The Effect of Gender on Entrepreneurial Personality Characteristics of Students: Case of University of Semnan

The relationship between gender and entrepreneurship is a vital one. Research shows that the rate of women entrepreneurship is lower as compared to that of men, and this remains true of most countries, Iran included. A question arises as whether gender variable has an effect on entrepreneurial personality characteristics of people. The present research is the effort to answer the above question. To gather information on entrepreneurial personality characteristics, standardized questionnaire in Iran has been used. Thus, information relating to entrepreneurial personality characteristics of 400 students of University of Semnan (Male and Female) has been surveyed and evaluated. These features and characteristics include: “risk taking propensity,” “internal locus of control,” “need for achievement,” “thinking fluency,” “pragmatism,” “ambiguity tolerance,” “imaginative,” and “challenging” traits. Data analysis, using descriptive statistics, indicated there was no difference between most entrepreneurial personality characteristics of students of University of Semnan. But exclusive data related to each feature indicated the existence of partial difference in two features of “need for achievement” and “ambiguity tolerance” among Semnan University students. Moreover, The Mann-Whitney U Test indicated that there is not any meaningful difference between entrepreneurial personality characteristics among students. Only two features of “pragmatism” and “imaginative” traits became meaningful among male and female students. Following the theoretical basis of the subject undertaken, research method, hypotheses and findings are presented.