Determinants of social entrepreneurial intentions for educational programs

• Date: 01 May 2019
• Published date: 01 May 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1925

ACADEMIC PAPER

Determinants of social entrepreneurial intentions for

educational programs

Asma

1

|Xiaobao Peng

1

|Shah Hassan

1

|Sadia Akhtar

1

|Asma Sarwar

1

|

Muhammad Asif Khan

2

|Barkat Ullah Khan

1

1

School of Public affairs, University of Science

and Technology of China, Hefei, China

2

School of Information and Computer Science,

Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, China

Correspondence

Asma, School of Public affairs, University of

Science and Technology of China, Hefei

230026, China.

Email: asma@mail.ustc.edu.cn

The aim of this research is to find out the determinants of social entrepreneurial

intentions for educational programs. For this purpose, some of the factors have

been included in this research as the determinants of social entrepreneurial inten-

tion. Prior experience has been added as the independent variable although empa-

thy, moral obligation, self‐efficacy, and the perceived social support have been

added as the variables that moderate the relationship between prior experience

entrepreneurial intentions. The study has been conducted through the positivism

philosophy, and with the quantitative method, a survey was conducted based on

the questionnaire consisted of the items related to understudied variables. Through

purposive sampling, the data were collected from 231 students studying bachelors

and masters at University of Beijing and Shanghai. SPSS software was used for

screening and descriptive analysis, and AMOS was used for structure modeling

and confirmatory factor analysis. Results showed that prior experience tends to

have greater social entrepreneurial intent, empathy, self‐efficacy, and moral obliga-

tion that have positive and significant impact on entrepreneurial intent. On the

other hand, perceived social support puts negative impact on entrepreneurial inten-

tion. Business schools and policymakers can take advantage of this study. The future

studies can increase the sample size and can add the variables of belief to study the

entrepreneurial intention.

1|INTRODUCTION

A managerial or business activity refers to the fact when we replicate

any product or service that has already been offered in a market.

However, when creation aspect is added to it, it becomes Entrepre-

neurship, which in turns modifies into social entrepreneurship (SE)

by when we add social value to that creation. This fundamental ele-

ment of social value creation differentiates SE from a commercial

entrepreneurship (Austin & Stevenson, 2010). Enterprising individuals'

devotion to making a difference, philanthropists' support to “invest-

ment”portfolios and social purpose business' dedication to adding

profit motivation to nonprofit sector are various examples of SE. Dif-

ferent nonprofit organizations are drawing lessons from such

examples and are reinventing themselves in the market. Thus, in the

recent years, SE has become famous globally stage changing the

dimensions of social value creation.

To role of experience, regarding SE can be determined by answer-

ing a continually asked question: Are entrepreneurs (or in this case,

social entrepreneurs) born or made? On the other hand, its slightly

reframed version “Can you teach entrepreneurship?”Whether we

consider them born or made, not everyone can or should become a

social entrepreneur as some avoid risk and fear failure from the start.

However, there are many, regardless of how things turn out to be are

more determinant in achieving their goals. Due to this, we land on a

fact that SE is not taught, but it is learnt by doing. In addition, there

are no textbooks or schools for it or it is not a downloadable module,

Received: 5 February 2019 Accepted: 23 February 2019

DOI: 10.1002/pa.1925

J Public Affairs. 2019;19:e1925.

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1925

© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of11