The relationship of general mental ability to entrepreneurial firm performance: a meta-analysis

The psychological approach to entrepreneurship is incomplete without understanding the role of entrepreneur's general mental ability (GMA). Using meta-analytic techniques, we examined the relation of the entrepreneur's GMA to multiple indicators of entrepreneurial firm performance. Based on 48 effect sizes with 45,749 observations, we found GMA had moderate to strong effects on entrepreneurial firm performance and does so after controlling for the effects of personality traits. Further, the effect of GMA on entrepreneurial performance was partially mediated through entrepreneurial knowledge and skill. The GMA relations generalized across many contexts, including industry complexity, age of the venture, gender of the entrepreneur and national level of economic development. Our results were also consistent across several methodological moderator.