From Traits to Teams: How Founder Personality Shapes Innovation in New Ventures

From Traits to Teams: How Founder Personality Shapes Innovation in New Ventures | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article From Traits to Teams: How Founder Personality Shapes Innovation in New Ventures Lubna Al-Duri, Eline Schoonjans This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8228988/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract This study explores which founder personality traits contribute to the innovativeness of new firms, with a particular emphasis on understanding how diversity in the founding team mediates this relationship. In a sample of 2,169 young German firms between 2011 and 2022, our results show that founder personality and team diversity affect firm innovativeness. Openness to new experiences and agreeableness have a significantly positive influence on innovation input and output, whereas conscientiousness has a negative effect. Demographic, educational, and professional diversity within founding teams are positively associated with firm innovativeness. Age, gender, and nationality diversity are positively associated with conscientiousness and negatively with extraversion and agreeableness. Team diversity only modestly mediates the effects of founder personality, often opposing their direct impacts. These findings provide theoretical and practical insights into how personality profiles shape founding teams and firm innovation. Young firm innovation can be enhanced by balancing personality-driven biases and encouraging diversity-conscious teams. Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8228988","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":559219968,"identity":"9b835a6a-2125-4c4d-b2ce-d8097e0632e4","order_by":0,"name":"Lubna Al-Duri","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Technical University of Munich","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Lubna","middleName":"","lastName":"Al-Duri","suffix":""},{"id":559219969,"identity":"836ca0e5-fa51-4821-9e75-f2e7e858d6bb","order_by":1,"name":"Eline Schoonjans","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAABBElEQVRIiWNgGAWjYDACdsYGMG0AIiSAmB/MZcOjhRldi2QDQS1Q2gAmYHCAgBZ+Zua2Bx8Y6uTN2ZuPPbCouWNvfP7wMQmGMhucWiSbGdsNZzAcNtzZcyzdQOLYs8RtB46lSTCcS8OpxeAwY5s0D8OBBIMbOWYSEmyHE8wO9pjdYGw7jFOLPUjLH4Y6qJZ/h+2Nm/m/AbX8x20LM1ALMBAgWiTbDjNuYONhA2o5gFOLBNAWyR6Dw4YbzgC9INl3OHHGGTbzHwnnknFq4W9vfybxo6JO3uB48zFpiW+H7fn7Dz82+FBmh1ML1HkQilkCJpBAQAMcMH4gVuUoGAWjYBSMKAAAFfRQHvYrTUAAAAAASUVORK5CYII=","orcid":"","institution":"Centre for European Economic Research","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Eline","middleName":"","lastName":"Schoonjans","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2025-11-28 09:53:12","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8228988/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8228988/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":98205065,"identity":"c5429f92-699f-48af-9b49-f3f8a243c648","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-15 08:36:14","extension":"json","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"acdc-reference","size":3911,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"d665abda0ec249c9a858c79625292a68.json","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8228988/v1/6a29b07403b47d628c4aa0ea.json"},{"id":98797276,"identity":"90bb0033-ad2c-4198-9a77-b9ecd2fca847","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-12-22 12:58:06","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":440842,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"SBEFromTraitstoTeams1.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8228988/v1_covered_aa041a10-d122-4ae8-a6bf-1e5e73a38256.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"From Traits to Teams: How Founder Personality Shapes Innovation in New Ventures","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8228988/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8228988/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"This study explores which founder personality traits contribute to the innovativeness of new firms, with a particular emphasis on understanding how diversity in the founding team mediates this relationship. 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