Profiling New Business Development: Personality Correlates of Successful Ideation and Implementation

This study considered the relationship between personality traits and success in different roles involved in New Business Development (NBD). NBD is a process in which analysts generate ideas for new products or services, evaluate their feasibility, and develop implementation plans for those that are most promising. A personality inventory was created to identify individuals with traits better suited for the idea generation or concept implementation role. To evaluate the validity of the inventory, supervisors rated 68 NBD employees who also completed the personality inventory. Results indicated that being more innovative and less methodical was associated with success at idea generation, whereas being less innovative and more methodical was related to role success for implementation. This suggests that personality tests can be used to guide the selection and/or placement of employees in NBD settings.