The Agreeable Entrepreneur

A study of a small sample of French dual-career entrepreneurs—businesspeople who were once in salaried employment—focuses on their motivations for change and how they viewed themselves in terms of five personality traits: agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, and openness to experience. In contrast to previous research that indicates that entrepreneurs are generally disagreeable, the findings show that the dual-career entrepreneurs in this sample viewed themselves uniformly as agreeable. It also finds that, in contrast to the view of classical economics, few are motivated by money. The results point to recommendations for employers who might wish to retain these potentially valuable employees, as well as for aspiring dual-career entrepreneurs who wish to start their own business.