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The joint influence of personality traits and individual absorptive capacity on innovation activities in SME’s

Sikkens, A. (2013) The joint influence of personality traits and individual absorptive capacity on innovation activities in SME’s.

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Abstract:This thesis addresses the influence of combinations of the big-five personality traits of a CEO combined with the individual absorptive capacity of a CEO on the innovation activities adopted by an SME. The key concepts in this thesis are the big-five personality traits and individual absorptive capacity. The big-five personality traits consist of five dimensions. The big-five personality traits are five broad dimensions that are used to describe a person’s personality. These dimensions are emotional stability, openness to experience, extraversion, conscientiousness and agreeableness. Individual absorptive capacity consists of four dimensions. Individual absorptive capacity is defined as the activity of an individual to recognize the importance and value of external sources of knowledge, assimilate it and apply it for commercial use. The dimensions of individual absorptive capacity are recognition, assimilation, transformation and exploitation. In this thesis innovation activity was split up into two categories. These categories are exploitation and exploration. Exploration innovation activity can be defined as an SME’s search for new knowledge, the use of technology that is not known by the SME and to produce products or services for which the demand is unknown to the SME. An exploitation innovation activity can be defined as, an SME will improve his existing knowledge, technologies, products or services for which the demands to a certain extend are known by the SME. Earlier research already indicated that the personality of a CEO and the individual absorptive capacity of a CEO have an influence innovation within an SME. No research has been conducted that looks at combinations of the big-five personality traits of a CEO combined with individual absorptive capacity of a CEO and how they together influence the innovation activities of an SME. The primary objective of this thesis was to find combinations of the big-five personality traits combined with individual absorptive capacity that will influence the adopted innovation activity of an SME. The data for this thesis was obtained with the use of a questionnaire. The sample consists of 35 CEO of SME’s operation in the region of Twente in the Netherlands. The data obtained was analyzed with the use of fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fs/QCA 2.0). The results obtained in this thesis show that certain combinations of the big-five personality traits of a CEO combined with individual absorptive capacity of a CEO lead to exploration or exploitation as innovation activities of an SME. The results show that a low score on openness to experience, a high score on conscientiousness and a low score on individual absorptive capacity or a high score on emotional stability, a high score on openness to experience and a high score on individual absorptive capacity will lead to a high score on exploration as an SME’s innovation activity. The results also show that a low score on emotional stability and a low score on openness to experience will lead to a high score on exploitation as an SME’s innovation activity. The obtained results of this thesis show that the five personality traits of the five factor model and individual absorptive capacity should be seen as complements instead of substitutes. A CEO’s personality traits and individual absorptive capacity have a combined influence on the innovation outcome of an SME.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:85 business administration, organizational science
Programme:Business Administration BSc (56834)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/63688
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