Strong ties, personality, and legitimacy of entrepreneurs: the case of private physicians

Legitimacy is crucial for entrepreneurs. It is the cornerstone for creating relationships with stakeholders and mitigating resource constraints. But, other-referent legitimacy is also related to the cognitive image of individual legitimacy. Drawing on the identity-based model of legitimacy, we argue that personality traits (big five) and social capital (strong ties) of entrepreneurs impact self-perceived legitimacy of entrepreneurs. Based on survey data of 98 German private physicians, this paper examines antecedents of self-perceived legitimacy towards two main stakeholders: patients and peers. We find that high levels of agreeableness stimulate self-perceived legitimacy towards patients and peers, whereas openness to experience solely influences physicians’ self-perceived legitimacy towards patients. In addition, our results highlight the contingent effect of personality traits by underlining the role of strong ties as moderator of the relationship between personality traits and the self-perceived legitimacy. By identifying these configurations we contribute to the literature on entrepreneurship with a refined perspective of antecedents of self-perceived legitimacy. Moreover, we give recommendations on how private physicians can benefit from two personality traits – agreeableness and openness to experience – and how they can manage weak and strong ties in order to diffuse their reputation.