PERSONAL TRAITS OF CEOS, INTER-FIRM NETWORKING AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THEIR FIRMS: INVESTIGATING STRATEGIC SME NETWORK PARTICIPANTS

This research tests a model including direct and indirect effects of CEO's personal traits (i.e., tolerance for ambiguity and self-efficacy) on entrepreneurial behavior for firms in a specific context, namely strategic SME networks. Findings indicate no direct relationship between personal traits and entrepreneurial behavior on the firm level but reports positive relationship between CEO's traits and levels of inter-firm networking with other strategic SME network participants. Inter-firm networking, in turn, is positively related to entrepreneurial behavior on the firm level. Our results thus indicate that personal traits of the CEO can be important to study in order to understand small firm behavior and performance. The absence of direct links may hide interesting indirect and mediating influences. Based on this, we argue that it is important for future research in the entrepreneurship domain to consider inclusion of context-specific action-based factors that may link CEO traits to entrepreneurship.