When and How Awareness of Social Problems Would Boost One’s Social Entrepreneurial Engagement

Abstract

Social entrepreneurial engagement is a critical approach to solve social problems. Though previous literature has identified antecedents of individuals’ social entrepreneurship from cognitive, affective, and contextual angles, we know little about when and how awareness of social problems could boost one’s social entrepreneurial engagement. To address this question, we drew on the motivated information processing perspective and developed a conceptual model. In this model, we proposed that individuals’ prosocial motivation and epistemic motivation can promote the transformation of social problems into social opportunities, and in turn boost social entrepreneurial engagement. In so doing, we aim to contribute to the current literature on social entrepreneurship and organizational behavior in several ways.