The Relationship Between Entrepreneur Characteristics And Entrepreneur Performance

All along, the entrepreneur characteristics is considered to be an important factor influences the performance of new ventures, many foreign scholars attempt to define entrepreneur characteristics in different ways. Schumpeter (1934) put forward the concept of entrepreneurship, and use different personal characteristics to divide person, McClelland (1961) proposed achievement need theory and Rotter (1966) proposed locus of control theory were widely referenced, the system of entrepreneur characteristics concept continuously deepening and development. In this paper, we referenced entrepreneur characteristics, entrepreneurial orientation, entrepreneurial performance theories from the theory of psychology, sociology theory, and achievement goal theory, and listed the relationship between the three concepts, in order to further study.Although entrepreneur characteristics has an important influence on the new venture’s success, survival and development, the research on entrepreneur traits is not rich. In this paper, firstly we researched the direct relationship between entrepreneur characteristics and entrepreneurial performance, then brought in the concept of entrepreneurial orientation to find moderating effect. This paper chose the need of achievement, locus of control, risk taking, tolerance of ambiguity four representative dimensions of entrepreneur characteristics, to study the effect between the four dimensions and entrepreneurial performance respectively. In the literature, it was confirmed many times that entrepreneurial orientation has an important significance for entrepreneur characteristics and entrepreneurial performance. Therefore, in this paper we trying to research if entrepreneurial orientation can adjust the relationship between entrepreneur traits and entrepreneurial performance, and propose hypothesis.This research collected datas through sent out on-the-spot questionnaires to the small and medium-sized enterprise entrepreneurs of Henan, Jiangsu, Anhui and other provinces, and made use of SPSS 19.0 to descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, correlation analysis and hierarchical regression analysis, to verify the hypothesis. The results validated the need of achievement, locus of control, and tolerance of ambiguity have direct positive influence on entrepreneurial performance, risk propensity has no significant influence on entrepreneurial performance. Entrepreneurial orientation has a negative moderating effect of risk taking and entrepreneurial performance’s relationship, and has a positive moderating effect of tolerance of ambiguity and entrepreneurial performance’s relationship, but entrepreneurial orientation has no obvious moderating effect to the need of achievement and locus of control. And then the paper discussed the empirical results and put forward the corresponding countermeasures and suggestions. Finally, we summarized this article, and pointed out the limitations of this study and the prospect for future research.