Entrepreneurship students and management students: differences in personality and motivation

The aim of this study was to examine some of the differences, in personality characteristics and motivation, between a group of 41 graduate entrepreneurship students and a group of 43 graduate management students. The study was aimed at contributing to the growing body of research endeavouring to develop a better understanding of the characteristics of entrepreneurs. Four well tested instruments were used, namely the NEO-PIR, the Work Preference Inventory, the Creative Self-efficacy Scale and an adaptation of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. As predicted, entrepreneurship students scored significantly higher on Openness, Creativity and Intrinsic motivation and lower on extrinsic motivation, than management students. The adaptation of the MBTI proved to be the least useful of the four instruments. The study demonstrated that well-established instruments could contribute to a better understanding of the personality of entrepreneurs. It was concluded that further work aimed at developing effective measures for latent entrepreneurial talent could be highly valuable, particularly for educators.