Key entrepreneurial traits and their relationship to venture uncertainty and venture success

Abstract

While entrepreneurship is one of the most studied topics in business research, findings have been mixed regarding the traits of entrepreneurs. Some of the confusion in the literature may be explained by findings such as John Miner's who identified four personality types capable of achieving entrepreneurial success (Miner and Raju, 2004). Indeed, several authors differentiated between different entrepreneurial subgroups. However, almost all writers assumed that entrepreneurs have distinct personality traits. Among the traits mentioned most often were: high need for achievement, need for control, autonomy, independence, self-confidence, initiative, optimism, imagination, persistence, leadership, competitiveness and risk taking. Against all this body of research comes the claim that the entrepreneurial personality is nothing but a myth. The current study is the fourth in a series of studies on Israeli entrepreneurs that explored their personal traits, from a macro cross-cultural and cultural perspective, through a mezzo occupational perspective to a micro individual behavioral perspective. This study, coming from a micro individual perspective, examined the correlates of the set of personal traits portraying Israeli entrepreneurs found in our previous research. It showed a. that entrepreneurial traits such as love of challenge, initiative, optimism, creativity and energy are highly correlated with risk-taking propensity; b. that this set of traits are also correlated with higher level of venture uncertainty in terms of market and technological uncertainty, and c. ventures with higher levels of uncertainty and risk create higher opportunities for future activities such as entering new markets and introducing new product lines, but are less efficient in terms of meeting schedule and budget goals.