Creative Personality, Ownership, and Company Growth

This study examines whether entrepreneurs’ creative personality is associated with company growth indirectly through management and employee ownership emphasis. Drawing on creativity and ownership perspectives, it proposes that creative personality is associated with an emphasis on co-ownership and that such ownership is associated with firm growth. Survey data were collected from owners and founders of Slovenian small and medium-sized enterprises. Creative personality captured self-reported creativity, management and employee ownership emphasis reflected firms’ emphasis on co-ownership, and growth was assessed through changes in employment, sales, and market share. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to evaluate the measures, and structural equation modelling was used to test the hypotheses. Creative personality was positively associated with ownership emphasis, which was positively associated with growth. The indirect effect through ownership was positive and significant. The findings suggest that creative tendencies may be associated with small and medium-sized enterprises’ growth through organizational arrangements encouraging ownership participation. The study extends entrepreneurship research by identifying ownership as a potential mechanism linking entrepreneur-level characteristics with firm-level outcomes.