Are social chameleons prone to entrepreneurship?

People differ in the extent to which they dispositionally monitor their projected images, expressive behavior and self-presentation according to the contingencies of the situations. Building on Snyder’s self-monitoring theory, this paper aims to assess the influences of self-monitoring on entrepreneurial intention and explain the process responsible for these effects. Because high self-monitors and low self-monitors differ in their ability to adapt their self-presentation and patterns of behaviors to the contingencies of the situation, it was reasonable to suspect that chameleon-like high self-monitors will be more prone to entrepreneurship than true-to-themselves low self-monitors.

Based on a sample of 296 respondents, a self-administered questionnaire assessing the attitude toward entrepreneurship, risk aversion, entrepreneurial intentions and the four dimensions of self-monitoring (acting ability, extraversion, other-directedness and speaking ability), and other control variables was conducted.

The findings of this study generally support that self-monitoring has relevance in predicting an individual’s entrepreneurial intentions. Because high self-monitors have more acting and speaking abilities, are more extroverted and are more concerned with how others perceive them than are low self-monitors, they would be more likely to start a business and become business owners as they possess favorable attitudes toward entrepreneurship. The overall result regarding risk aversion fails to support a mediating relationship between self-monitoring and entrepreneurial intentions. However, at the same time, the findings confirm that risk aversion directly reduces entrepreneurial intention.

The findings expand the implementation of Snyder’s self-monitoring theory in the entrepreneurship arena and make an important contribution to the many additions and alterations that have been implemented to the theory of planned behavior in the entrepreneurship literature to better explain entrepreneurial intentions and behaviors. The results add to these works by demonstrating that self-monitoring is a trait that influences the attitude toward entrepreneurship. Also, attitude toward entrepreneurship was found to be a mediator of the relationship between self-monitoring and entrepreneurial intentions. The limitation concerns the use of a convenience sample of students and cross-sectional data.

The outcomes of this study suggest greater utility for developers of educational curriculums, training programs and start-up knowledge in entrepreneurship. Targeting high self-monitors for training and educational programs in entrepreneurship and including the dimensions of self-monitoring, particularly acting abilities, speaking abilities, extraversion and other-directedness, in entrepreneurship training content will make these programs more successful, offered to the correct target and able to provide personalized content. Building on these results, governments, policymakers, nonprofit organizations and universities who are concerned about the encouragement of entrepreneurial spirit might take advantage of self-monitoring in their awareness advertising campaigns.

Past research in psychology, management and marketing has provided empirical support for the major propositions of Snyder’s self-monitoring theory. Largely unaddressed, however, is the question of whether self-monitoring might be a driver to take steps to start a business. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is among the first studies – if not the first – to provide evidence that self-monitoring leads to more favorable attitudes and intentions in the entrepreneurship domain. The positive effects found here increase the importance of self-monitoring as an individual-difference construct that broadens the knowledge of why some people are more predisposed to entrepreneurship.