Secondary psychopathy did not predict entrepreneurial activity; primary psychopathy predicted some entrepreneurial outcomes, albeit modestly, providing partial support for the ‘corporate psychopath’ stereotype. Implications for entrepreneurship research and practice are discussed.     

The engageable personality: Personality and trait EI as predictors of work engagement

Work engagement is seen as a critical antecedent of various organizational outcomes such as citizenship behavior and employee productivity. Though defined as a state, recent research has hinted at potential individual differences in engagement, meaning that employees differ in their tendencies to engage at work. This study investigated the effects of the Big Five personality traits, work-specific personality, and trait emotional intelligence, on work engagement among a sample of 1050 working adults. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses identified trait EI, openness to experience, interpersonal sensitivity, ambition, extraversion, adjustment, and conscientiousness as predictors of engagement. Trait EI predicted work engagement over and above personality. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.