Start-up entrepreneurs’ personality traits. An exploratory analysis of the Italian tourism industry

This study examines the personality traits of start-up entrepreneurs within the Italian tourism industry. The purpose is to investigate how the specific personality traits of narcissism, locus of control, and the Big Five (i.e. extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience) influence the tourism start-up entrepreneur’s behaviour. After a review and assessment of the literature regarding entrepreneurs’ personality traits, the paper describes a quantitative analysis of eighty-nine Italian start-up entrepreneurs operating in the tourism sector. Two main results arose from the empirical analysis. Firstly, tourism entrepreneurs seem to be particularly narcissistic, extroverted and friendly (extraversion), disciplined (agreeableness), self-assured, efficient and organized (conscientiousness), unconventional (openness to experience), and proactive and vigorous (internal locus of control). Secondly, some personality traits are found to influence the efficiency and innovative capacity of entrepreneurs which ultimately lead to the success of start-ups. The paper further advances our understanding of tourism entrepreneurship by clarifying the relevance of specific personality traits that characterize start-up entrepreneurs in the tourism industry.