The Successful Intelligence of High-Growth Entrepreneurs: Links to New Venture Growth

We develop a model of successful intelligence in entrepreneurship. The model was tested through interviews with 22 printing industry CEOs and responses from 143 founders of early-stage, high-growth printing and graphics businesses. Successful intelligence combined with entrepreneurial self-efficacy to predict swift action and multiple improvement actions (repeated goal-driven changes). Swift action and multiple improvement actions predicted higher subsequent venture growth across four years. This field study confirmed that successful intelligence consists of practical, analytical, and creative intelligence and that, together with entrepreneurial self-efficacy, it enables and motivates successful entrepreneurial behavior. Intelligence has received little entrepreneurship research attention; however, this empirical study suggests that specific intelligences should be included as predictors in studies of venture outcomes. The two entrepreneurial behaviors developed here are useful concepts beyond the entrepreneurship domain.