Abstract
Research on social entrepreneurship (SE) has increased exponentially during the past decade. Even though this social phenomenon has aroused the interest of researchers, many aspects have not yet been fully studied. In this study, the goal is to analyze how the factors that define the behavior of social entrepreneurs are affected by the perception that they have about the development of the social enterprise sector (SES development). We perform an empirical multivariable analysis using 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) data related to SE, with an international sample that contains information of 17,778 entrepreneurs, of which 6470 are social entrepreneurs. The empirical analysis is carried out applying binary response models, introducing interaction terms to analyze the moderating effect of SES development. Our results show that the entrepreneurs’ perception of the SES development exerts a moderating effect over three different groups of factors: 1) factors related to self-perception about entrepreneurship (including values, perceptions, and entrepreneurial skills); 2) demographic factors (gender, age, and education level), and 3) context and entrepreneurial environment (including factors related to entrepreneurs’ perception of societal values, entrepreneurship environment, and economic development). This moderating effect has very important implications, especially for policymakers. Our results show that SES development could amplify some effects, both positively and negatively. Therefore, the design and implementation of policies to support SE must consider the moderating role of this variable on the entrepreneurial behavior, because it could affect the effectiveness of such policies.
Highlights
Social entrepreneurship (SE) focuses on the use of business management strategies with the aim of generating benefits with a social purpose [1]
When we want to understand the behavior of social entrepreneurs, it is necessary to consider the perception that they have about the development of businesses focused on the solution of social problems in their contexts, because it may condition the relevance that other factors have for this behavior
The most relevant findings of this paper show the existence of a moderating effect for the entrepreneurs’ perception of the social enterprise sector (SES) development
Summary
Social entrepreneurship (SE) focuses on the use of business management strategies with the aim of generating benefits with a social purpose [1]. Its increase on research and its institutionalization in academia reveal that SE is rapidly gaining maturity [2]. Research on SE still has two main limitations: The lack of a unified definition of SE [3] and the lack of internationally comparable data [4]. Regarding the second limitation, [2] uses a scientometric method to analyze 158 papers and provides an overview of the state of the art on SE research, revealing an important lack of empirical studies (most of them predominately based on qualitative methods) due to the lack of harmonized and comparable international data
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