The unconscious motivation of entrepreneurs

NOT all dreams have happy endings. It is generally accepted that as many as 90 per cent of startups fail within three years.

Given these stark figures, it is important to consider the personal factors that influence entrepreneurial success. What kind of personality makes a person more, or less, likely to succeed?

This question has interested psychologists for decades, and some recent findings obtained by my colleagues and me may represent another piece of this complex puzzle.

We were interested to examine the personality factors that predicted the intention of undergraduates to follow different types of career paths, including entrepreneurship.

Particularly, we wanted to look at the influence of implicit motives: unconscious aspects of personality that influence o…