Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the personal characteristics of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises(SMEs) CEOs, on innovation behavior and corporate innovation performance, and to verify the mediating role of innovation behavior. To verify the hypothesis of this study, a questionnaire was conducted on 264 CEOs and 563 top managements of SMEs in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do. For the analysis of the investigated data, the research model and hypothesis were verified through correlation analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and SEM using SPSS and AMOS. The analysis results are as follows. First, it was found that extroversion, the personal characteristics of SMEs CEOs, had a positive (+) effect on innovation behavior, and second, openness to experience, the personal characteristics, also had a positive (+) effect on innovation behavior. Third, it was analyzed that the influence of innovation behavior on the innovation performance of a company had a positive (+) effect. Fourth, it was found that innovation behavior had full mediation effects in the relationship between extroversion and corporate innovation performance, but the case of openness to experience was not significant. Finally, the significance, implications, and limitations of the study were described, and suggestions for further study were presented.