Title: Personality composition and performance in entrepreneurial teams: understanding the impact of stability and plasticity traits in a relative contribution model

Authors: Tobias Kollmann; Christoph Stöckmann; Jana W. Linstaedt; Julia M. Kensbock

Addresses: Department of Economics and Business Administration, University of Duisburg-Essen, Universitätsstr. 9, 45141 Essen, Germany ' Department of Business Administration, Seeburg Castle University, Seeburgstr. 8, 5201 Seekirchen am Wallersee, Austria ' WERTGARANTIE Group, Breite Straße 8, 30159, Hannover, Germany ' School of Business and Economics, Department of Organisation, Strategy and Entrepreneurship, Maastricht University, Tongersestraat 53, 6211 LM Maastricht, Netherlands

Abstract: Considering that personalities of entrepreneurs are diverse, we examine how the personality composition of entrepreneurial teams affects team performance. Given the specific challenges of the entrepreneurship setting, we suggest a new understanding of the team composition-team performance link by (1) taking a meta-perspective to personality that considers the stability vs. plasticity underlying the Big Five traits and by (2) applying a relative contribution (minimum/maximum) conceptualisation of team composition. We conduct a quantitative study with 104 entrepreneurial teams. Our findings indicate that high entrepreneurial team performance requires all team members to have minimum levels of stability-related traits (agreeableness, emotional stability, conscientiousness), but only one team member with high plasticity-related traits (openness, extraversion).

Keywords: entrepreneurial teams; team diversity; team composition; personality traits; team performance; big five; stability; plasticity.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEV.2021.116840

International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing, 2021 Vol.13 No.3, pp.262 - 287

Received: 31 Dec 2019
Accepted: 24 Sep 2020

Published online: 04 Aug 2021 *

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