ABSTRACT. The following research examines how personality traits affect entrepreneurial intention. The study employs a survey completed by 175 undergraduate students and an experimental study examining 62 entrepreneurs. This research demonstrates that a person’s dispositional (i.e. stable across time) prevention focus orientation predicts entrepreneurial intention. The individual with a lower dispositional prevention focus orientation has a higher entrepreneurial intention and thus may be more inclined to enter entrepreneurship. An implication from this finding is that an individual may self-select entrepreneurship based on his or her dispositional prevention focus orientation. This implication is verified in the post hoc analysis, which demonstrates that the 62 entrepreneurs studied have lower dispositional prevention focus orientations than the students. pp. 94–114

Keywords: entrepreneurial intention; regulatory focus; personality; experiment
JEL codes: M13; L26