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Similarity is not everything: the influence of personal characteristics of entrepreneurs and investors on their fit

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Abstract

New technology-based firms (NTBFs) currently represent a strong growth lever for the economy, but they face numerous obstacles. Achieving financing goals is a key element in securing sufficient resources for growth. To do so, entrepreneurs need to build high-quality relationships with investors. Through the proposition of an integrative model thanks to the upper echelon theory (UET), our research studies how personal characteristics of entrepreneurs and investors influence their fit. In an original qualitative approach, we interviewed nine pairs of entrepreneurs and investors. To complement findings in entrepreneur/investor relationship field, we demonstrate that similarity is not everything and that complementary personality traits, aligned values and past experience which give confidence are crucial antecedents of their fit. We also complement past research by showing that those personal characteristics are more important in the first stages of pre-financing process, from the encounter stage, even if they need to be taken into account throughout the process via the construction of the interpersonal relationship between the two actors.

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Notes

  1. One of the investors interviewed has invested in two start-ups and thus was involved with two entrepreneurs. That investor’s responses to our interview questions were, however, differentiated enough regarding those two companies for us to consider the two investor–entrepreneur relationships as unique.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble INP, CERAG, 38000, Grenoble, France

    Caroline Tarillon, Han Yu, Ludivine Adla & Geoffroy Enjolras

  2. Université Savoie Mont-Blanc, IUT Annecy, IREGE, Annecy, France

    Elodie Manthé

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  1. Caroline Tarillon
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  2. Han Yu
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  3. Ludivine Adla
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Correspondence to Caroline Tarillon.

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Tarillon, C., Yu, H., Adla, L. et al. Similarity is not everything: the influence of personal characteristics of entrepreneurs and investors on their fit. Int Entrep Manag J 19, 709–732 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11365-023-00837-6

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