Big Five Personality Traits and Entrepreneurial Intention of University Lecturers in Nigeria

The study investigates the link between the personality traits of Nigerian university lecturers and their entrepreneurial intents in the post-COVID-19 era. Based on the Big Five Model, data was gathered from a purposive sample of 207 lecturers in south eastern Nigerian universities. The structural equation modeling was deployed in verifying the proposed conceptual model. Findings indicate that the Covid-19 pandemic ignited entrepreneurial passion among the university lecturers since the hardship they faced during the pandemic era pushed majority to venture into entrepreneurship. Besides, the proposed model explains 58.6% of the variance in lecturers’ entrepreneurial intention in the post-pandemic era. Only conscientiousness, extraversion and neuroticism were confirmed as positive and significant drivers of entrepreneurial intention of the university lecturers in Nigeria in the post-COVID-19 era, while openness and agreeableness emerged as non-significant drivers. The study presents both theoretical and practical insights to the post-pandemic entrepreneurial intentions of an unexplored group (university lecturers) in an emerging economy.