Born entrepreneur? Adolescents' personality characteristics and self-employment in adulthood

Arbeitspapier

Is there an entrepreneurial personality and does it appear early in life? We provide a new answer on this question by using the so-called Type A behavior traits (Aggression, Leadership, Responsibility, and Eagerness-Energy), measured in childhood and adolescence, and examining their relationship to self-employment propensity in adulthood. Using data from the Young Finns Study linked to the Finnish Longitudinal Employer-Employee Data and the Longitudinal Population Census of Statistics, our results show that the early-life Leadership-dimension is significantly associated with a higher likelihood 1) of becoming self-employed later in life and 2) of being more successful as an entrepreneur, as approximated by sales. Our results also reinforce the prior evidence on the intergenerational transmission of entrepreneurship.

Object Details

• ISBN: 978-3-943153-27-9
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: BERG Working Paper Series ; No. 108

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Entrepreneurship
• Subject: Type A behavior ; personality ; self-employment ; entrepreneurship ; intergenerational transmission of entrepreneurship

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Viinikainen, Jutta ; Heineck, Guido ; Böckerman, Petri ; Hintsanen, Mirka ; Raitakari, Olli ; Pehkonen, Jaakko
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Bamberg University, Bamberg Economic Research Group (BERG)
• (where): Bamberg
• (when): 2016

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/129616
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET