The role of SME entrepreneurs’ innovativeness and personality in the adoption of innovations

Entrepreneurs’ innovativeness and personality play a key role in the adoption of innovations in Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). Following two complementary approaches, this study conceptualizes innovativeness at two levels of abstraction: general innovativeness (GI), that is, the degree of openness to newness; and specific innovativeness (SI), that is, the predisposition to be among the firsts to adopt innovations in a specific domain. This study measures GI and SI on a sample of SME entrepreneurs by using two different scales that are based on inventories extensively used in this field (i.e., the KAI [Kirton, J.M., 1976. Adaptors and innovators: a description and measure. Journal of Applied Psychology 61 (5), 622–629; Kirton, J.M., 2003. Adaption–Innovation in the Context of Diversity and Change. Routledge, London] and DSI [Goldsmith, R.E., Hofacker, C.F., 1991. Measuring consumer innovativeness. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 19 (3), 209–222] inventories) and tests their effects on the entrepreneurs’ intention to adopt innovations. Secondly, this study relates entrepreneurs’ innovativeness (both GI and SI) to their basic personality traits as assessed through the Five-Factor Model of human personality (cf. [Digman, J.M., 1990. Personality structure: emergence of the five-factor model. Annual Review of Psychology 41 (1), 417–440; McCrae, R.R., John, O.P., 1992. An introduction to the five-factor model and its implications. Journal of Personality 60 (2), 1–26]). Finally, it compares the predictive power of both GI and SI on the entrepreneurs’ intention to adopt innovations against that of a cognitive model that represents the framework of reference in this field (i.e., the Theory of Planned Behavior [Ajzen, I., 1991. The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 50 (2), 179–211]). Results suggest a number of implications for entrepreneurs, managers, and policy makers.