Title: The association between personality traits and perceived innovativeness

Authors: Michal Jirásek; František Sudzina

Addresses: Department of Corporate Economy, Faculty of Economics and Management, Masaryk University, Lipová 41a, Brno, 602 00, Czech Republic ' Department of Systems Analysis, Faculty of Informatics and Statistics, Prague University of Economics and Business, Nám. W. Churchilla 1938/4, Prague, 130 67, Czech Republic

Abstract: The innovativeness of individuals is a building block of innovation in organisations. Previous research has indicated that certain personality traits are linked to individuals' perceived innovativeness. We aim to shed further light on how these links differ by analysing self- and meta-perceptions of innovativeness. We used a sample of Danish students as part of a broader personality project in which respondents filled out the Big Five inventory questionnaire (BFI-44) on the five personality traits and more detailed personality facets. The results showed that openness to experience and extraversion were positively associated with self-and meta-perceptions of innovativeness, while conscientiousness and neuroticism were associated positively with meta-perception only. Agreeableness was weakly associated with both types of perceptions but its direction was subject to change. Our results broadly support previous empirical studies. They also highlight that differences in perceptions depend on the perspective of the evaluator.

Keywords: innovativeness; personality traits; Big Five; self-perception; meta-perception.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIR.2025.149643

International Journal of Business Innovation and Research, 2025 Vol.38 No.3, pp.314 - 331

Received: 12 Nov 2021
Accepted: 02 Sep 2022
Published online: 10 Nov 2025 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article