Founder personalities, behaviors and new venture success in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Facing heightened levels of political instability and institutional fragility, several sub-Saharan African countries have been responding with innovation policies and entrepreneurship support structures. With little scholarly knowledge on who those entrepreneurs are at an individual level, however, the ability to effectively support innovative new ventures in some of the world's most compromised regions would remain limited. Based on a sample of 232 entrepreneurs, this study attempts to enlighten the relationship between personality characteristics of entrepreneurs and their behaviors and subsequent success. This study thereby extends the entrepreneurship literature applying the Five-Factor Model of Personality to a new context while enriching knowledge on the personality-behavior relationship in entrepreneurship. Several findings and theoretical concepts are synthesized while evaluating new venture success from a behavioral lens among largely innovative, social-driven entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan countries, providing important implications for research, policy, and practice.