Роль черт «темной триады» личности в формировании предпринимательских намерений у студентов и недавних выпускников

Entrepreneurship is a crucial mechanism connected with economic growth (Burns, 2016). There are several reasons for that, firstly, it stimulates knowledge transfer, not only inside an organization, but also outside. This mechanism is named as a knowledge spillover. Secondly, the more new enterprises appear, the more intensive competition is. This competition, consequently, becomes an incentive for firms to develop and create and apply new ideas. Moreover, the more firms are in the region, the more diversity is there due to the fact that all firms are unique in some way (Tom et al., 2014).
Whereas the role of entrepreneurial firm in the development of the economy is highlighted by a lot of research, the role of the individual, namely, entrepreneur and his personality is less discussed. Nevertheless, the personality of the person who starts and operates the business is important to consider as it is inevitably linked to the business itself, results it obtains and, moreover, primarily, with the formation of entrepreneurial intentions and further involvement into entrepreneurial activity.
As actions tend to start with an intention to do it (Ajzen, 1991), businesses start with an intention of a person or of a group of people to start it. Currently researchers investigate personality traits of people that can possibly be linked with the formation of entrepreneurial intentions, predisposition to entrepreneurship, in other words, the probability of the becoming an entrepreneur, or with the probability of the success in entrepreneurial activity or high performance of the firm (Kerr et al., 2017). For instance, personality traits from Big-5 model, which consists of openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, are widely discussed in the context of entrepreneurship (Zhao & Seibert, 2006; Leutner et al., 2014). Other traits under the consideration include self-efficacy (Chen et al., 1998; Newman et al., 2019), internal locus of control (Littunen, Storhammer, 2000), motivation (DeTienne et al., 2008). However, just a limited number of research exist that takes into account ambiguous personality traits, usually perceived as negative ones (Wiklund et al., 2018), for instance, attention deficit hyperactivity syndrome (Lerner et al., 2018).
Therefore, the research gap consists in the lack of the studies investigating the link between traits that are commonly perceived as negative ones, but at the same time can potentially be the drivers of entrepreneurial intentions. The traits that are going to be considered is a set of 3 traits – narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism that are known as Dark Triad personality traits.
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The research goal of the study is to determine the mechanism of the influence of Dark triad traits to entrepreneurial intentions among students and recent graduates.
Research question that is to be enlightened in this work is the following: What is the influence of Dark Triad psychological traits on entrepreneurial intentions among students and recent graduates?
Investigation of entrepreneurial intentions of students and recent graduates is justified by the fact that popularity of entrepreneurial career path is growing among the youth. Moreover, students are on the eve of the career choice and career start, so it is appropriate audience for exploring entrepreneurial intentions, as entrepreneurship is one of the potential career ways. The significance of youth entrepreneurship is connected with the contribution to the solution of youth employment problem: young entrepreneurs tend to hire other young people and they are more open to new trends and economic opportunities (Kew et al., 2013). According to 2013 GEM Youth Entrepreneurship report people between 18 and 24 years old are more inclined to choose career path as an entrepreneur than people from other age groups.
To achieve a goal and to answer a stated research question the following tasks are to be done:
1) Analysis of the literature about the role of Dark Triad in entrepreneurship and the formation of entrepreneurial intentions.
2) Construction of the theoretical model of the research based on Theory of Planned Behavior.
3) Research hypotheses development and justification.
4) Formation of the survey and the following collection of the data.
5) ProvisionofconclusionsaboutthemechanismoftheinfluenceofDarktriadtraitsto
entrepreneurial intentions based on the data analysis.
6) Development of practical recommendations based on the research.
The Master’s Thesis has the following structure: introduction includes the relevance and motivation of the study, research gap, research goal and research question. The first chapter is devoted to the literature overview of the role of Dark Triad in entrepreneurship and in the formation of entrepreneurial intentions, as well as, to the construction of theoretical model and hypotheses of the research. The second chapter includes the methodology of the research, survey and data description. The third chapter contains results of hypotheses and mediation testing, as
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well as the discussion of main findings, theoretical and practical contributions. Conclusion summarizes the research and includes limitations of the current research and suggestions for the further research.