Personality and career progression among high-level professionals in the VC and CVC industry

Ramona Katharina Juliana Crusius (Student)

Student thesis: Master's Thesis

Abstract

This dissertation aims to examine the characteristics of high-level VC and CVC professionals in terms of their prior experiences, their background and personality traits. More specifically, the aim is to discern if there are certain patterns or similarities to be identified. Using a quantifying, exploratory approach, a survey was constructed encompassing a suitable questionnaire. The Big Five Model of Personality did hereby serve as a theoretical framework as well as it provided the necessary scale to identify certain personality traits. A non-VC/CVC control group was examined as well, with the aim of enhancing the comparability of the results. Due to the lastly not fully comparable control group, the significance and validity of the results was limited. Still, in terms of personality, two significant, two non-significant yet marginal differences, and one non-significant difference between the target and control group were found. Despite the study's limitations, its results provide a robust foundation for further extended research projects with a similar focus, targeting a comparable control group.