PurposeThe paper explores the role of narcissism on entrepreneurs' decisions in terms of organizational choices, discussing gender differences. The aim relies in the influence that entrepreneurs' personality, capabilities and cognitive orientation have in the creation and management of start-ups.Design/methodology/approachAnalyzing an Italian sample of 207 entrepreneurs and using Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and generalized linear model methods, the hypotheses were tested to understand whether and how narcissism affects Research and development (R&D) expenditure, patent ownership and the presence of a specialized team in organizations led by women and men entrepreneurs.FindingsDifferences in the management and organizational choices of narcissistic women entrepreneurs compared to their men counterparts emerged. First, results show that women entrepreneurs are less narcissistic than men. Second, gender is shown to moderate the effect of narcissism on the choice of having a qualified team in a start-up. Third, narcissistic women entrepreneurs were found to engage less in risk-taking activities, such as R&D expenditure, and to patent their ideas more than their male counterparts.Originality/valueThe study expands the existing literature by applying a gendered lens to entrepreneurs' narcissism to investigate whether they behave and manage their start-ups differently.
Purpose of the paper:In start-ups, innovation strategies are influenced by the entrepreneur's personality. We aim to investigate such influence by exploring how entrepreneurs' narcissism affects start-ups' innovation.Methodology: We integrated survey data on a cross-industry sample of 115 Italian entrepreneurs with secondary data consisting of patents, economic and financial information from a public database. The survey uses the NPI-16 scale to measure entrepreneurs' narcissism.Results: Results showed a non-linear relationship between entrepreneurs' narcissism and start-ups' innovation: high and low levels of narcissism are detrimental to innovation. Moreover, we found a substitution effect between market dynamism and start-ups' innovation; the higher the level of market dynamism, the more negative the effect of entrepreneurs' narcissism on innovation.Research limitations: Being based on an Italian sample, the study does not address the impact of narcissism in other cultures.
Practical implications: Our study identifies the mechanisms through which entrepreneurs' narcissism affects start-ups' innovation and explores how the market scenario affects the relationship between entrepreneurs' narcissism and innovation.Originality of the paper: We show that narcissism might be positive for firms and identify how entrepreneurs' narcissism affects start-ups' innovation. We demonstrate that market scenario affects the relationship between entrepreneurs' narcissism and innovation, while also showing that contextual factors can reveal important contingencies. From a methodological viewpoint, we applied the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) scale to a sample of entrepreneurs. Previous work mainly used secondary data consisting of business reports and interviews, or employed the NPI in samples of MBA students.
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