The Interplay of Entrepreneurial Orientation and Psychological Traits in Explaining Firm Performance

Findings in management and psychological research support an integrated model of firm level as well as individual level variables in order to predict firm performance. However, previous research has not integrated the strategic firm-level entrepreneurial orientation as the strategic decision and CEOs’ individual traits of dominance and self-efficacy as the managerial ability so far. We fill this void by applying a fsQCA to investigate the dependencies of CEOs’ personality and firm orientations in a small firm context (N = 723 CEOs). In young firms, all paths explaining firm performance consist of a combination of firm and individual variables. Established firms either pursue a proactive strategy or rely on a dominant, self-confident manager. Our findings support an integrated view on firm performance as dominance and self-efficacy of CEOs serve as essential individual factors in addition to strategic decisions aligned to entrepreneurial orientation (EO).