Arthur Moreau University of Groningen
S3009777 a.moreau@student.rug.nl
MSc BA Small Business & Entrepreneurship Supervisor: A. Rauch - Co-assessor: S. Murtinu
20/06/2017
Abstract
This research paper intend to study the relation between the dark triad traits (Machiavellianism, Narcissism and Psychopathy) and opportunity recognition. Opportunity recognition was studied through its components. We first proved that opportunity recognition is the sum of creativity and prior knowledge then make a quantitative study to assess the link between dark triad and creativity. A sample of 102 individuals from Belgium and The Netherlands was used. Our finding suggest that Machiavellianism and Psychopathy were connected to better creativity but not Narcissism. The second component, prior knowledge, was studied as a control variable. The conclusion was that Machiavellianism and Psychopathy are better at opportunity recognition than the average population.
Table of content
Table of content 2
1. Introduction 4
2. Theory and hypotheses 7
2.1 Opportunity recognition 7
2.1.1 Definition of opportunity 7
2.1.2 Definition of opportunity recognition 8
2.2 Creativity 9
2.2.1 The two components of creativity 9
2.2.2 Creativity and opportunity recognition 11
2.2.3 Creativity and psychological traits 13
2.3 The dark triad 14
2.3.1 Narcissism 15 2.3.2 Machiavellianism 17 2.3.3 Psychopathy 19 3. Method 21 3.1 Sample 21 3.2 Procedures 22 3.3 Measures 22
3.3.1 The dark triad 22
3.3.2 Opportunity recognition 23 3.3 Control variables 26 3.4 Quality criteria 27 3.4.1 Controllability 27 3.4.2 Reliability 28 3.4.2.1 Researcher 28 3.4.2.2 Instrument 28 3.4.2.3 Respondents 28 3.4.3 Validity 29 4. Results 30 4.1 Multicollinearity test 30 4.1 Correlation analysis 30 4.2 Regression analysis 32
4.2.1 The three traits 33
4.2.1 Narcissism 33
4.2.4 Conclusion 36
5. Discussion 37
5.1 The dark triad and opportunity recognition 37
5.2 Theoretical and managerial implication 38
5.3 Limitation 39 5.4 Conclusion 40 6. Reference 42 7. Appendix 54 7.1 Survey 54 7.1.1 Test creativity 54
7.1.2 Test Dark Triad: dirty dozen 55
7.1.3 Control variables 56
1. Introduction
Entrepreneurship has always been seen as something positive for society. Entrepreneurs bring technology to life, create jobs and make society evolve. Schumpeter (1942), with his process of creative destruction, was a strong proponent of entrepreneurship. A lot of researchers followed that opinion of positive entrepreneurship. Van Praag and Versloot (2007) reinforced this positive image by stating that entrepreneurship has three main contribution for society: it generates employment, it is more efficient in introducing innovation to the market and has a high growth rate of added value.
This flow of literature could have created a cognitive bias around the image of the entrepreneur in research. Indeed, psychology literature (e.g. Thorndike, 1920) shows that our image of someone can be biased by overrepresented qualities or vices. Taken to its extreme, entrepreneurship is seen positive, so everything in entrepreneurship is positive. A lot of research was conducted around the positive aspects of entrepreneurship. For instance, Zhao, Seibert, and Lumpkin (2010) found several positive psychological characteristics, such as optimism, dispositional positive affect, and generalized self-efficacy. Overall, the researchers strived to present all the positive aspects of entrepreneurship.
Baumol (1990) was the first to shed light on the other side of entrepreneurship. In his view, there are also unproductive and destructive entrepreneurs and their value for society is more questionable. Instead of creating value, they monopolize or steal value from others. Those negative aspects of entrepreneurship are still often ignored by researchers (Miller 2015). However, the flow, studying those negative entrepreneurs, grew. The starting point of those studies was to dig in the psychology of the entrepreneurs. Researches spotted a promising ground to start the study of the negative traits: the dark triad of psychological traits.
(Paulhus and Williams, 2002) led them to coin the term ‘dark triad’; a concept gathering narcissism, machiavellianism and psychopathy under one name. The connection between the dark triad of personality and the field of entrepreneurship was made by numerous studies (Baron, Zhao, and Miao 2015; DeNisi 2015; Hmieleski and Lerner 2016; Klotz and Neubaum 2016; Shepherd, Patzelt and Baron 2013). Those researchers put evidence on the link between destructive entrepreneurs and the dark triad traits.
It is important to stress that not only is this study examining the dark triad within the entrepreneurs, but also it concentrates on entrepreneurial and creative people. Hence, the focus is much broader. This includes people, which are not considering launching a startup (for instance due to the fear of failure), but will still look for opportunities that they could implement in existing organizations. For all these types of people, the opportunity recognition can be considered. In the following, we will use the term entrepreneurs to refer to this broad category of entrepreneurial people in new or existing organization. Other studies agreed with this broader focus, as they contextualize entrepreneurs in organizations. Unproductive and destructive entrepreneurs produce counterproductive workplace dynamics, regardless of their position in the organization, and cause negative long-term societal and economic effects (Kets de Vries 1985; Lewin and Stephens 1994). A lot of studies still use entrepreneur only in the “new venturer” meaning. However, to be sure to include the whole population of destructive entrepreneurial people, we will focus on the dark triad in our study. Thereby, the dark triad is the factor representative of these people.
Building on those arguments, it is important to identify the individual characteristics related to
Our research question is as follows: "What is the influence of the dark triad traits on the main factors of opportunity recognition?".
This study will be following a two-step process. First, we analyze the potential relationship of the dark triad (narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism; Paulhus and Williams, 2002) with individuals’ opportunity recognition.
2. Theory and hypotheses
This literature review provides the theoretical framework of this master thesis. The part is structured as follows:
Section 2.1, opportunity recognition, first explains what an opportunity is (2.1.1), followed by the definition of the opportunity recognition components: prior knowledge, alertness and active search (2.1.2).
Section 2.2, creativity, describes the creativity components (2.2.1). Then it compares creativity components with opportunity recognition (2.2.2) and we introduce the influence of psychological traits on the creativity (2.2.3).
Section 2.3, dark triad, is dedicated to the link between creativity and Narcissism (2.3.1), Machiavellianism (2.3.2) and Psychopathy (2.3.3).
2.1 Opportunity recognition
“Entrepreneurship is the recognition and exploitation of opportunities” (Shane and Venkataraman, 2000).
As Shane and Venkataraman stated, entrepreneurship is a process. Taking this process as a starting point, we are going to study “opportunity recognition”.
2.1.1 Definition of opportunity
obvious to everyone” (Hayek, 1945). This quote highlights the concept of exclusivity. However, this concept of exclusivity is not shared by every author. Casson (1982) defines opportunities as situations “in which new goods, services, raw materials, and organizing methods can be introduced and sold at greater than their cost of production’’. Narrowing the focus on entrepreneurship, Singhs (2000) defines an opportunity as a “feasible, profit-seeking, potential venture that provides an innovative new product or service to the market, improves on an existing product/service, or imitates a profitable product/service in a less-than-saturated market”. The elements that link all those definitions are (a) an underlying idea of value and (b) novelty, whether it is in a new venture or in broader context.
2.1.2 Definition of opportunity recognition
Opportunity recognition can be defined as the cognitive process (or processes) through which individuals conclude that they have identified an opportunity (Baron, 2006). Experienced entrepreneurs do indeed acquire increasingly refined cognitive frameworks to identify new business opportunities. A human being is a pattern builder. Opportunity recognition is one of those patterns. Using mental patterns, entrepreneurs could gain an important advantage in sorting the opportunities to find the one most likely to lead to profitable initiatives (Baron & Ensley 2006).
individual has to put effort in the research of potential links. Third, Baron (2006) states that “Knowledge of a particular market, industry, or group of customers, for instance, would help entrepreneurs to know where to search for new patterns that suggest business opportunities”. In his vision, prior knowledge is the “raw material” of the pattern that will be used for opportunity recognition. To conclude, the sum of those three elements (alertness, active research and prior
knowledge) is the basis of the process of opportunity recognition. We consider those three as the main factors influencing the level of opportunity recognition of an individual.
2.2 Creativity
2.2.1 The two components of creativity
“Creativity is both an ability to come up with valuable new ideas and an attitude of independence and nonconformity”. Franklin (2016)
Creativity is a controversial topic in the field of psychology, and existing research fails to reach agreements about creativity. Two main controversies are present in the field. (1) For some, creativity can be improved through training (Barghava 2015; Osburn & Mumford, 2006), while for others it is genetically determined (Reuter, Roth, Holve, & Hennig, 2006; Runco et al, 2011). (2) Creativity is a personality trait (Ardichvili et al., 2003) for some, whereas for others it is an intellectual skill
(Sternberg, 2006). The literature on creativity is broad and varies in its conclusions.
definition, whereas we support the idea that there are two kind of creativities. Our conclusions solve the two problems mentioned above:
(1) Concerning the first problem, Chávez-Eakle et al (2012) made an interesting conclusion. In their view, creativity is both having a biological background and a part that can be trained. Other researchers, such as Shelley et al (2005), creators of the recognized Creative
Achievement Questionnaire (CAQ), agree with this view. We follow this flow. We think that individuals can be more creativity due to a predisposition in their genes, but even an
individual with “weak” creative genes, at the basis, can increase his creativity level by training.
(2) In the view of Chávez-Eakle et al (2012), some personality traits are highly related to creativity, but creativity itself is not a personality trait. Their article is ill-defined regarding the real nature of creativity. However, we will use their definition for personality traits in that they “constitute the everyday ways of feeling, thinking, and acting of an individual”
(Chavez-Eakle et al, 2006). On the other hand, skill is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “an ability to do an activity or job well”. The adjective “Intellectual” added to “skill” highlights, thus, that this skill is related to cognitive abilities.
In our view, the notion of creativity includes both aspects: a personality trait and an
intellectual skill. The reasoning behind it lays on the difference between the two definitions. The personality traits emphasize the “everyday basis”, whereas the intellectual skill highlights the “ability to do a job”. The former is more passive (it runs even when you do not think about it), the latter is more active (people activate it in front of a task). In our view, the two kinds of creativity exist.
Both passive and active creativity have a basis lying in the genes that can be reinforced by exercising it. For instance, passive creativity can be trained by systematically writing down ideas crossing one’s mind before disappearing. The active creativity can be trained through working regularly on
connecting problems from different fields.
From here and until the end of our study, we will use the distinction between passive creativity, or creativity as a trait, and active creativity, or creativity as an intellectual skill. We will consider the word “creativity”, used by ourselves or other authors, referring to the sum of the two sides.
2.2.2 Creativity and opportunity recognition
As demonstrated above, there are two kinds of creativity: the ones as a personality trait and the others as an intellectual skill. The difference lies in the state of the person: active or passive. Hereunder, we will demonstrate that those two creativities are actually closely bound with two element of the opportunity recognition: active search and alertness.
connection. Our conclusion is that active creativity and active research are actually two different terms for the same notion.
Second, the passive creative is closely bound to the alertness. Alertness is described by Baron (2006, p.3) as follows: “Alertness, in contrast, emphasizes the fact that opportunities can sometimes be recognized by individuals who are not actively searching for them, but who possess "a unique preparedness to recognize them” when they appear”. As opposed to the active search, other activities do not have to be interrupted to focus on a specific task. The same idea appears in passive creativity: “exploration oriented, it is the ability to capture valuable new ideas for a stated problem in the everyday mental flow of thought”. In both, the ideas of opportunities arise in a continuous flow influenced by new information. The boundaries are broader. A problem must not, but can be solved. Therefore, we state that passive creativity and alertness represent the same notion.
To summarize, in the context of active creativity and active search, there are two elements for which a connection is to be created, while in the context of the passive creativity and alertness, there is one element setting the context to explore around it. Exemplifying can help the understanding: passive creativity gives an answer to the question: “what should we do during the holidays?”. The problem is broad and you must explore around the concept without necessarily giving the answer directly after the question. Active creativity answers the question: “how can we travel to Brussels for our
holidays?”. The boundaries are narrow and involve finding a solution to solve the problem.
and active creativity together can be gathered under the notion of creativity. In conclusion, opportunity recognition can be defined as the sum of creativity and prior knowledge.
2.2.3 Creativity and psychological traits
This section will be developed around one category of factors increasing the creativity: the personality traits.
Baron concentrated on this topic in many of his papers. In 2004, he tried to answer the question “Why do some persons but not others recognize opportunities?” in an article talking about basic perceptual processes, signal detection theory, regulatory focus theory, and entrepreneurial alertness schema. In 2006, he investigated how people connect the dots between seemingly unrelated events. In 2008, he suggested that affect influences many aspects of cognition in opportunity recognition. During his whole career, Baron stressed that personality traits are a factor influencing opportunity recognition. We add, more specifically, that personality traits have an influence on creativity.
Other researchers go along with this idea. Following the extensive literature review of Mary George et al (2016), six factors are seen as principal influencer in the opportunity recognition: one of those is the personality traits. Other researchers confirm the importance of the personality traits in the opportunity recognition. Ardichvili et al. (2003) agree that psychological traits are an important factor of the
opportunity recognition, even though their research states that opportunities are created, not “discovered”. They consider creativity, as itself, being a psychological traits.
high levels in the dark triad personality traits, such as unproductive and destructive entrepreneurs and employees.
2.3 The dark triad
The dark triad, later DT, is a word coined first by Paulhus & Williams (2002) to gather three
bad-natured personality characteristics: narcissism, psychopathy, and machiavellianism. Despite their diverse origins, those three personalities have similarities (Gustafson & Ritzer, 1995; McHoskey J. , 1995; McHoskey, Worzel, & Szyarto, 1998). To varying degrees, all three entail a socially malicious and wicked character with behavior tendencies toward self-promotion, callous, duplicity, impulsivity, exploitative behavior and aggressiveness (Jonason and Webster 2010). They tend to be
achievement-oriented and are focus on their goal, whatever the means (Jonason, Li, & Teicher 2010; Jones and Figueredo 2013). They have no problem to extract resources from the common goods for their personal use, and therefore are considered socially destructive. They are strive competitively for their goal without looking at the potential social cost (Paulhus & Williams, 2002; Furnham, Richards, & Paulhus, 2013). But, in the other hand, those individuals are also more confident, extrovert, and agentic than others especially when operating in challenging and uncertain situations (Jonason et al. 2009), which might appealing characteristics for companies, particularly for the leadership positions. Numerous studies underpin this relationship between dark triad and leadership (Furtner, Rauthmann, and Sachse 2011, O'Reilly et al. 2014)
Numerous studies were done to research the link between the three dark triad traits. In a clinical context, some researchers, like Hart & Hare (1998) link them together, two by two. The link between machiavellianism and psychopathy was established by Fehr, Samsom, & Paulhus (1992) and
Williams (2002) used the Big Five domains, developed by Goldberg, (1993) to gather them together. Other researchers also try the Big Five model with the dark triad (Jakobwitz & Egan, 2006; O’Boyle et al. 2015).
This study want to make a clear distinction here: we do not study clinical cases. Even though the three traits were first gathered under the name dark triad in a clinical context, we will study it in a
subclinical context, in other words the daily life context.
Non clinical measure have been developed, such as the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI, Raskin & Terry, 1988), consisting of 40 dyadic statements, the 20-item Likert-scale Mach-IV (Christie & Geis, 1970), and for psychopathy, evolving version of the Self-Report Psychopathy questionnaire (from Levenson, Kiehl, & Fitzpatrick, 1995 to Paulhus, Neumann, & Hare, 2009). This total of 91 items across three measures was considered too long, so Jonason and Webster (2010) created a 12-item inventory called the “Dirty Dozen” (DD), which is increasingly used in the academic literature.
2.3.1 Narcissism
Beside their goal for the future, they see themselves as more intelligent and attractive (Gabriel, Critelli, & Ee, 1994), which often leads to shameless self-admiration, arrogance, perceptions of entitlement, and hostility towards external criticism (Lubit, 2002). In addition, the narcissistic people tend to be more impulsive. This impulsivity helps them on the short term, when accuracy is less important and can foster their career. But this impulsivity becomes an hindrance on the long-term as it damages relationship: as Vazire & Funder (2006) states, they lack the self-control necessary to inhibit the behaviors that thwart the attainment of their goals.
For Vazire & Funder (2006) or Morf & Rhodewalt (2001) narcissistic individuals are not likely to reach the desired fame, as they are destructive in their interpersonal relationship in the long way. However, not all the researchers agree on this point. Wales, Patel & Lumpkin, (2013) have a more parsimonious point of view arguing that narcissistic CEO can lead both to successful or unsuccessful companies; narcissism bring both dark and bright aspect to leadership. Going further, Watts et al. (2013), found high narcissism levels in the U.S. presidents. Narcissists support their superiority to others in a competitive way (Morf, Weir, & Davidov, 2000). They seem to seek out leadership positions in organizations or to be at the top by creating themselves those organization (Mathieu & St-Jean, 2013). Those results contradict the fact that narcissistic people don’t reach high position.
Numerous arguments have linked narcissism with creativity. One is to say that narcissistic are in constant search of admiration and superiority (Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001, Ames, Rose, & Anderson, 2006). It means that they are ready to do whatever it takes to improve their image, and are ready to work hard to find new idea that might improves their status or image.
Dahmen-Wassenberg P et al. (2016) found that narcissism is related to higher level of self-perceived creativity. Galang et al., (2016) reached the same conclusion. Therefore we are stating the following:
Hypothesis 1: Narcissism is positively correlated to creativity
2.3.2 Machiavellianism
The words Machiavellianism comes from the diplomat Niccolo Machiavelli famous,most notably, for his work The Prince (1532) where he described some malicious behavior. Machiavellianism is is defined as “a strategy of social conduct that involves manipulating others for personal gain, often against the other’s self-interest” (Wilson, Near, & Miller, 1996: 295). Machiavellians are perceived as manipulators and cheaters who takes advantage of situation to gain profit while reducing the social capital of a group (Gunnthorsdottir, McCabe, & Smith, 2002). In their approach, they are prudent and (over)calculating: they tend to try to control every aspects of the situation. They move in an
unscrupulous way that will not harm their reputation (Jones & Paulhus, 2014).
Not everyone agrees on the fact that Machiavellian have only dark sides. Several authors note that they are also able to be genuinely cooperative and form coalitions with peers when it is advantageous to them (e.g., Hawley, 2003) and they do not necessarily lack ethics (Schepers, 2003). Beshak, Den Hartog & Kalshoven (2013) even went to investigate contingencies of the link between
Machiavellianism and pro-organizational behavior. Machiavellians are strategic and calculative, they can follow leaders if they feel that they have interest to do so (McHoskey, 1999).
employers. Again, this an element supporting a positive inclusion of people high in Machiavellianism in the companies.
Furthermore, Machiavellianism is associated with a lack of connection to their own feelings (Christie and Geis, 1970) and with seeking closeness in others primarily to manipulate whilst hiding their own vulnerabilities and weakness to order to avoid exploitation themselves (Sherry et al., 2006).
Our hypothesis about Machiavellianism will be quite explorative: there is no consensus in the literature about whether or not they are more creative than others. On one hand, from the description of Machiavellism, there are indeed prudent people who tend to move when they have everything under control. Compare to the other traits of DT, Machiavellian people have the lowest impulsivity. Following the argument that Kapoor (2016) uses for narcissistic people, low impulsivity means less creativity.
On the other hand, Dahmen-Wassenberg P et al. (2016) found that machiavellianism is related to higher level of creativity. As Machiavellianism is a psychopathology, we suggest that those people tend to think differently than other people. Based on the definition of Franklin (2016) of creativity, one could argue that this nonconformity lead to more creativity.
In our view, those two last arguments are more reliable than the first one. Even though people are in machiavellianism aren’t impulsive, it doesn’t prevent them to think about new ideas of strategies. Thus:
Hypothesis 2: Machiavellianism is positively correlated to creativity
2.3.3 Psychopathy
Psychopathy is the third psychological traits of the dark triad, and probably the most impressive one. The word “psychopath” itself, is the one which attract most of the attention out of the three DT. Psychopathy is characterized by superficial charm, manipulativeness, callousness, dishonesty, lack of guilt and empathy, emotional shallowness, stimulation-seeking, and antisocial behavior, including taking advantage of others, lying, cheating, and abandoning relationships (Hare, 2003, Hare & Neumann, 2006). Nevertheless whether they distinguish what’s good from what’s bad, they often engage in bad behavior (Hare, 2003). The popular, and not far from reality, image of the psychopath is the cold-blooded murder hopefully imprisoned.
Going further, different studies were made about psychopathy in different social classes. For instance, Babiak & Hare found (2007) that psychopathy levels are significantly higher than average among corporate managers and entrepreneurs. People with elevated in subclinical psychopathic level may be described as having a deceitful interpersonal style, deficient affective experiences, and an impulsive behavioural style (Akhtar, Ahmetoglu, Chamorro-Premuzic, 2013). However these individuals are perfectly able to function normally in a professional context. Actually, they often reach higher social position. This is because psychopaths, at the first glance, appear related to positive attributions: they are perceived as intelligent, charming, ingenious, and entertaining. Those qualities make them excel at succeeding interviews. Indeed studies suggest that people high in psychopathy can be very proficient in acting emotions, and use it to fool people (Hare,1999). Those ‘successful’ psychopaths, individuals able to manipulate, extort, and abuse others – without being found out (Mullins-Sweatt, Glover, Derefinko, Miller, & Widiger, 2010), are more likely to be in high-level professional position (Babiak and Hare, 2007).
Dahmen-Wassenberg P et al. (2016) found that psychopathy is related to higher level of creativity. Galang (2016) reached the same conclusion. An argument to could explain this results is, as for other dark triad traits, the constant need to imagine new strategy to reach the top. We assume thus the following hypothesis:
3. Method
In order to link the literature from two different fields, this study will test existing theories on Dark Triad and Opportunity Recognition. This study follows a quantitative research study and a
questionnaire has been created.
3.1 Sample
To collect our data, we created a questionnaire based on the dark triad and the opportunity
recognition. The questionnaire was not intended to only include entrepreneurs and so it was dispersed among students and fresh alumni of the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen through different media, such as email and social media, to a sample of random people living in Belgium and the Netherlands. The goal was to gather data from a broad range of the population on dark triad personality traits and opportunity recognition.
The participants in this study were 102 people from both the Netherlands and Belgium. Statistics were computed on the following descriptive data: age, gender, level of education, whether they are
currently student and whether they are willing to be an entrepreneur or whether they were currently entrepreneurs (in case of positive answer, they were asked when they started). These characteristics were used as control variables to verify that there were no statistical difference between groups. Those control variables were chosen because previous researchers studying dark triad or opportunity
The survey was answered by 109 participants, both through social media and email. However, 7 were removed from the sample due to incomplete data. Out of the 102 answers left, age was the range 18-24 y.o. (57%), followed by the range 25-34 y.o. (40%). 51% of the participants were male and 60% were students. In our sample 10% were entrepreneurs, 33% not yet but willing to be in the future and 57% were not. Out of the entrepreneurs, 90% were entrepreneurs between 0 and 2 years of experience. The detailed statistics can be found in the appendix (see figure 2).
3.2 Procedures
Participants in the study were given the following explanation: "The goal of this survey is to find out how some psychological traits influence creativity and opportunity recognition". Participants were not given any extra incentive to take part in the study and were not aware of the focus on the dark triads traits. The goal was to not bias the results through a specific attraction or fear about the words “dark triad”, “psychopathy”, “machiavellianism” and “narcissism”. Participants were assured that their answer would be kept anonymous.
3.3 Measures
The questionnaire has two different parts. The first part, the “dirty dozen” or SD3, aimed to study the dark triad traits (see appendix 7.1.2). The second part was intended to study the creativity of
respondents. We conducted Cronbach’s alpha to verify the internal consistency of the items. We accept Cronbach's alpha values above 0.70, as it is said to be acceptable by Nunnally (1978).
The first part of the survey measured dark triad traits of participants. As already described in details in the literature review, there are a lot of questionnaires aiming to measure the dark triad. Non clinical measure have been developed, such as the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI, Raskin & Terry, 1988) and the Self-Report Psychopathy questionnaire (from Levenson, Kiehl, & Fitzpatrick, 1995 to Paulhus, Neumann, & Hare, 2009). Jonason and Webster (2010) calculated that a total of 91 items were needed to assess the dark triad. In their view, this compilation of test were too long and they created a 12-item inventory called the “Dirty Dozen” or Short Dark Triad (SD3), which was
increasingly used in the academic literature. This test is divided in three parts, one for each trait. Each trait is measured by the mean of 9 items, all on a 5-points Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
All items were tested on reliability using the Cronbach’s alpha. Machiavellianism (α = 0.769),
Narcissism (α = 0.771) and Psychopathy (α = 0.738) had an alpha higher than 0.7. After the test of the internal consistency reliability with the Cronbach’s alpha, we summed the remaining items to obtain the compiled score for each traits studied.
3.3.2 Opportunity recognition
For this second part, we developed our own instrument (see figure 2 below). The goal of this
instruments was to measure the opportunity recognition skills through the proxy of creativity. In order to develop this instrument, we took recognized tools in the literature of the opportunity recognition as a basis. The last element of opportunity recognition, prior knowledge, was measured with the control variable “entrepreneur”.
With their experiment, DeTienne and Chandler (2004) stressed the importance of amount of
such and three were derived into new questions (the question 1, 4 and 5). Inspiration was also found in the CAQ, from which one item was taken and slightly modified (question 6). In addition, we created three more questions (3, 7, 8) that were focusing on nuances not studied yet. All the questions were focusing on the creativity as proxy for opportunity recognition. The final questionnaire had 8 questions, which were measured by a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly agree).
The questionnaire was to study the creativity in dark triad under all circumstances. In the conception of the questionnaire, different dimensions were taken into account. All the combinations of the dimensions had to be represented by the questions. The first dimension, already described in detail in the previous section, is the distinction between passive and active creativity. The second dimension is whether or not people are entrepreneurs that set up a business. As we discussed earlier, this study used a broader version of the notion of entrepreneur, including individuals that are afraid of failure of a new venture but are ready to implement new ideas in existing organization. The questions are build in a way that both “new venturers” and individuals afraid of new venture will feel included. The third dimension is about the distinction between incremental and disruptive ideas. Again, the questions were made to include both in a way that, for instance, people with incremental ideas will still feel concerned about this survey.
and let room for people that feel only slightly creative. The second reason is that the concepts
themselves are ranging on a continuous line between two extremes. Questions more blurred would be more representative of the concepts, as we do not want to study the extremes but the trends in
between.
Figure 1: dimension tree of the questions
1. I frequently identify opportunities that could lead to starting a new business (even though I may not pursue them).
2. I enjoy thinking about new ways of doing things.
4. I frequently have ideas that can be converted into innovative products or services (even though I may not pursue them).
5. I am willing to be an entrepreneur or self-employed but I lack ideas that may materialise into profitable enterprises.
6. I found novel uses for objects in the last month (even though I might not pursue the ideas).
7. I like searching for new business and explore them to have new ideas.
8. I am curious and enjoy reading about fields where i could learn about good opportunities.
Figure 2: Creativity questionnaire
Creativity reached a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.769 after deletion of one item, the question 5. After the test of the internal consistency reliability with the Cronbach’s alpha, we summed the remaining items to obtain the compiled score for creativity.
The last element of opportunity recognition, prior knowledge, is measured through a control variable. The goal of this study is to measure the creativity as a proxy for opportunity recognition. Therefore, the prior knowledge is a secondary data that we will measure with the control variable “student” and “entrepreneur” as they both represent the stage of life, in other word, the previous experience.
3.3 Control variables
when he/she started. Also, consideration was given to people willing to be entrepreneur. As such, there were three possible answer to the questions “Are you entrepreneur?”: “Yes”, “No” and “Not yet, but I am willing to be in the future.” Respondent were asked the maximal level of education
completed/ currently attending.
Previous research in the field of dark triad has demonstrated a disposition of males in the dark triad. Males score significantly higher on all three of the dark triad traits (Paulhus & Williams, 2002; Jonason, Li, Webster, & Schmitt, 2009). Hence, we opted to control for gender in the collection of our data. The control variable age was added as well, but splitted in range of 10 years from 18 to 85 (except for the category “under 18”).
3.4 Quality criteria
3.4.1 Controllability
Different instruments were used for the different part of the questionnaire. For the first part, asking about the level of dark triad traits, we used the SD3 developed by Jonason and Webster (2010). This instruments is the compilation of multiple, different instruments developed through decades of research, as we already explained in the literature review. This instrument has been validated by its use in multiple studies. The second instrument, intended to measure the creativity, was created as described above (see the section 3.2.2). The complete survey can be found in the appendix (see appendix 7.1).
was not shown only to people from Belgium and the Netherlands. Second, anonymous links were sent by email without possibility to track who answered.
The questionnaire that the respondent received can be found in the appendix (see appendix 7.1). The results are presented in the following section (see appendix 7.2).
3.4.2 Reliability
3.4.2.1 Researcher
The study might be affected by subjective influences of the researcher that have a cognitive origin and no personal motivation. The researcher might have payed more attention to evidence that confirms their beliefs than to evidence that contradicts their beliefs (van Aken & van der Bij, 2012). A example of this situation could be that the researcher found out that he has a high level in one of the three dark traits, and he would look for positive consequences of belonging to such a trait. We might be biased to look for the proof of what we are looking for instead of being objective.
3.4.2.2 Instrument
The Cronbach’s alpha was used to test the reliability of the results. The point 3.3 elaborates on the results of the Cronbach’s alpha in detail.
3.4.2.3 Respondents
3.4.3 Validity
4. Results
In this section we will present the results of the conducted analyses. As part of the descriptive statistics of our dataset, we conducted a two-tailed correlation test in order to explore possible
relations between the constructs and to describe the nature of these relationships. After the correlation analysis, we continue with the regression analysis. Each hypothesis was tested by conducting a linear regression analysis.
4.1 Multicollinearity test
Before starting to test our hypotheses, we will run calculation to verify the absence of potential multicollinearity. To do so we ran a variance inflation factor (VIF) for models used to test each of the hypotheses.
The biggest score of VIF in our sample was 1.804, which is below the cutoff value of 3 considered to be problematic (Neter et al. 1996). Therefore, we can go on with our analysis knowing that the results will not suffer from multicollinearity.
4.1 Correlation analysis
We explored possible correlations between dependent and independent variables through a bivariate correlation analysis.
Table 1: descriptive statistics
Table 2: correlation table
4.2 Regression analysis
4.2.1 The three traits
At first, we examine if all traits of the dark triad together have an influence on creativity. We expected the relationships to be significant and positive. All the relationships between the dependent variable and the independent variable were found to be insignificant (table 3). Thus, we cannot confirm the effect of the three dark triad of the relationship on the creativity. To investigate the relationships further, we decided to study the individual effect of each trait in the following sections to examine whether there is a significant effect on an individual level.
Table 3: Linear regression for the three traits
4.2.1 Narcissism
H1 states that the level of narcissism is correlated to the level of creativity. We expected the relation to be positive. The correlation matrix showed that it was positive and significant. The positive
Table 4: linear regression for narcissism
4.2.2 Machiavellianism
Table 5: linear regression for machiavellianism
4.2.3 Psychopathy
H3 states that the level of psychopathy is correlated to the level of creativity. We expected the relation to be positive. The correlation matrix showed us that it was positive and significant. The positive relationship between psychopathy and creativity is found significant at the 5% level (B Psy = 0.16, p<0.05, see table 6). Hence, we conclude that hypothesis 3 is supported. The effect of prior
Table 6: linear regression for psychopathy
4.2.4 Conclusion
5. Discussion
The goal of this study is to examine the relationship between the dark triad traits, or Narcissism, Machiavellianism and Psychopathy, and two factors of opportunity recognition, alertness and active search, among a population originated in Belgium and the Netherlands. Overall, the findings demonstrate that the trait narcissism is not an appropriate predictor of the creativity. Whereas machiavellianism and psychopathy were shown to be good predictors. This section will present the details of those findings, followed by the implications and limitations of the study as well as future directions and concluding thoughts.
5.1 The dark triad and opportunity recognition
From psychological studies on the different traits of the dark triad, we anticipated that individuals scoring high in dark triad traits would be better at creativity, the main factor of the opportunity recognition. However, our results did not confirm this for all the traits individually. Narcissism was the only trait that gave lower results on the creativity score. Both Machiavellianism and Psychopathy gave high scores in creativity.
The two other dark triads traits had a clearer tendency to creativity. Machiavellian individuals need creativity to build their plan and psychopathic individuals to take advantage of others by, for instance, inventing new “tissue of lies”. It has to be highlighted that for both traits, the prior knowledge was a significant factor. From there, we can conclude that machiavellianism and psychopathy are traits related to ability in opportunity recognition.
5.2 Theoretical and managerial implication
Several insights emerge from our study with potential implication for policy and management. In terms of management, it might be important for managers as for investors to be aware of the existence of this connection between creativity and dark triad. Indeed, if they want to invest in middle to long term projects and return, they should carefully pay attention investing in projects led by malevolent people. These individuals appear to be motivated and have fruitful projects, but their goal is likely to not be align with the one of the company/ the shareholders. Individuals scoring high in the dark triad scale are likely to see more opportunity and bear more project, so looking more promising and valuable, but their priority is their own interest. On the other hand, advantage can be taken from these personalities. With interest aligned, those fearless individuals can use their manipulative, callous and grandiloquent abilities to give a serious advantage to the company as they are more goal-oriented than the average individual.
The same reasoning hold for policies aiming to develop entrepreneurial initiatives, both inside an existing organization or a new venture. This question is important because new ventures launched by individuals with unproductive desire are likely to affect the vigor of the economy’s productive growth (Baumol, 1990). Entrepreneurs are considered improving the overall societal welfare, where
Psychological test, or incentives given on the basis of long-term results met, could overcome this problem.
5.3 Limitation
Even though we found significant results for two of the three trait that we tested, several limitations hindrance the generalization of the results.
First, the sample could have been broader. Nonetheless the amount of respondents, the sample was not mainly constituted of students. Other mean could have been used to reach population in different stages of life. Entrepreneur or manager with more years of experience could have been included into the sample to have a broader view of the population.
Second, the third factor of the opportunity recognition, prior knowledge, was measured only through the control variable. This prior knowledge was deducted from the amount of years of experience. The relation between these two variables, prior knowledge and years of experience, is indirect. Someone working in the same position during many years could have less knowledge that someone who spend less time but had many different positions. The marginal knowledge gained for the same job decreases with years. The logic can be extended to the amount of field of interests of an individual; multiple center of interest could give more knowledge than only one that is known in-depth.
Fourth, the distribution of the questionnaire was directed. The questionnaire was distributed by two means: social media and emails. The first mean, social media, can show the questionnaire to a broader sample. The advantage of this mean is the randomness of the algorithm, which does not allow neither to know who has seen the questionnaire nor who answered. The first disadvantage of this medium is the backside of the advantage: we have no control on the response rate. The second disadvantage is that the algorithm of the social media has shown the survey only to people “connected” with us. It means that only people who agreed to be in connection with us could see the survey. Those people are coming from a narrow sample that must have common interest or background in order to be connected with us. In sum, only the people with similarities to us answered the questionnaire. The email medium has the same disadvantage: only people with personal connection to us received the email, which could have led to sample bias. Again the response rate is not possible to track accurately because those people received the survey through an anonymous link in the email.
Further research could extend this study by improving the limitations mentioned above. Furthermore, the opportunity recognition is only the first step of a long process. Studies could be done on the link between dark triad and opportunity exploitation, for instance. The prior knowledge and tool to measure it can be digged more in details.
5.4 Conclusion
perfect positive image of the entrepreneur. This opposition states that governments, and at their level company boards, will not increase the global welfare of the society by encouraging every act of entrepreneurship: some will even produce more costs, instead of generating benefits for society. Individuals scoring high in dark triad will use these benefits and subsidies given to entrepreneurs to monopolize the values, instead of creating new ones.
6. Reference
- Aken J.E. van, Berends, H., Bij, H. van der (2012). Problem solving in organizations – A methodological handbook for business and management students.
- Akhtar, Reece, Gorkan Ahmetoglu, and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic. (2013) “Greed Is Good? Assessing the Relationship between Entrepreneurship and Subclinical Psychopathy.”
Personality and Individual Differences 54(3):420–25.
- Alvarez SA, Barney JB. (2007) Discovery and creation: alternative theories of entrepreneurial action. Strategic entrepreneurship journal. 2007;1(1-2):11-26. doi:10.1002/sej.4.
- Ardichvili A, Cardozo R, Ray S. A, (2003), theory of entrepreneurial opportunity identification and development. Journal of business venturing. 2003;18(1):105-123. doi:10.1016/S0883-9026(01)00068-4.
- Arenius, P. and Minniti, M. (2005). Perceptual variables and nascent entrepreneurship. Small Business Economics, 24, pp. 233–247.
- Babiak, P. and Hare R. (2007). Snakes in Suits : When Psychopaths Go to Work. New York: Harper.
- Baron, R., (2000), 'Psychological Perspectives on Entrepreneurship: Cognitive and Social Factors in Entrepreneurs' Success,', Current Directions in Psychological Science 9, 15-19.
- Baron, R. (2008). The role of affect in the entrepreneurial process. The Academy of Management Review, 33(2), 328-340.
- Baron, R. A., H. Zhao, and Q. Miao (2015). “Personal Motives, Moral Disengagement, and Unethical Decisions by Entrepreneurs: Cognitive Mechanisms on the ‘Slippery Slope',” Journal of Business Ethics 128(1), 107–118.
- Baron, R.A. & Ensley, M.D. (2006) Opportunity Recognition as the Detection of Meaningful Patterns: Evidence from Comparisons of Novice and Experienced Entrepreneurs.Management Science,52:1331 1344
- Baron RA, Tang J., (2011), The role of entrepreneurs in firm-level innovation: joint effects of positive affect, creativity, and environmental dynamism. Journal of business venturing. 2011;26(1):49-60. doi:10.1016/j.jbusvent.2009.06.002.
- Baron RA. (2004), Potential benefits of the cognitive perspective: expanding entrepreneurship's array of conceptual tools. Journal of business venturing. 2004;19(2):169-172. doi:10.1016/S0883-9026(03)00004-1.
- Baron RA. (2006), Opportunity recognition as pattern recognition: how entrepreneurs "Connect the dots" to identify new business opportunities. Academy of management perspectives. 2006;20(1):104-119.
- Baumol, W. (1990). Entrepreneurship: Productive, unproductive, and destructive. Journal of Political Economy, 98(5, Part 1), 893-921. doi:10.1086/261712
- Bhargava P. (2015) “The Psychology of Creativity.” Journal of the American College of Radiology : Jacr 12(9):1000–1001.
- Brewer G., Abell L., (2017), Machivellianism and romantic relationship dissolution, Personality and individual differences, Volume 106, 1 February 2017, Pages 226–230
- Butler JE, Doktor R, Lins FA. (2010), Linking international entrepreneurship to uncertainty, opportunity discovery, and cognition. Journal of international entrepreneurship.
2010;8(2):121-134. doi:10.1007/s10843-010-0054-x.
- Carson , S. H. , Peterson , J. B. , & Higgins ,D. M. (2005). Reliability, validity, and factor structure of the creative achievement questionnaire. Creativity Research Journal , 17, 37–50.
- Carson S. , Peterson J. & Higgins D. (2005) Reliability, Validity, and Factor Structure of the Creative Achievement Questionnaire, Creativity Research Journal, 17:1, 37-50, DOI: 10.1207/s15326934crj1701_4
- Casson MC. (1982) The Entrepreneur : An Economic Theory. Oxford: Martin Robertson.
- Chávez-Eakle, R., Eakle J., and Cruz-Fuentes C.. (2012). “The Multiple Relations between Creativity and Personality.” Creativity Research Journal 24(1):76–82.
- Chavez-Eakle R., Lara M. & Cruz-Fuentes C. (2006) Personality: A Possible Bridge Between Creativity and Psychopathology?, Creativity Research Journal, 18:1, 27-38, DOI:
10.1207/s15326934crj1801_4
- DeNisi, A. S. (2015). “Some Further Thoughts on the Entrepreneurial Personality,” Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 39, 997–1003.
- DeTienne DR , Chandler GN, (2004) Opportunity identification and its role in the entrepreneurial classroom: A pedagogical approach and empirical test, Academy of Management Learning & Education 3 (3), 242-257
- Fehr B., Samsom D.,Paulhus D.L., (1992), The construct of Machiavellianism: Twenty years later, C.D. Spielberger, J.N. Butcher (Eds.), Advances in personality assessment, Vol. 9, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ (1992), pp. 77–116
- Foo, M. (2011). Emotions and entrepreneurial opportunity evaluation. Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, 35, pp. 375–393.
- Franklin, S. (2016). Creativity. Business History Review, 90(04), 694-701. doi:10.1017/S0007680517000034
- Furnham, A., Richards, S. C., & Paulhus, D. L. (2013). The dark triad of personality: A 10 year review. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(3), 199-216.
- Furtner, M. R., J. F. Rauthmann, and P. Sachse (2011). “The Self-Loving Self-Leader: An Examination of the Relationship between Self-Leadership and the Dark Triad,” Social Behavior and Personality 39, 369–380.
- Gabriel MT, Critelli JW, Ee JS., (1994), Narcissistic illusions in self-Evaluations of intelligence and attractiveness. Journal of personality. 1994;62(1):143-155.
doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1994.tb00798.x.
- Goldberg, L. R. (1993). The structure of phenotypic personality-traits. American Psychologist, 48(1), 26–34.
- Grichnik, D. (2008). Risky choices in new venture decisions – experimental evidence from Germany and the United States. Journal of International Entrepreneurship, 6, pp. 22–47.
- Grichnik, D. (2008). Risky choices in new venture decisions – experimental evidence from Germany and the United States. Journal of International Entrepreneurship, 6, pp. 22–47.
- Gunnthorsdottir, A., McCabe K., and Smith. V. 2002. “Using the Machiavellianism Instrument to Predict Trustworthiness in a Bargaining Game.”
- Gustafson, S. B., & Ritzer, D. R. (1995). The dark side of normal: A psychopathy-linked pattern called aberrant self-promotion. European Journal of Personality, 9(3), 147-183.
- Hare, R. D., & Neumann, C. S. (2006). The PCL–R assessment of psychopathy:
Development, structural properties, and new directions. In C. Patrick (Ed.), Handbook of psychopathy (pp. 58–88). New York: Wiley.
- Hare, R. D. (1999). “Psychopathy As a Risk Factor for Violence.” Psychiatric Quarterly 70(3):181–98.
- Hare, R. D. (2003). The Hare Psychopathy Checklist—Revised (2nd ed.). North Tonawanda, NY: Multi-Health Systems.
- Hawley, P. (2003). “Prosocial and Coercive Configurations of Resource Control in Early Adolescence: A Case for the Well-Adapted Machiavellian.” Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 49(3):279–309.
- Hayek FA von. (1945) The Road to Serfdom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Heinonen J, Hytti U, Stenholm P. ,(2011), The role of creativity in opportunity search and business idea creation. Education training. 2011;53(8-9):659-672.
- Hessels, J., Grilo, I., Thurik, R. and van der Zwan, P. (2011). Entrepreneurial exit and entrepreneurial engagement. Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 21, pp. 447–471.
- Jakobwitz S, Egan V., (2006), The dark triad and normal personality traits. Personality and individual differences. 2006;40(2):331-339. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2005.07.006.
- Jonason, P. K., N. P. Li, G. D. Webster, and D. P. Schmitt (2009). “The Dark Triad: Facilitating a Short-Term Mating Strategy in Men,” European Journal of Personality 23, 5–18.
- Jonason P. K., Teicher E. A., and Li N. P. (2010). “Who Is James Bond?: The Dark Triad As an Agentic Social Style.” Individual Differences Research 8(2):111–20.
- Jonason P.K., Webster G.D.,(2010), The Dirty Dozen: A concise measure of the dark triad, Psychological Assessment, 22 (2) , pp. 420–432
- Jones D.N., Neria A.L., (2015) The dark triad and dispositional aggression, Personality and Individual Differences, 86 , pp. 360–364
- Jones DN, Figueredo AJ. (2013) The core of darkness: uncovering the heart of the dark triad. European journal of personality.;27(6):521-531. doi:10.1002/per.1893.
- Kapoor H. (2015) The Creative Side of the Dark Triad, Creativity Research Journal, 27:1, 58-67, DOI: 10.1080/10400419.2014.961775
- Kets de Vries, M. F. (1985). The dark side of entrepreneurship. Harvard Business Review,63(6), 160-167.
- Kickul J, Griffiths M, Bacq S. ,2010,The boundary-less classroom: extending social innovation and impact learning to the field. Journal of small business and enterprise development. 2010;17(4):652-663.
- Klotz, A. C., and D. O. Neubaum (2016). “Research on the Dark Side of Personality Traits in Entrepreneurship: Observations from an Organizational Behavior Perspective,”
Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 40, 7–17.
- Kuckertz A., Kollmann T., Stockmann C., and Krell P. (2017). “Understanding,
Differentiating, and Measuring Opportunity Recognition and Opportunity Exploitation.” International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research 23(1):78–97.
- Levenson M. R., Kiehl K. A., and Fitzpatrick C. M. (1995). “Assessing Psychopathic Attributes in a Noninstitutionalized Population.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 68(1):151–58
- Levenson M. R., Kiehl K. A., and Fitzpatrick C. M. (1995). “Assessing Psychopathic Attributes in a Noninstitutionalized Population.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 68(1):151–58.
- Li Y., (2011) Emotions and new venture judgment in China,June, Volume 28, Issue 2, pp 277–298
- Lubit R. (2002) The long-Term organizational impact of destructively narcissistic managers. The academy of management executive (1993-2005).;16(1):127-138.
- Mahnke V, Venzin M, Zahra SA. ,(2007), Governing entrepreneurial opportunity recognition in mNEs: aligning interests and cognition under uncertainty*. Journal of management studies. 2007;44(7):1278-1298. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6486.2007.00730.x.
- Mary George, N., Parida, V., Lahti, T. et al. Int Entrep Manag J (2016) 12: 309. doi:10.1007/s11365-014-0347-y
- Mathieu C, St-Jean É., (2013), Entrepreneurial personality: the role of narcissism. Personality and individual differences. 2013;55(5):527-531. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2013.04.026.
- McClelland, D. (1961). The achieving society. Princeton, N.J.: Van Nostrand.
- McHoskey, J. (1995). Narcissism and Machiavellianism. Psychological Reports, 77(3), 755-759.
- McHoskey, J. W., Worzel, W., & Szyarto, C. (1998). Machiavellianism and psychopathy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(1), 192-210.
- McHoskey J., (1995), Narcissism and Machiavellianism, Psychological Reports, 77 (1995), pp. 755–759
- McHoskey J.W., Worzel W., Szyarto C., (1998) Machiavellianism and psychopathy, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74 , pp. 192–210
- Mitchell, J.R. and Shepherd, D.A. (2010). To thine own self be true: images of self, images of opportunity, and entrepreneurial action. Journal of Business Venturing, 25, pp. 138–154
- Morf, C. C., & Rhodewalt, F. (2001). Unraveling the paradoxes of narcissism: A dynamic self-regulatory processing model. Psychological Inquiry, 12(4), 177-196.
- Morf C, Weir C, Davidov M., (2000), Narcissism and intrinsic motivation: the role of goal congruence. Journal of experimental social psychology. 2000;36(4):424-438.
- Mullins-Sweatt SN, Glover NG, Derefinko KJ, Miller JD, Widiger TA, (2010),. The search for the successful psychopath. Journal of research in personality. 2010;44(4):554-558. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2010.05.010.
- Neter, J., Kutner, M. H., Nachtsheim, C. J., & Wasserman, W. (1996). Applied linear statistical models (Vol. 4, p. 318). Chicago: Irwin.
- Nunnally, J. C. (1978). Psychometric theory (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
- O'Boyle EH, Forsyth DR, Banks GC, Story PA, White CD., (2015), A meta-Analytic test of redundancy and relative importance of the dark triad and five-Factor model of personality. Journal of personality. 2015;83(6):644-664. doi:10.1111/jopy.12126.
- O'Reilly III., C. A., B. Doerr, D. F. Caldwell, and J. A. Chatman (2014). “Narcissistic CEOs and Executive Compensation,” The Leadership Quarterly 25(2), 218–231.
- Osburn H. & Mumford M. (2006) Creativity and Planning: Training Interventions to Develop Creative Problem-Solving Skills, Creativity Research Journal, 18:2, 173-190, DOI:
10.1207/s15326934crj1802_4
- Paulhus D.L., Neumann C.S., Hare R.D., (2009), Manual for the Self Report Psychopathy (SRP) scale, Multi-Health Systems, Toronto, Ontario
- Ramos-Rodríguez, A. et al. (2010). What you know or who you know? the role of intellectual and social capital in opportunity recognition. International Small Business Journal, 28(6), 566-582.
- Raskin R., Novacek J., and Hogan R. (1991). “Narcissism, Self-Esteem, and Defensive Self-Enhancement.” Journal of Personality 59(1):19–38.
- Raskin R., Terry H., (1988), A principal-components analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory and further evidence of its construct validity, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54 (5) (1988), p. 890
- Reuter , M. , Roth , S. , Holve , K. , & Hennig , J. ( 2006 ). Identification of first candidate genes for creativity: A pilot study . Brain Research , 1069 , 190 – 197
- Robert J. Sternberg (2006) The Nature of Creativity, Creativity Research Journal, 18:1, 87-98, DOI: 10.1207/s15326934crj1801_10
- Runco et al., (2011), The Genetic Basis of Creativity and Ideational Fluency, Creativity Research Journal ,Volume 23, 2011 - Issue 4, Pages 376-380
- Schepers, Donald H. (2003). “Machiavellianism, Profit, and the Dimensions of Ethical Judgment: A Study of Impact.” Journal of Business Ethics 42(4):339–52.
- Schumpeter, J. (1942). Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. New York: Harper and Roe Publishers.
- Shepherd, D., Patzelt, H. and Wolfe, M. (2011). Moving forward from project failure: negative emotions, affective commitment, and learning from the experience. Academy of Management Journal, 54, pp. 361–380.
- Shepherd, D., Wiklund, J. and Haynie, J. (2009). Moving forward: balancing the financial and emotional costs of business failure. Journal of Business Venturing, 24, pp. 134–148.
- Shepherd, D. A., H. Patzelt, and R. A. Baron (2013). “I Care About Nature But…Disengaging Sustainable Development Values to Exploit Opportunities that Harm the Natural
Environment,” Academy of Management Journal 56, 1251–1273
- Shepherd, D.A., McMullen, J.S. and Jennings, P.D. (2007). The formation of opportunity beliefs: overcoming ignorance and reducing doubt. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 95, pp. 75–95.
- Shepherd, D.A. (2003). Learning from business failure: propositions of grief recovery for the self-employed. Academy of Management Review, 28, pp. 318–328.
- Sherry S.B., Hewitt P.L., Besser A., Flett G.L., Klein C., (2006) Machiavellianism, trait perfectionism and perfectionist self-presentation, Personality and Individual Differences, 40 , pp. 829–839
- Thorndike, EL (1920), "A constant error in psychological ratings", Journal of Applied Psychology, 4 (1): 25–29
- Tominc, P., Rebernik, M., (2007). Growth aspirations and cultural support for
entrepreneurship: A comparison of post-Socialist countries. Small Business Economics : An Entrepreneurship Journal, 28(2-3), 239-255. doi:10.1007/s11187-006-9018-x
- Van Praag, M., & Versloot, P. H. (2007). What is the value of entrepreneurship? A review of recent research. Small Business Economics, 29(4), 351-382.
- Vazire S. and Funder D. C. (2006). “Impulsivity and the Self-Defeating Behavior of
Narcissists.” Personality and Social Psychology Review : An Official Journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc 10(2):154–65.
- Wales W. J., Patel P. C., and Lumpkin G. T. (2013). “In Pursuit of Greatness: Ceo Narcissism, Entrepreneurial Orientation, and Firm Performance Variance.” Journal of Management Studies 50(6):1041–69.
- Watts, A. L.; Lilienfeld, S. O.; Smith, S. F.; Miller, J. D.; Campbell, W. K.; Waldman, I. D.; Rubenzer, S. J.; Faschingbauer, T. J. (2013) The Double-Edged Sword of Grandiose
Narcissism: Implications for Successful and Unsuccessful Leadership among U.s. Presidents. Psychological Science, 24 (12), 2379–2389.
- Webb, J. W., L. Tihanyi, R. D. Ireland, and D. G. Sirmon (2009). “You Say Illegal, I Say Legitimate: Entrepreneurship in the Informal Economy,” Academy of Management Review 34, 492–510.
- Wilson D. S., Near D., and Miller R. R. (1996). “Machiavellianism: A Synthesis of the Evolutionary and Psychological Literatures.” Psychological Bulletin 119(2):285–99.
- Young, S. and Pinsky. D., (2006). “Narcissism and Celebrity.” Journal of Research in Personality 40(5):463–71.
7. Appendix
7.1 Survey
7.1.1 Test creativity
8 min on average. The questionnaire was available in French and in English.
1. I frequently identify opportunities that could lead to starting a new business (even though I may not pursue them).
2. I enjoy thinking about new ways of doing things.
3. I found new way of doing thing that could improve my daily life in the last month (even though I might not pursue the ideas).
4. I frequently have ideas that can be converted into innovative products or services (even though I may not pursue them).
5. I am willing to be an entrepreneur or self-employed but I lack ideas that may materialise into profitable enterprises.
6. I found novel uses for objects in the last month (even though I might not pursue the ideas). 7. I like search for new business and explore them to have new ideas.
7.1.2 Test Dark Triad: dirty dozen
SD3: 27 items for 5 min on average. The test was available in French and in English. The question were put in a random order, without mention of the titles (e.g. “Machiavellianism subscale”).
The following scale will be used for the questionnaire. The mention R indicated that the scale as to be reversed when computing the results.
1 2 3 4 5
Strongly Disagree Disagree Neither Agree nor Disagree
Agree Strongly Agree
Machiavellianism subscale
1. It's not wise to tell your secrets.
2. I like to use clever manipulation to get my way.
3. Whatever it takes, you must get the important people on your side. 4. Avoid direct conflict with others because they may be useful in the future. 5. It’s wise to keep track of information that you can use against people later. 6. You should wait for the right time to get back at people.
7. There are things you should hide from other people because they don’t need to know. 8. Make sure your plans benefit you, not others.
9. Most people can be manipulated.
1. People see me as a natural leader. 2. I hate being the center of attention. (R)
3. Many group activities tend to be dull without me.
4. I know that I am special because everyone keeps telling me so. 5. I like to get acquainted with important people.
6. I feel embarrassed if someone compliments me. (R) 7. I have been compared to famous people.
8. I am an average person. (R)
9. I insist on getting the respect I deserve.
Psychopathy
1. I like to get revenge on authorities. 2. I avoid dangerous situations. (R) 3. Payback needs to be quick and nasty. 4. People often say I’m out of control. 5. It’s true that I can be mean to others. 6. People who mess with me always regret it. 7. I have never gotten into trouble with the law. (R) 8. I enjoy having sex with people I hardly know 9. I’ll say anything to get what I want.
7.1.3 Control variables
1. age2. sex 3. country
5. Entrepreneur: yes/no. If yes, how long have you been entrepreneur? 6. Student: yes/no
7.2 Results of the survey
Participant Mach Narc Psy Crea Sex Age Study Stud Eneur
