The Influence of the Big Five Personality Traits and Risk Propensity on the Decision to Become Self-Employed

Download or read book The Influence of the Big Five Personality Traits and Risk Propensity on the Decision to Become Self-Employed written by and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent studies provide evidence that personality characteristics play a key role in the decision to become self-employed. Based on the large, representative Swiss Household Panel (SHP), this study investigates to what extent risk propensity and the Big Five personality constructs extraversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, openness to experience, and conscientiousness influence self-employment entry. Controlling for several socio-demographic variables, this study uses a binary logistic regression model in order to examine the influence of these personality constructs on the entry decision. Results indicate that only two out of the Big Five constructs are significant predictors of self-employment entry: openness to experience and emotional stability, the former with positive and the latter with negative effects on the entry decision. Furthermore, results also indicate that risk propensity explains variance beyond what is already explained by the Big Five personality constructs and positively influences the entry decision.