Entrepreneurship: What matters most

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a study about particular personality traits that entrepreneurs display. Supported by a survey involving 1,135 responses from students enrolled in master’s degree programmes taught across five cities in Spain, we identified the relevant characteristics that determine the personality traits of a likely entrepreneur. We found some key aspects such as previous knowledge of the business, high level of initiative, openmindedness and coming from an entrepreneurial family environment, with no other distinctions made for other factors. In a second analysis, we compared students enrolled in entrepreneur-related courses (EMBA and MBA) with students enrolled in other disciplines and found significant differences between groups. Finally, we compared all results based on gender to obtain more relevant conclusions.