Entrepreneurship typifies a setting where uncertainty is generally high; therefore, ‘fit’ is an important construct for venture performance and success (Naman & Slevin, 1993). Kristof (1996) investigated fit from a person–organisation fit perspective and found that there is a compatibility between individuals and the jobs they undertake. Drawing from the person–organisation fit theory, Markman and Baron (2002) introduced a person–entrepreneurship fit model that identified various individual factors, such as self-efficacy, opportunity identification, persistence, human capital and social capital, as well as social skills that influence new venture creation. However, scholars suggest that the model is not fully inclusive with respect to these factors and that other elements, such as personality traits (Costa & McCrae, 1992a) and cognition (Bajwa, Shahzad, & Aslam, 2017), probably also play a role in determining the model. In this article, cognition from a cognitive adaptability viewpoint is investigated to address this gap.

Haynie and Shepherd (2009) describe the cognitive adaptability ‘as the ability to effectively change decision policies (i.e. to learn), given feedback (inputs) from the environmental context in which cognitive processing is embedded’. Based on metacognition and social cognition, cognitive adaptability consists of five factors: goal orientation, metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive experience, metacognitive choice and monitoring (Bajwa et al., 2017; Nelson, 1996; Schacter, 1996). These factors are not dispositional traits, but rather cognitive factors, which can be learnt and improved upon by means of training and experience (Haynie, Shepherd, Mosakowski, & Earley, 2010). Together with the personality traits, entrepreneurial cognition assists researchers in understanding the how, why and what of entrepreneurial thinking and behaviour (e.g. Krueger, 2017). Research on the entrepreneurial personality typically draws from the five-factor model of personality traits (FFM), which consists of openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism (Costa & McCrae, 1992a; Digman, 1990). Previous evidence demonstrates that openness to experience, conscientiousness and extraversion is positively linked, while neuroticism is negatively linked, to entrepreneurs (Bajwa et al., 2017; Zhao, Seibert, & Lumpkin, 2010). Furthermore, while Costa and McCrae (1992a) introduced several narrow personality traits or facets within each of the FFM traits, these narrow traits and their relation to cognitive adaptability are yet to be determined.

Globally, entrepreneurship is frequently depicted as an unstable career, linked to high failure rates (Failla, Melillo, & Reichstein, 2017). This perspective is especially applicable in South Africa, given the high failure rate of start-up businesses (80% fail within the first three years) (Herrington, Kew, & Kew, 2015). Yet, established business activity has increased since 2001 in South Africa (Herrington et al., 2015), leading scholars Mitchelmore and Rowley (2010) to conduct a research on how to facilitate this transition from a start-up phase into an established phase. Despite the majority of research in South Africa on entrepreneurship being conducted on student and nascent entrepreneurs (Urban, 2012), the above-mentioned research highlights the need to investigate established entrepreneurs, who are defined as entrepreneurs that have progressed past the start-up stage of their business and have been operating for over three and a half years (Nieman & Nieuwenhuizen, 2009). Both personality traits (Leutner, Ahmetoglu, Akhtar, & Chamorro-Premuzic, 2014) and cognitive adaptability (Haynie, 2005) have been linked to entrepreneurial performance outcomes beyond the business start-up. Furthermore, the individuals select work environments that suit their personality, attitudes and interests, and which increase their job fulfilment as well as performance (Markman & Baron, 2003; Zhao et al., 2010). Building on this existing work, a person–entrepreneurship fit model is proposed, which posits that positive (and negative) relationships between certain narrow personality traits and cognitive adaptability dimensions indicate such a fit for established entrepreneurs.

This article has some important implications for theory and practice. From a theoretical perspective, most studies are conducted on the big five personality traits and not necessarily on the narrow traits. With one of the largest studies conducted among established entrepreneurs in South Africa (sample size of 2650), this study identifies two new narrow traits within the broad personality traits. Other researchers can include these two traits in order to contribute to the extension of the Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness five-factor inventory (NEO-FFI). This article contributes to person–entrepreneurship fit theory by demonstrating that it can be determined if one strives to become an established entrepreneur, and not only for the creation of new ventures. For business practice, we determine the best possible narrow personality trait and cognitive adaptability dimension fit for established entrepreneurs. This finding is not only significant for South Africa but also carries far wider applicability, as it increases the understanding of cognitive adaptability and its relationship with the narrow personality traits. It may assist national policymakers in encouraging more entrepreneurial behaviour in the context of developing as well as developed markets. Understanding the match between the narrow personality traits and cognitive adaptability dimensions should facilitate the understanding of ways to encourage start-up and nascent entrepreneurs to move beyond the start-up stage. To this end, these findings may assist educators to incorporate cognitive adaptability in their training programmes in an effort to increase the number of entrepreneurs that become established.

Haynie (2005) postulates that metacognition is better studied in established entrepreneurs who have moved beyond the business creation phase. The five dimensions of cognitive adaptability were developed and empirically investigated by Haynie and Shepherd (2009), and are briefly described as follows: (1) Goal orientation refers to how a person reaches their individual, social and business goals; (2) Metacognitive knowledge refers to a reliance on what is already known regarding oneself and others; (3) Metacognitive experience centres around experiences, emotions and intuitions while interpreting and executing goals to control a dynamic environment; (4) Metacognitive choice, also referred to as metacognitive strategy, involves choosing the best option from various decision frameworks to interpret and execute in a dynamic environment; and (5) Monitoring refers to looking for and using feedback information to reassess one’s metacognitive knowledge, experience, choice and goal orientation, with the aim of ‘controlling’ a dynamic environment.

A simple random sampling method was employed using a random sampling frame of 15 000 established entrepreneurs, acquired from a local market research company and proportionally stratified on the basis of gender, industry and provincial location. The final sample comprised 2650 established entrepreneurs, resulting in a realised response rate of 17.67%. A screening question ensured that only established entrepreneurs who have operated their business for over three and a half years (Nieman & Nieuwenhuizen, 2009) were included. Data collection was done through an online survey approach, distributed via email.

The majority of respondents were men (68.75%) and 31.25% were women. Most (48.64%) were 50–69 years of age, followed by 38.83% who were 36–49 years of age. A total of 984 respondents had an undergraduate degree from a university (37.1%), while 580 had a postgraduate honours degree (21.9%) and 386 (14.6%) had only completed secondary school and had no further education. The three most significant industry sectors that the respondents’ businesses operated in were: (1) professional, scientific and technical activities (12.8%), (2) finance and insurance service activities (12.3%), and (3) manufacturing (11.6%).

This article’s hypotheses and proposed model suggested that certain narrow traits should be positively associated, while others should be negatively associated, with the cognitive adaptability dimensions to indicate a person–entrepreneur fit. In this regard, a few notable relationships were found. When considering the openness to experience narrow traits, unconventionality was positively associated with goal orientation, prior metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive choice and monitoring, but had negative relationships with goal orientation and metacognitive choice. Interestingly, unconventionality was most strongly related to prior metacognitive knowledge. Although intellectual interest had the most significant relationships with all the seven dimensions of cognitive adaptability, which is consistent with prior work (Ghaemi & Sabokrouh, 2015; Rasmussen & Berntsen, 2010), the relationships were not all positive. Intellectual interest was a negative predictor of prior metacognitive knowledge, suggesting that an entrepreneur’s reliance on prior knowledge decreases their openness to new experiences. The aesthetic interest is the only narrow trait that revealed positive – albeit not all significant – relationships with all of the cognitive adaptability dimensions, and this finding is consistent with Ghaemi and Sabokrouh (2015).

When measuring the narrow traits of conscientiousness, goal striving was the most consistently as well as significantly related to the seven cognitive adaptability dimensions. This finding aligns with works by Ghaemi and Sabokrouh (2015), Barrick et al. (1993) and Locke (2000). However, goal striving and prior metacognitive knowledge were negatively related, which contradicts the literature where goal striving is related to knowledge sharing (Matzler et al., 2008; Wang & Yang, 2007). Orderliness had one negative relationship, namely, with prior metacognitive experience, which differs from Noftle and Robins (2007) who found a positive association between orderliness and metacognitive experience.

When determining the three narrow traits of extraversion, activity was the most significantly related to the various cognitive adaptability dimensions. Consistent with suggestions by Bajwa et al. (2017), activity and positive affect indicated positive relationships with most dimensions. However, this was not the case for prior metacognitive knowledge, which contrasts with prior work that found a positive relationship between extraversion and knowledge sharing (Ferguson et al., 2010). Overall, more active, energetic and powerful personality traits tend to increase cognitive adaptability among established entrepreneurs, which aligns with suggestions in the literature (Ghaemi & Sabokrouh, 2015; Turban et al., 2009). Sociability is a negative predictor of prior metacognitive experience, current metacognitive experience, metacognitive choice and monitoring. This is a somewhat surprising finding, as it was expected that entrepreneurs who get along with others and are talkative would have positive relationships with all of the cognitive adaptability dimensions.

When considering the two narrow traits of agreeableness and the cognitive adaptability dimensions, both the prosocial orientation and non-antagonistic orientation mostly had positive relationships with the cognitive adaptability dimensions. Prosocial orientation had the majority of the significant relationships with the cognitive adaptability factors and showed the strongest relationships. This finding is in agreement with suggestions by DeYoung et al. (2010) that agreeableness leads to better understanding, empathy and consideration of people’s feelings, aims and emotional condition. However, prosocial orientation was negatively associated with prior metacognitive knowledge. This could mean that a reliance on prior metacognitive knowledge could reduce the likelihood of an individual being polite, considerate and unassuming of others. Overall, the finding revealed that a prosocial orientation increases the likelihood that one is cognitively adaptable. Non-antagonistic orientation was statistically and significantly related to all the factors aside from prior metacognitive knowledge, yet interestingly, these correlations are mostly negative. The new narrow trait, meekness, was statistically significantly related to prior and current metacognitive experience, metacognitive choice and monitoring.

When testing the three narrow traits of neuroticism, negative relationships with the cognitive adaptability dimensions are hypothesised (Bajwa et al., 2017; Rasmussen & Berntsen, 2010). Both self-reproach and depression revealed negative relationships with all the dimensions except prior metacognitive knowledge, and interestingly, negative affect has five positive relationships. Based on the above discussion, not all hypothesised positive relationships were significant and positive. Therefore, H1 cannot be accepted. Furthermore, not all hypothesised negative relationships were significant and negative; therefore, H2 cannot be accepted. However, the results of this article indicate that the person–entrepreneurship fit for established entrepreneurs appears to be more complex and nuanced than originally proposed. For example, negative affect was positively related to many of the cognitive adaptability dimensions, suggesting that this sub-factor may have counterintuitive benefits in terms of a person–entrepreneur fit. Furthermore, the newly identified narrow personality traits (meekness and depression) have added additional insight into the personality factors that may facilitate or inhibit this fit.

This article extends the theories of person–organisation fit to the domain of entrepreneurship research. Building on the person–entrepreneurship fit work of Markman and Baron (2002), this fit was investigated from an established entrepreneur perspective. As proposed in Figure 1, the closer the positive relationships between the narrow personality traits of openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion and agreeableness and the cognitive adaptability of established entrepreneurs, the better the person–entrepreneurship fit will be. However, this could not be confirmed in this article. Thus, H1 and H2 could not be accepted. Nonetheless, it is possible to confirm that a person–entrepreneurship fit could be present if an entrepreneur has a positive relationship between the aesthetic interest and the cognitive adaptability dimensions. This article further revealed two new narrow personality traits; these were meekness (sub-facet of agreeableness) and depression (sub-facet of neuroticism). An important finding is that established entrepreneurs with self-reproach (neuroticism) are the least cognitively adaptable, and will possibly have the poorest person–entrepreneurship fit. Therefore, this article confirms the view that neuroticism is not a personality trait that will contribute to the person–entrepreneurship fit for established entrepreneurs in South Africa.

This study makes several contributions. First, the findings of this article hold value and are applicable to both the domains of entrepreneurship and psychology. By bridging the literatures from personality and metacognitive psychology, this article provides a robust and empirically testable model that may promote (rather than inhibit) adaptable decision-making and cognition in light of a dynamic entrepreneurial context. Second, from a developing country perspective, seven dimensions of cognitive adaptability were found rather than the five dimensions found by Haynie and Shepherd (2009) in a developed country context. To this end, this article provides a more nuanced perspective of the factors required to achieve a person–entrepreneurship fit, and serves to build on prior work on cognitive adaptability in the South African context (Botha & Bignotti, 2017). For example, the results show that the newly formed factor, prior metacognitive knowledge, had negative relationships with most of the narrow personality traits, and might not be one of the dimensions that one would include in a South African entrepreneurial training programme. With one of the largest studies conducted among established entrepreneurs in South Africa (2650), this article has important implications from a practical point of view. It highlights the fact that focus should be placed on six of the cognitive adaptability dimensions in the design of pedagogical programmes, which could augment learning and engender adaptable thinking, long-term survival and performance. Furthermore, it indicates what narrow traits are required to achieve a person–entrepreneurship fit in a developing country, namely, the South African context. Given the size and diversity of the sample, these findings can be regarded as reasonably robust and, hence, have implications for understanding the entrepreneurial personality and cognition in the South African context. Third, these findings hold significant implications for entrepreneurship scholars both locally and abroad, as 14 factor-analytically generated narrow traits emerged from the NEO-FFI in this study. The two newly derived narrow personality traits, meekness and depression, can be included in future scales and can serve to build on the NEO-FFI narrow trait structure indicated by Saucier (1998). Finally, this article contributes by focusing on established entrepreneurs. It is imperative to understand the personality and cognitive factors that lead to the transition of nascent entrepreneurs to established, successful entrepreneurs in order to facilitate the development of nascent entrepreneurs (Davidsson, 2018). Consequently, this study may be of value to entrepreneurs at various stages of the entrepreneurial life cycle, as they can compare their cognitive adaptability and personality traits with those of established entrepreneurs, which could assist in determining their person–entrepreneurship fit and enable aspiring start-up entrepreneurs to pursue entrepreneurial careers.