Blogger Scott Shane at The New York Times ponders an interesting question…are entrepreneurs born or made?
The tendency to be an entrepreneur is heritable. (Heritability is the proportion of difference between individuals explained by genetic factors.)
We found these heritabilities were substantive regardless of what indications of entrepreneurship we measured: owning or operating a business, the number of businesses owned and operated, starting a business, the number of businesses started, having engaged in a start-up effort, the number of start-up efforts, being self-employed, or the number of years spent self-employed.
The heritabilities can be seen in analysis of multiple databases and can be seen in the research of other scholars as well as our own.
The tendency to identify new business opportunities is also heritable.
Plus, the tendency to identify business opportunities and the tendency to start new businesses have a common genetic source.
This pattern suggests that genetic factors might influence the odds of people becoming entrepreneurs by affecting their ability to identify new business opportunities.
Self-employment income is heritable, which suggests genetics affects not just the tendency to engage in entrepreneurship but also the ability to perform it.
The tendency to be an entrepreneur and personality traits of extraversion, openness to experience, and sensation-seeking have a common genetic component, as does the recognition of business opportunities and the personality trait of openness to experience.
These patterns suggest that our genes might affect our tendency to be entrepreneurs by influencing the types of personalities that we develop.
Photo by planetka.