Publications

March 2023 (Revised May 2023)
Technical Note

Technical Note: The Traits of Entrepreneurs

By: Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo

Why do some entrepreneurs succeed and others do not? Are there personality traits that lead someone to become an entrepreneur? Although many questions still remain, there has been significant research on the “entrepreneurial personality.” This note provides an... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneur; Innovation; Personality; Personality Traits; Risk Preference; Big Five; Locus Of Control; Success; Entrepreneurship; Personal Characteristics

Educators

Purchase

14 Dec 2017
Working Paper Summaries

Personality Traits of Entrepreneurs: A Review of Recent Literature

Keywords: by Sari Pekkala Kerr, William R. Kerr, and Tina Xu

Article

Risk Attitudes and Personality Traits of Entrepreneurs and Venture Team Members

By: Sari Pekkala Kerr, William R. Kerr and Margaret Dalton

Personality distinctions between entrepreneurs, nonfounder CEOs/leaders, and inventor employees have received limited attention, especially in innovative settings where they are working together. We surveyed these groups, along with other employees of innovative firms,... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurs; Inventors; Innovation; Risk; Personal Characteristics; Innovation and Invention; Risk and Uncertainty; Attitudes

Article

The Big Five Personality Traits, Material Values, and Financial Well-being of Self-described Money Managers

By: Grant Edward Donnelly, Ravi Iyer and Ryan Howell

Previous research has linked personality traits, material values, and money management to savings, debt, and compulsive buying. To extend previous research, four online surveys examined the Big Five personality traits and material values of those who manage their money... View Details

Keywords: Values; Personality; Well-being; Personal Characteristics; Values and Beliefs; Personal Finance; Money

2016
Working Paper

CEO Personality and Firm Policies

By: Ian D. Gow, Steven N. Kaplan, David F. Larcker and Anastasia A. Zakolyukina

Based on two samples of high quality personality data for chief executive officers (CEOs), we use linguistic features extracted from conferences calls and statistical learning techniques to develop a measure of CEO personality in terms of the Big Five traits:... View Details

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Personal Characteristics; Management Teams

2015
Working Paper

Are CEOs Born Leaders? Lessons from Traits of a Million Individuals

By: Renée Adams, Matti Keloharju and Samuli Knüpfer

What makes a CEO? We merge data on the traits of more than one million Swedish males, measured at age 18 in a mandatory military enlistment test, with data on their service as a CEO of any Swedish company decades later. CEOs have higher cognitive and non-cognitive... View Details

Keywords: Personal Characteristics; Management Teams

SSRN

23 Aug 2016
Working Paper Summaries

CEO Personality and Firm Policies

Keywords: by Ian D. Gow, Steven N. Kaplan, David F. Larcker, and Anastasia A. Zakolyukina; Financial Services

September 2019
Supplement

pymetrics (B)

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In March 2013, pymetrics CEO Frida Polli visited Harvard Business School to listen to a section of MBA students from the class of 2013 discuss her business plan and provide feedback on the tests they had taken to identify career opportunities. Polli had developed a... View Details

Keywords: BrainTech; Hiring; Hiring Of Employees; Recruiting; Personality; Personality Traits; Startup; Start-up; Startups; Start-ups; Employment; Strategic Evolution; Psychodynamics; Psychology; Recruitment; Selection and Staffing; Business Startups; Strategy; Personal Characteristics

Purchase

07 Dec 2016
HBS Case

Why Millennials Flock to Fintech for Personal Investing

asset accumulators of the future” A new breed of financial technology companies, known collectively as fintech, has taken advantage of these traits to disrupt an unexpected industry: personal investing. Just... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Financial Services

23 May 2023
Research & Ideas

Face Value: Do Certain Physical Features Help People Get Ahead?

personality traits connected to charisma. Those traits are a sense of power or dominance, trustworthiness, competence, aggressiveness, warmth, and generosity. They depict the... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin

14 Feb 2022
Research & Ideas

Curiosity, Not Coding: 6 Skills Leaders Need in the Digital Age

learning, pivoting all along the way. Though it won’t be easy, even perfectionist Type-A personalities must open their minds to a more experimental approach. Those who rely on traditional strategic thinking—an approach one roundtable... View Details

Keywords: by Linda A. Hill, Ann Le Cam, Sunand Menon, and Emily Tedards; Technology

Forthcoming
Article

An AI Method to Score Celebrity Visual Potential from Human Faces

By: Flora Feng, Shunyuan Zhang, Xiao Liu, Kannan Srinivasan and Cait Lamberton

It has long been a mantra of marketing practice that, particularly in low-involvement situations, spokespeople should be physically attractive. This paper suggests there is a higher probability of gaining fame and influence (i.e., celebrity potential) than is captured... View Details

Keywords: Personal Characteristics; AI and Machine Learning; Forecasting and Prediction; Marketing

November 2019
Article

Conversations and Idea Generation: Evidence from a Field Experiment

By: Sharique Hasan and Rembrand Koning

When do conversations lead people to generate better ideas? We conducted a field experiment at a startup boot camp to evaluate the impact of informal conversations on the quality of product ideas generated by participants. Specifically, we examine how the personality... View Details

Keywords: Peer Effects; Field Experiment; Interpersonal Communication; Creativity; Personal Characteristics; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention

12 Dec 2017
First Look

New Research and Ideas, December 12, 2017

industries where firms have higher SASB-identified sustainability disclosure. Download working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=52664 Personality Traits of Entrepreneurs: A Review of... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

August 2011
Article

The Jekyll and Hyde of Emotional Intelligence: Emotion-Regulation Knowledge Facilitates Prosocial and Interpersonally Deviant Behavior

By: Stéphane Côté, K. A. DeCelles, Julie M. McCarthy, Gerben A. Van Kleef and Ivona Hideg

Does emotional intelligence promote behavior that strictly benefits the greater good, or can it also advance interpersonal deviance? In the investigation reported here, we tested the possibility that a core facet of emotional intelligence—emotion-regulation... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Emotions