The Narcissists Wallet: The Nexus between Narcissism and Financial Decision-Making among Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Sammanfattning: This study examines how grandiose narcissism affects the resource acquisition of aspiring entrepreneurs. The study's results help bridge a gap in the literature and provide a better understanding of the nexus between narcissism and entrepreneurial finance. By drawing on previous literature from both fields, we set out to explore the relationship between narcissism and an individual’s preference for funding options that introduce no external influence into the business. Through a multinomial logistic regression, data collected among aspiring entrepreneurs in the Swedish educational and start-up systems showed a significant positive correlation between narcissism and a preference for financial sources without external influence. Furthermore, our study found that age and gender do not significantly moderate the relationship between narcissism and financial preferences. These findings suggest a clear role of the individual’s personality, particularly the influence of dark traits, in the entrepreneurial choice of finance. This knowledge can assist practitioners and researchers in developing more comprehensive theories and frameworks that include personality traits, such as narcissism, in the study of entrepreneurship and resource acquisition. Policymakers and investors can also utilise this understanding of the influence of narcissistic traits on funding preferences to design more customised support systems and funding options that cater to aspiring entrepreneurs' diverse needs and motivations.