To syndicate or not: a replication and extension about the influence of business angels’ personality traits on syndication using Twitter data

Personality traits can determine business angels’ decision to engage in syndication (i.e., co-investing with other investors). We conduct a quasi-random replication of Block et al. (J Bank Finance 100:306–327, 2019), who document an influence of the Big 5 personality traits on syndication. We employ a machine learning-based approach to operationalize business angels’ personality traits in a comprehensive sample of 4449 investments made by 1241 US business angels. Our main analysis underlines that personality traits determine syndication behaviour but highlights that different measurement tools may produce different results. We extend these findings by conducting complementary analyses that further nuance the relation between personality and syndication in business angel investing. These further analyses consider interaction effects between business angels’ personality traits and sociodemographic characteristics (e.g., gender, age, and investment experience). We also apply a closed-language tool to measure personality-related variables. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of replication studies in entrepreneurship research, especially when tools leveraging artificial intelligence are used.