The Role of Greed in the Entrepreneurial Process

Greed refers to an insatiable desire for more (of something). Recent studies reveal that greed (for money) may be an over-represented trait among the entrepreneurial population. Building on this empirical insight, I set out to investigate the role greed plays in the entrepreneurial process. Specifically, I seek to address the following questions in this thesis: <em style="color: #1c1e29;background:transparent;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;">(a) How is greed (in a general sense) different from other characteristics that are often found in entrepreneurs? and (b) How does greed for money influence entrepreneurial decision-making pertaining to opportunity exploitation?</em> In Chapter 2, I examine the relationship between greed (in a general sense) and two of the personality characteristics related to entrepreneurship—achievement motivation and risk-taking propensity. I argue and find that while greed and achievement motivation/risk-taking propensity share similar qualities, greed is distinct from these two constructs. The findings suggest that greed may be a unique and useful construct to the study of entrepreneurship. In Chapter 3, I investigate how greed for money influences the type of opportunities entrepreneurs decide to exploit. Drawing upon insights from greed research, I hypothesize that entrepreneurs with high levels of greed for money tend to emphasize financial gain and de-emphasize prosocial impact when they make decisions about opportunities. Furthermore, I draw on trait activation theory and theorize that industry dynamism—the level of uncertainty and change in a given industry (Dess &amp; Beard, 1984)—serves as a boundary condition for the effects of greed for money on entrepreneurs’ opportunity-exploitation decisions. To test the hypotheses, I conducted a mixed-methods study with 114 entrepreneurs located in Singapore. Results show that an entrepreneur’s greed for money is indeed positively associated with an emphasis on financial gain and negatively associated with an emphasis on prosocial impact of an opportunity. However, contrary to my expectations, results reveal that industry dynamism serves as a boundary condition for the effects of greed for money—it affects opportunity-exploitation decisions only when industry dynamism is low. Taken together, my dissertation contributes to the development of a theory for greed in general and, more importantly, sheds light on the role of greed for money in the entrepreneurial process by documenting the effects of greed for money on entrepreneurial decision-making pertaining to opportunity exploitation.