The genetic basis of entrepreneurship: Effects of gender and personality

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2009.07.002Get rights and content

Abstract

Extending previous research on the genetic underpinnings of entrepreneurship, we investigate gender differences in the genetic influences on the tendency of people to become entrepreneurs. We also examined two mediating variables through which genetic factors may impact this tendency: extraversion and neuroticism. Based on 1285 pairs of identical twins (449 male and 836 female pairs) and 849 pairs of same-sex fraternal twins (283 male and 566 female pairs), we found that females have a strong genetic influence and zero shared-environmental influences on their tendency to become entrepreneurs. In contrast, males show zero genetic influence, but a large shared-environmental influence. Extraversion and neuroticism mediate the genetic influences on women’s tendency to become entrepreneurs, whereas extraversion mediates shared-environmental influences on men’s tendency to become entrepreneurs. We discuss this sharp difference in genetic influences on entrepreneurship across gender groups and highlight the different challenges that men and women face in their entrepreneurial endeavors.

Section snippets

Gender differences in the heritability of entrepreneurship

Gender differences in the prevalence of entrepreneurship have been studied for decades. Numerous studies show that there is a higher prevalence of entrepreneurship for men than that for women with similar backgrounds (e.g., Brush, 1992, Haber et al., 1987). Additionally, this gender difference tends to be robust across cultures and national boundaries. For example, among Israeli working women, approximately 5.1% are self-employed-entrepreneurs, compared to 15% of Israeli working men (Lerner,

The mediating role of extraversion and neuroticism

Meta-analytic studies have established that individual differences play a role in the tendencies of people to become entrepreneurs (e.g., Stewart and Roth, 2004, Zhao and Seibert, 2006). Various personality characteristics that have been shown to be related to entrepreneurship have also been linked to genetics. Thus, as White et al., 2006, White et al., 2007, Nicolaou and Shane, 2009 contend, it makes sense to speculate that one of the mechanisms through which genes influence entrepreneurship

Sample and procedures

The sample for the current study was drawn from the Swedish Twin Registry (STR) that was established in the late 1950s (for details see Lichtenstein et al., 2002, Pedersen et al., 2002). In 2006, twins in STR who were born in 1959–1985 completed a questionnaire on personality and work-related activities, including entrepreneurship. A total of 1285 pairs of identical (i.e., monozygotic or MZ) twins and 849 pairs of same-sex fraternal (i.e., dizygotic or DZ) twins provided complete data on

Results

Table 1 provides the comparison between MZ versus DZ twins on the variables used in this study. There were no significant differences in the prevalence of the three entrepreneurship indicators between MZ and DZ twins. However, MZ and DZ twins showed some differences with regards to their martial status (more DZ twins are married; χ2 = 13.24, p < .001), their age (DZ twins are older; t = −10.4, p < .001), and twin closeness (MZ twins are closer to their co-twins; t = 19.86, p < .001). These three variables

Discussion

Based on a large sample of MZ and same-sex DZ twins from the Swedish Twin Registry, we used quantitative genetic methods to examine the genetic influences on the propensity of these twins to become entrepreneurs. For both males and females, we estimated the genetic, shared-environmental, and non-shared-environmental factors that influence the propensity to become entrepreneurs. We found highly different heritability estimates for males versus females. Females show a high heritability and zero

Acknowledgment

The authors wish to acknowledge the Singapore Ministry of Education AcRF Tier 1 funding support (grant number R-317-000-069-112/133).

References (117)

  • N.M. Carter et al.

    Discontinuance among new firms in retail: The influence of initial resources, strategy, and gender

    Journal of Business Venturing

    (1997)
  • C.C. Cogliser et al.

    The intersection of leadership and entrepreneurship: Mutual lessons to be learned

    Leadership Quarterly

    (2004)
  • S.B.G. Eysenck et al.

    A revised version of the psychotism scale

    Personality and Individual Differences

    (1985)
  • M. Fay et al.

    Gender bias and the availability of business loans

    Journal of Business Venturing

    (1993)
  • M.E. Heilman et al.

    The vagaries of sex bias: Conditions regulating the undervaluation, equivaluation, and overvaluation of female job applicants

    Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

    (1988)
  • M. Lerner et al.

    Israeli women entrepreneurs: An examination of factors affecting performance

    Journal of Business Venturing

    (1997)
  • Y.M. Liu et al.

    Dispositional antecedents and outcomes of political skill in organizations: A four-study investigation with convergence

    Journal of Vocational Behavior

    (2007)
  • J.C. Loehlin et al.

    Heritabilities of common and measure-specific components of the Big Five personality factors

    Journal of Research in Personality

    (1998)
  • G. Matthews et al.

    The personality theories of H. J. Eysenck and J. A. Gray: A comparative review

    Personality and Individual Difference

    (1999)
  • N. Nicolaou et al.

    Can genetic factors influence the likelihood of engaging in entrepreneurial activity?

    Journal of Business Venturing

    (2009)
  • R. Rende et al.

    Diathesis-stress models of psychopathology: A quantitative genetic perspective

    Applied and Preventive Psychology

    (1992)
  • A.L. Riding et al.

    Women business owners and terms of credit: Some empirical findings of the Canadian experience

    Journal of Business Venturing

    (1990)
  • H. Ahl

    Why research on women entrepreneurs needs new directions

    Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice

    (2006)
  • H. Aldrich et al.

    A life course perspective on occupational inheritance: Self-employed parents and their children

  • H. Aldrich et al.

    The impact of social networks on business foundings and profit: A longitudinal study

  • H. Aldrich et al.

    Entrepreneurship through social networks

  • R.D. Arvey et al.

    Job satisfaction: Environmental and genetic components

    Journal of Applied Psychology

    (1989)
  • R.D. Arvey et al.

    Developmental and genetic determinants of leadership role occupancy among females

    Journal of Applied Psychology

    (2007)
  • R.M. Baron et al.

    The moderator–mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations

    Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

    (1986)
  • R.A. Baron et al.

    Perceptions of women and men as entrepreneurs: Evidence for differential effects of attributional augmenting

    Journal of Applied Psychology

    (2001)
  • J. Benjamin et al.

    Population and familial association between the D4 dopamine receptor gene and measures of novelty seeking

    Nature Genetics

    (1996)
  • L.J. Bierut et al.

    Major depressive disorder in a community-based twin sample: Are there different genetic and environmental contributions for men and women?

    Archives of General Psychiatry

    (1999)
  • B. Bird et al.

    A gendered perspective on organizational creation

    Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice

    (2002)
  • P.K. Bolinskey et al.

    Sources of individual differences in stressful life event exposure in male and female twins

    Twin Research and Human Genetics

    (2004)
  • T.J. Bouchard et al.

    Genes, evolution and personality

    Behavior Genetics

    (2001)
  • A.P. Brief

    Attitudes in and around organizations

    (1998)
  • J. Bruderl et al.

    Network support and the success of newly founded business

    Small Business Economics

    (1998)
  • C.G. Brush

    Research on women business owners: Past trends, a new perspective and future directions

    Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice

    (1992)
  • C.G. Brush et al.

    Growth-oriented women entrepreneurs and their businesses: A global research perspective

    (2006)
  • A.E. Burke et al.

    When less is more: Distinguishing between entrepreneurial choice and performance

    Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics

    (2000)
  • L. Busenitz

    Research in entrepreneurial alertness

    Journal of Small Business Management

    (1996)
  • R. Cederlof et al.

    Studies on similarity diagnosis in twins with the aid of mailed questionnaires

    Acta Geneticae Med Gemellologiae (Roma)

    (1961)
  • P.T. Costa et al.

    Revised NEO personality inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO five-factor (NEO-FFI) inventory professional manual

    (1992)
  • P.T. Costa et al.

    Personality and vocational interests in an adult sample

    Journal of Applied Psychology

    (1984)
  • E.E. Duehr et al.

    Men, women, and managers: Are stereotypes finally changing

    Personnel Psychology

    (2006)
  • L.J. Eaves et al.
    (1989)
  • T.C. Eley et al.

    Sex differences in the etiology of aggressive and non-aggressive antisocial behavior: Results from two twin studies

    Child Development

    (1999)
  • D. Evans et al.

    Some empirical aspects of entrepreneurship

    American Economic Review

    (1989)
  • H.J. Eysenck

    The biological basis of personality

    (1967)
  • H.J. Eysenck et al.

    Personality and individual differences

    (1985)

    • Cited by (162)

    • Micro-foundations of strategic decision-making in family business organisations: A cognitive neuroscience perspective

      2023, Long Range Planning

    • Intentions for what? Comparing entrepreneurial intention types within female and male entrepreneurship students

      2023, International Journal of Management Education

    • On the origins of entrepreneurship: Evidence from sibling correlations

      2021, Journal of Business Venturing
      Citation Excerpt :

      Our empirical analysis relies on a novel approach in entrepreneurship, using different sibling pair types to assess the correlation between shared genetic content and sibling correlations (Björklund et al., 2005), yet the results are similar to those obtained by classical twin studies. For example, Nicolaou and Shane (2010) document substantial heritability of entrepreneurial entry and intentions for both men and women in Sweden, while Nicolaou et al. (2008) and Zhang et al. (2009) find similar results for women in the United Kingdom and Sweden, respectively. While our results confirm the expectation that shared genes – as the earliest source of family influences – are particularly relevant for entrepreneurship, the importance of ‘nature’ by no means denies the importance of ‘nurture’ (Lindquist et al., 2015).

    • Parental attitudes and entrepreneurial success

      2021, Journal of Business Research

    • Individual entrepreneurial orientation for entrepreneurial readiness

      2024, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications

    • The impact of entrepreneurship research on other academic fields

      2024, Small Business Economics
    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text
    Published by Elsevier Inc.