A Systematic Literature Review and Meta-Analysis of Entrepreneurial Personality

Abstract Entrepreneurial Personality (EP) is a collection of personality traits that broadly and strongly relate to entrepreneurial outcomes across most contexts. The goal of the current article is to address present uncertainties surrounding EP by identifying its dimensions and assessing their relations with entrepreneurial outcomes. Our systematic literature review demonstrates that seven dimensions are commonly used to represent EP: innovativeness, risk-taking, achievement orientation, locus of control, proactiveness, self-efficacy, and autonomy orientation. Via meta-analytic structural equation modeling, we find support for a one-factor model composed of these seven dimensions, suggesting that they indeed represent a unitary construct. Our meta-analysis also supports that EP and its dimensions consistently produce significant relations with entrepreneurial attitudes, intent, status, and performance. EP is thereby supported as an important component of successful entrepreneurial endeavors, and our meta-analytic results provide clear criteria for determining the inclusion of dimensions within the construct of EP – which our seven identified dimensions satisfy.