I Am Not Aiming to Be Too Famous: The Exploration of Social Entrepreneurial Intention

Abstract

Social entrepreneurship (SE) offers an alternative and innovative solution to address complex social problems. Acknowledging the importance of social entrepreneurship for society, researchers and practitioners have been attracted to this topic in recent decades. However, research on the complexity of personal-level variables on understanding why some individuals engage in SE while others are not is still scarce. To address the issue, this study introduces two determinants of SEI—internal locus of control (ILOC) and need for power—and their interaction, and uses a sample of students in a developing country, Indonesia. Using moderating and simple slope analysis, the results show that students with a high level of ILOC have a higher tendency to establish a social enterprise. However, that relationship is getting stronger only when students’ explicit need for power is at a low level while the implicit need for power has no effect. That is, getting high visibility from society is not necessary to start a social enterprise. We argue that religion might be at the basis of these results and provide suggestions for future research.