Being Valued or Feeling Capable? Explaining Why Empathy Inspires Social Entrepreneurial Intentions

Abstract

Empathy is a key distinguishing factor between social entrepreneurs and traditional entrepreneurs, and an important antecedent of social entrepreneurial intentions. Yet empathy alone does not lead to social entrepreneurship, and little research explains why empathy motivates social entrepreneurial intentions. In this paper, we propose that empathy-in particular, understanding others’ points of view (perspective-taking) and feelings of warmth and compassion (empathic concern)-can explain intentions to engage in social entrepreneurship through two complementary mechanisms: self-efficacy (an agentic mechanism), and social worth (a communal mechanism). We test our model on a unique longitudinal dataset of 129 individuals by means of Partial Least Squares Structural Equations Modeling. Whereas no empirical evidence was found to support the relationship between empathic concern and social entrepreneurial intentions, we find that perspective-taking positively relates to social entrepreneurial intentions. Furthermore, we find that this relationship is mediated by feeling valued for one’s work (social worth), but not by feeling capable to accomplish a set of tasks (self-efficacy). Thus, we provide empirical evidence for the communal mechanism explaining the relationship between empathy and social entrepreneurial intentions. Implications for the theory and the practice of social entrepreneurship are offered.