Validation of a social entrepreneurial self-efficacy

Abstract

Young generation especially students in Higher Education Institutions (HEI), needs to play a role in accomplishing government initiatives to foster social entrepreneurship culture in Malaysia. They must have an in-depth understanding of the concept before applying it in creating social enterprises. Social entrepreneurship development in this country is still at the beginning stage (General Entrepreneurship Monitor 2009, 2011). However its potential also contributes to sustainable and balanced environment in the community's quality of life. A strong belief in capability and determination must be anchored by the theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991), which is associated to the theory of cognitive learning (Bandura, 1977). This study focused on self-efficacy construct towards a strong belief in social goal and sustainability in handling the problem of marginalised group through social entrepreneurial activities. The objective of this survey was to test the validity of social entrepreneurial self-efficacy (SESE) instrument. Questionnaires were distributed to 321 students who were members of ENACTUS club in HEI all over Malaysia to gather their perception towards this study. This instrument was adapted from social entrepreneurial self-efficacy by Urban (2013) and was analysed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The result found that the loading factor was more than 0.70 and fit indices including goodness-of-fit of Relative Chi-Square was less than 0.50 with CFI, GFI, and TLI values were greater than 0.90 and RMSEA value was less than 0.08. Convergent validity with AVE was more than 0.54 and good construct reliability with Cronbach's alpha value was more than 0.83. More specifically, no violation of discriminant validity exists between social vision and sustainability of SESE instrument. The findings indicate that the SESE instrument met the psychometric characteristics from validity aspect and reliability to cultivate students' aspiration to become social entrepreneurs. The implications of the findings were discussed.