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Year: 2020
Published in: Industrial Marketing Management,2020, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2020.06.012.
Cited as: Chandra, Y. et al. (2021) Public versus private interest in social entrepreneurship: Can one serve two masters? Journal of cleaner production. [Online] 280.

Subject

This article seeks to answer the important question of what drives social entrepreneurial intention. Few studies have examined the predictors of intention to engage in social entrepreneurship as a means of both creating public good and serving one’s own interests.

Abstract

Social entrepreneurship is an important policy tool for addressing social and environmental problems. Social entrepreneurship has also gained popularity as a career choice among younger people, including millennials. However, few studies have examined the predictors of intention to engage in social entrepreneurship as a means of both creating public good and serving one’s own interests. This article seeks to answer the important question of what drives social entrepreneurial intention. Conceptualizing social entrepreneurship as a public- and private-value response to sustainability challenges, a set of hypotheses regarding the association between public service motivation, money ethics and intention to initiate social entrepreneurship were tested using survey data from 662 millennials in Indonesia. Structural equation modeling and multiple regressions revealed that both public service motivation and money ethics had direct and indirect effects on intention to engage in social entrepreneurship. Public service motivation was a stronger predictor of intention than money ethics were.

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Future Research

“1. This study’s findings may be specific to Indonesia’s socioeconomic, political, and cultural context. Thus, their generalizability may be limited. Future research efforts directed at extending the present study could examine the effects of public service motivation and money ethics on social entrepreneurship intentions in other non-Western contexts.

2. The finding that entrepreneurial self-efficacy only partially mediated the effects of both public service motivation and money ethics on social entrepreneurial intention implies that other mediators exist that have yet to be investigated. For instance, entrepreneurial/ innovative passion may play an important mediating role. A comparison of the public service motivation and money ethics levels of millennials and different generations (e.g., Gen X, Gen Y, baby boomers) is also an area worth investigating.

3. Other important future research agendas include how and to what extent public service motivation and money ethics can explain the performance and governance of social entrepreneurship activities and staff retention in consistently creating public value and the kind of outcomes or changes they create in public service provision.

Support Organisations

“1. Policymakers and educators can provide more stimulus to drive individuals’ desire to act in the public interest through social entrepreneurship, such as through competitions (such as Ashoka Young Changemakers and the DBS Foundation Social Entrepreneurship Grant), workshops and socially relevant curricula (from engineering and science to business studies and social sciences programs), rather than merely focusing on the commercial knowledge or literacy aspects of social entrepreneurship (such as budgeting, opportunity evaluation, persuasion, and marketing skills).

2. More effort and resources could be invested in promoting social entrepreneurship through alternative media such as comics or games, and the clever use of social media to turn social entrepreneurship into a trendy but important activity that is good for individuals as well as for the wider public.

3. Policymakers and educators can also build more awareness of social entrepreneurship as an alternative career option for young people who have a strong passion for public service, beyond conventional careers in the public sector and non-profits.”

Policy Makers

“1. Policymakers and educators can provide more stimulus to drive individuals’ desire to act in the public interest through social entrepreneurship, such as through competitions (such as Ashoka Young Changemakers and the DBS Foundation Social Entrepreneurship Grant), workshops and socially relevant curricula (from engineering and science to business studies and social sciences programs), rather than merely focusing on the commercial knowledge or literacy aspects of social entrepreneurship (such as budgeting, opportunity evaluation, persuasion, and marketing skills).

2. More effort and resources could be invested in promoting social entrepreneurship through alternative media such as comics or games, and the clever use of social media to turn social entrepreneurship into a trendy but important activity that is good for individuals as well as for the wider public.

3. Policymakers and educators can also build more awareness of social entrepreneurship as an alternative career option for young people who have a strong passion for public service, beyond conventional careers in the public sector and non-profits.”