Start-Up Motivation, Personality, Entrepreneurial Persistence and Entrepreneurial Development

The goal of this research project is to conduct an in-depth analysis of the influence of entrepreneurs’ motivations and personalities on entrepreneurial plans, decisions, persistence and business development. We are in particular interested in the impact of the big five, locus of control and self-efficacy on innovation, growth realization and job creation potentials. The analysis will be based on longitudinal panel survey data for Germany. One attractive feature of the data set is that it contains multiple dimensions capturing entrepreneurial success and business development in the short- as well as medium- to long-run, comprising indicators that mainly affect the individual entrepreneur herself (persistence, survival, income), as well as indicators for business growth, expansion and innovation activities which have further direct and indirect implications for economic and employment growth, thus allowing for an multi-faceted analysis of the influence of motivation and personality.