*The authors thank Friedel Bolle, Simon Kemp, Christoph Kneiding, Ulf Kieschke, Steffen Künn, Marco Vivarelli and two anonymous referees for helpful comments, and Denitsa Vigenina for valuable research assistance in the field and in the data preparation. Moreover, the authors are very grateful to Fred Müller for providing access to his personality test and to Gunda Laasch-Wrobel, Hajo Streitberger and Thorsten Visbal. Without their support, this paper would not have been possible. Last but not least, we would like to thank the 414 entrepreneurs for their willingness to be interviewed once more, even though entrepreneurs usually have no time to spare. Alexander Kritikos gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Institute for Labor Market Research (project no. 1-910) and of the Equal framework EXZEPT which is financed by the European Social Funds (ESF) and by the German Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. Previous versions of the paper were presented at the ESEM in Budapest and at the EARIE in Amsterdam. A supplementary appendix to this paper is available on request from the authors and can also be downloaded from http://www.caliendo.de/Papers/kyklos_supplement.pdf.
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Is Entrepreneurial Success Predictable? An Ex-Ante Analysis of the Character-Based Approach
Article first published online: 14 APR 2008
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-6435.2008.00398.x
© 2008 The Authors
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How to Cite
Caliendo, M. and Kritikos, A. S. (2008), Is Entrepreneurial Success Predictable? An Ex-Ante Analysis of the Character-Based Approach. Kyklos, 61: 189–214. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6435.2008.00398.x
Publication History
- Issue published online: 14 APR 2008
- Article first published online: 14 APR 2008
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SUMMARY
This paper empirically analyzes whether the character-based approach, which focuses on the personality structure and the human capital of business founders, allows prediction of entrepreneurial success. A unique data set is used consisting of 414 persons whose personal characteristics were analyzed by different methods, namely an one-day assessment center (AC) and a standardized questionnaire, before they launched their business. Results are partly unexpected and weaker than previous ex-post findings: first, we found correlations between the AC data and the questionnaire in one subgroup only. Second, the predictive power of the AC data is slightly better than that of the questionnaire, but lower than expected in theory. Interestingly, for those subgroups where the AC data have low predictive power, the questionnaire does better. Third, when success is measured in terms of employees hired, the character-based approach is a poor predictor.