Big Five Personality Dimensions

Introduction

Among the emerging entrepreneurs in recent years, it is noticeable that some of them are more successful than others. Researches have suggested that besides education, personal skills and experience, personality traits could be a contributor to their success. For example, the results of meta-analysis conducted by Zhao, Seibert & Lumpkin (2010) show that four of the Big Five personality dimensions (conscientiousness, openness to experience, emotional stability and extraversion) were associated with the intention to become an entrepreneur and entrepreneurial firm performance, which are critical to attainment of entrepreneurial status (Baron, 2007; Venkataraman, 1997).

Besides the broadly defined Big Five personality dimensions, some

To illustrate, we will begin with definitions and present theories, followed by meta-analytic results. Then the changes in personality traits (mainly based on the Big Five dimensions) observed in life span are examined. We propose studying both internal and external factors that influence the shaping of personality because entrepreneurs are often found to be exposed at changing political, economic, social and technological environment. Therefore not only personal wills and efforts to change personality traits matter in this case, but also the external environment. Previous studies on the relationship between entrepreneurship and personality trait have been focusing on what makes an entrepreneur successful but not on how to become a successful one. Therefore our review collects Meta-Analysis results to examine the Big Five personality dimensions and provide evidences to show the changes observed in the five personality traits. Hopefully this review could shed light on the possibility of getting people participate in the process of entrepreneurship who have been denied previously by their personality

According to the definition of entrepreneurship (Shane, 2003), the early stage of entrepreneurship involves opportunity recognition, which requires active search for opportunities as well as alertness to new creatures (Baron, 2006). Openness to experience contributes to opportunity recognition in a way that makes entrepreneurs more open to new experience and novel things.

Conscientiousness makes an individual competent, methodical--preferring order and structure, dutiful, motivated to achieve goals, disciplined, and deliberate or considered (Costa & McCrae, 1992). It is highly related to successfully identifying and evaluating business opportunities as well as decision making. And it also helps entrepreneurs transform their creativity and passion into a sustained and systematic devotion to their business (McCrae & John,