Big Five Personality Traits and Entrepreneurial Intention of University Lecturers in Nigeria
Agu Godswill Agu
*
Department of Marketing, Abia State University, Nigeria.
Esi-Ubani Chidiadi Obinna
Department of Marketing, Abia State University, Nigeria.
Onwuka O. Onwuka
Department of Accounting, Abia State University, Nigeria.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
The study investigates the link between the personality traits of Nigerian university lecturers and their entrepreneurial intents in the post-COVID-19 era. Based on the Big Five Model, data was gathered from a purposive sample of 207 lecturers in south eastern Nigerian universities. The structural equation modeling was deployed in verifying the proposed conceptual model. Findings indicate that the Covid-19 pandemic ignited entrepreneurial passion among the university lecturers since the hardship they faced during the pandemic era pushed majority to venture into entrepreneurship. Besides, the proposed model explains 58.6% of the variance in lecturers’ entrepreneurial intention in the post-pandemic era. Only conscientiousness, extraversion and neuroticism were confirmed as positive and significant drivers of entrepreneurial intention of the university lecturers in Nigeria in the post-COVID-19 era, while openness and agreeableness emerged as non-significant drivers. The study presents both theoretical and practical insights to the post-pandemic entrepreneurial intentions of an unexplored group (university lecturers) in an emerging economy.
Keywords: Big five personality traits, entrepreneurial intention, university lecturers, Nigeria