Assessment of Eight Entrepreneurial Personality Dimensions: Validity Evidence of the BEPE Battery

The Behavioral, Emotional, and Social Skills Inventory: A Spanish Adaptation and Further Validation in Adult Population

Social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) skills encompass a broad range of interpersonal and intrapersonal abilities that are crucial for establishing and maintaining relationships, managing emotions, setting and pursuing goals, and exploring new learning opportunities. To address the lack of consensus regarding terminology, definition, and assessment of SEB skills, Soto et al. developed the Behavioral, Emotional, and Social Skills Inventory (BESSI), which consists of 192 items, 32 facets, and 5 domains. The objective of the current study was to adapt the BESSI to Spanish (referred to as BESSI-Sp) and enhance the overall understanding of the BESSI framework. A sample of 303 people was employed with a mean age of 30.35 years (SD = 14.73), ranging from 18 to 85 years. The results indicate that the BESSI-Sp demonstrates strong psychometric properties. Its facet- and domain-level structure aligns with the theoretical expectations and closely resembles the English-language source version. The facets exhibit high reliability (mean ω = .89), and the scores demonstrate adequate stability after 3 to 4 weeks (mean rICC = .77). The BESSI-Sp also displays evidence of convergent validity and integrates well with the Big Five framework, providing incremental validity for various outcomes. We discuss the implications of these findings for the assessment of SEB skills and future research in this field.

The relationship between entrepreneurial personality patterns linked to risk, innovation and gender across industrial sectors

This study examines the personality patterns of solo founders in both high-tech and non-high-tech sectors during the first seven years of their entrepreneurial journey to emphasize the patterns' implications during policymaking, investment decisions, and self-assessments. IAB/ZEW startup panel microdata for the sector classification of 4470 solo entrepreneurs in Germany were analyzed to identify Big Five trait patterns influenced by risk propensities, innovation inclination, and gender. The entrepreneurial profiles indicate positive openness, emotional resilience, and sector-specific clusters. Conscientiousness suggests flexibility, and while variations in extraversion and agreeableness exist, negative neuroticism was predominantly found, except for gender-related differences and multidimensional service innovators. Big Five traits provide information about important foundational profile patterns to describe unique solo entrepreneur types influenced by risk, innovation, and gender. Originality and value: Risk propensity characterizes 'Adaptive Services,' 'Dynamic Knowledge Innovators,' and 'Strategic Risk Navigators.' Additionally, 'Multidimensional Service Innovators' and 'Focused Tech Innovators' signify innovation understanding. The Big Five profiles show openness and emotional stability across sectors, providing crucial insights for effective entrepreneurial support and investment strategies.

Problematic Use of Social Networks during the First Lockdown: User Profiles and the Protective Effect of Resilience and Optimism

During the first lockdown, there was an increase in time spent using Social Networking Sites (SNS), which should be studied, as well as problematic SNS use. The present study has three objectives: to evaluate (i) the differences across gender and age and SNS type in increased SNS use, (ii) problematic SNS use during lockdowns, and (iii) the protective role of resilience and optimism on problematic SNS use. A total of 1003 participants (75.5% women) over 18 years old participated (M = 42.33; SD = 14.32 years). The use of SNS before and during lockdown, anxiety, depression, life satisfaction and problematic SNS use were evaluated. A repeated measures ANOVA and four regression analyses were calculated for the first objective regarding increased SNS use. Another linear regression analysis was calculated for the second objective regarding problematic SNS use. A correlational analysis has been performed to assess the protective roles of resilience and optimism. Differences in the increased use of SNS were found between the two time points and between the different types of SNS. Higher use of Instagram and YouTube was related to younger age. Being female was associated with higher Instagram use. Significant problematic use was found to be associated with younger age but was not dependent on gender. Higher levels of resilience and optimism were related to a lower level of problematic SNS use. SNS use during lockdown needs to be studied in order to understand factors that may protect against undesirable psychological consequences and support prevention programs.

Perceptions of Victimhood and Entrepreneurial Tendencies

There is a growing scientific interest around entrepreneurship. One central line of research examines how different personality traits and characteristics such as creativity or resilience relate to entrepreneurial intentions and behavior. In the current research, we add to this literature by focusing on trait victimhood, a trait that entrepreneurship research has overlooked and may be relevant to understanding entrepreneurial tendencies. In two studies in Israel among a sample of entrepreneurship students (Study 1) and a sample representing the general public (Study 2), we show that trait victimhood is negatively related to entrepreneurial personality (Study 1) and behavior (Study 2). Moreover, Study 2 suggests that a strong sense of self-efficacy may buffer against trait victimhood’s adverse effects on behavioral entrepreneurship.

Cognitive Strategies and Textual Genres in the Teaching and Evaluation of Advanced Reading Comprehension (ARC)

In the last decade, published data on the performance of Colombian students have concerned educators and researchers, making critical reading one of the priorities of Colombian education. That is why this article presents the results of a study carried out in a Latin American university in which the perceptions of students and professors are analyzed regarding the strategies and textual genres used to work and cross-evaluate the advanced reading comprehension (ARC). This study is materialized in the application of an ad hoc online questionnaire, in its two versions (students and teachers), designed through Survey Monkey. For this, it has the participation of 182 teachers and 2,775 students. There are several trends in the use of specific textual strategies and typologies to work and evaluate ARC, by both, depending on the department of assignment. The evidence found is provided and evaluated considering the implications for cross-curricular instruction and assessment in higher education in Latin America, including study limitations and prospects for overcoming them.

Grit Assessment: Is One Dimension Enough?

Grit is one of the non-cognitive variables that has received the most attention in recent years given its relationship to and influence in various aspects of life. There are very few reliable, valid instruments to evaluate it in Spanish-speaking countries. Because of that, the aim of this study is the development and validation of a new scale to evaluate grit in Spanish-speaking contexts. We used a sample of 531 Spanish participants (60% women) from the general population (M_years = 38.60, SD_years = 14.90). We examined the structure and measurement invariance of the instrument. We calculated the instrument's reliability and obtained evidence of validity in relation to other variables. We examined the differences in grit as a function of gender and age. The factorial analyses confirmed the unidimensionality of the instrument, along with the measurement invariance of the scores with respect to sex and age. The new grit scale demonstrated excellent reliability (α = .94; ω = .94). We found clear evidence of validity in relation to other variables; the Grit short scale (r = .691), self-control (r = .595), self-efficacy (r = .703), and conscientiousness (r = .661). The new scale for evaluating grit (Oviedo Grit Scale) is essentially unidimensional, and scores produced by it exhibit excellent indicators of reliability and validity.

Development of a computerized adaptive test to assess entrepreneurial personality

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE

Entrepreneurial behavior is of great importance nowadays owing to its significance in the generation of economic, social, personal, and cultural wellbeing. This behavior is influenced by cognitive and personality characteristics, as well as by socioeconomic and contextual factors. Entrepreneurial personality is made up of a set of psychological traits including self-efficacy, autonomy, innovation, internal locus of control, achievement motivation, optimism, stress tolerance, and risk-taking. The aim of this research is the development of a computerized adaptive test (CAT) to evaluate entrepreneurial personality.

METHOD

A bank of 120 items was created evaluating various aspects of the entrepreneurial personality. The items were calibrated with the Samejima Graded Response Model using a sample of 1170 participants (Mage = 42.34; SDage = 12.96).

RESULTS

The bank of items had an essentially unidimensional fit to the model. The CAT exhibited high accuracy for evaluating a wide range of θ scores, using a mean of 16 items with a very low standard error (M = 0.157). Relative validity evidence for the CAT was obtained with two additional tests of entrepreneurial personality (the Battery for the Assessment of the Enterprising Personality and the Measure of Enterpreneurial Tendencies and Abilities), with correlations of .908 and .657, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

The CAT developed has appropriate psychometric properties for the evaluation of entrepreneurial people.

The impact of organizational structure and work autonomy in fostering entrepreneurial tendencies and job performance

Purpose

Research examining the influence of organizational factors on entrepreneurial tendencies and performance within organizations is scarce. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of organizational structure and work autonomy on entrepreneurial tendencies, locus of control and performance.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were obtained online using validated self-report questionnaires in a sample of 181 currently employed individuals.

Findings

The results showed organizational structure components to be related to work autonomy and performance, but not to individual-level variables. However, work autonomy related to entrepreneurial tendencies and locus of control, indicating potential indirect effects of organizational structure on individual-level variables via work autonomy. Entrepreneurial tendencies and locus of control were positively related to performance.

Originality/value

Whilst the mediating effect of a number of individual-level traits has been examined in the past, very little research has looked at how organizational factors may influence entrepreneurial tendencies. Fostering entrepreneurial tendencies in employees may facilitate corporate entrepreneurship and performance within organizations.