Personality Traits and the Likelihood of Self-Employment: A Journey into the Crafts’ Way of Doing Business

Runst Petrik and Thomä Jörg ()
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Runst Petrik: Institute for Small Business Economics, University of Göttingen (ifh), Goettingen, Germany
Thomä Jörg: Institute for Small Business Economics, University of Göttingen (ifh), Goettingen, Germany

German Economic Review, 2025, vol. 26, issue 3, 229-265

Abstract: Given the renewed scholarly interest in the crafts, this paper explores the nuances of crafts entrepreneurship through a personality-based approach. Our findings validate prior research on the general influence of broad and narrow personality traits on self-employment. However, our analysis also suggests that certain effects differ between crafts and non-crafts, most notably the role of the Big Five trait of conscientiousness – suggesting that there is something ‘unique’ about the crafts’ way of doing business that goes beyond firm size. In this way, we provide evidence that personality may affect self-employment differently depending on the sector or field of entrepreneurship.

Keywords: self-employment; personality traits; entrepreneurship; crafts sector (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D91 L26 M13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1515/ger-2024-0033

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