Entrepreneurship in social: Brazilian university students toward a career with purpose

Garçon, Márcia Maria; Nassif, Vania Maria Jorge

doi:10.1108/RAUSP-10-2020-0248

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Sumário

Research Paper • RAUSP 56 (3) • Jul-Sep 2021 • https://doi.org/10.1108/RAUSP-10-2020-0248 copy

Entrepreneurship in social: Brazilian university students toward a career with purpose

Authorship SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

Abstract

Purpose

Social entrepreneurship (SE) presents specificities that the entrepreneur must address. Entrepreneurial intention (EI) and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) in SE should reflect specific characteristics of behavior. The purpose of this study is to identify the intention of Brazilian university students to undertake SE, having individual social EO (individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO)-social) as their predictive behavior.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper collected study data from Brazilian university students. To test the study’s hypotheses, this paper used confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation model, partial least squares and generalized linear regression model.

Findings

The results indicate that Brazilian university students positively respond to their intention to become social entrepreneurs in the future, regardless of gender, courses or types of universities. In line with the literature, IEO-Social proved to be a strong predictor of EI-social.

Research limitations/implications

This study was limited to understanding EI-social from IEO-Social. Besides, its sample is non-probabilistic, therefore, the findings of this study cannot be generalized.

Practical implications

The results encourage the inclusion of SE in entrepreneurial education programs. They guide the involvement of students from different areas of knowledge in activities aimed at higher education.

Social implications

Evidence indicates that including the SE theme in entrepreneurial education programs proves to be valuable for opening purposeful career opportunities for students.

Originality/value

The study contributes to eliminating the gap in studies on EI-social in Brazilian university students. It also offers the IEO-social scale, theoretically constructed and with superior psychometric quality.

Keywords
Social entrepreneurship; Individual entrepreneurial intention; Individual social entrepreneurial orientation; Measurement; Scales

Variable	Frequency	(%)
Gender
Male	80	43.7
Female	99	54.09
Not provided	04	2.21
Courses INEP 2*
Business, administration and law	124	67.76
Engineering and IT	34	18.58
Social science, health and humanities	25	13.66
Type of university
Public	53	28.97
Private	130	71.03

Items		Factors loadings
Items		Proat- social	Innov- social	PropRisck- social	EI-social	Cronbach’s alpha
Proat-Social_1	I usually organize social and/or environmental aid actions, even before someone asks me	0.803				0.855
Proat-Social_2	I seek to transform the social and/or environmental reality of my city (neighborhood, country), even if no one is doing it	0.764
Proat-Social_3	I prefer to “speed up” and act to make the world a better place instead of sitting around and waiting for someone to do it	0.730
Proat-Social_4	I usually take actions to make the world a better place to live	0.733
Proat-Social_5	I always participate in actions that improve people’s lives and the environment	0.728
Proat-Social_6	I create social projects and/or environmental and I invite my friends and others to participate	0.807
Innov-Social_1	I like to create unusual projects to solve social and environmental problems		0.874			0.862
Inov-Social_2	I am a determined person in search of innovative solutions to social and environmental problems		0.880
Innov-Social_3	I am concerned with proposing new solutions to social and environmental problems. Something that no one has ever done before		0.901
PropRisck-Social_1	I would assume a long-term debt, believing in the results and opportunities that social entrepreneurship would bring to society			0.797		0.759
PropRisck-Social_2	I admit to taking risks and investing time and money in social and environmental projects and products that can contribute to a great positive impact on society			0.836
PropRisck-Social_3	I am not afraid to invest resources in social entrepreneurship			0.832
EI-Social_1	I would create an organization focused on solving social and/or environmental problems				0.809	0.932
EI-Social_2	I would invest time and money to create a social organization that works with social or environmental issues				0.830
EI-Social_3	I would invest time and money to create a business with a social impact with solutions for the social or environmental				0.817
EI-Social_4	I would create a business with a social impact that would act on solutions for the social or environmental				0.805
EI-Social_5	I will do whatever it takes to act in social entrepreneurship				0.780
EI-Social_6	My professional goal is to be a social entrepreneur				0.746
EI-Social_7	I will make great efforts to create and maintain a social enterprise				0.826
EI-Social_8	Even working in other companies. I have a dream of being a social entrepreneur				0.796
EI-Social_9	I will make great efforts to create and maintain a business with a social impact that works with the social or environment				0.829

Constructs	AVE	CC	AC
Social entrepreneurial intention	0.648	0.943	0.932
Social innovation	0.783	0.915	0.862
Social proactivity	0.580	0.892	0.855
Propensity to social risk	0.675	0.862	0.759

Variables	EI-social	Innov-social	Proat-social	PropRisc-social
EI-social	0.805
Innov-social	0.528	0.885
Proat- social	0.511	0.561	0.761
PropRisck-social	0.644	0.497	0.447	0.822

Paths	Original sample	Mean	Standard error	t-test	p-value	R ²
H1a (+): IEO-social → Proat-social	0.882	0.883	0.022	40.898	0.001	0.445
H1b (+): IEO-social → Innov- social	0.821	0.823	0.030	27.053	0.001
H1c (+): IEO-social → PropRisck-social	0.730	0.731	0.040	18.389	0.001
H2 (+): IEO-social → EI-social	0.667	0.668	0.043	15.340	0.001

Sample characteristics (n = 179)	N
Business, administration, Law	123
Engineering and information and communication technologies (ICTs)	33
Social sciences, health and humanities	23
Private HEIs	131
Public HEIs	48
Male	80
Female	99

Origin	Type III sum of squares	df	Medium square	Z	Sig.
Corrected model	6.232^a	4	1.558	1.08	0.368
Intercept	2,045.181	1	2,045.181	1,418.419	0
Course	2.305	2	1.152	0.799	0.451
HEI	3.581	1	3.581	2.484	0.117
Gender	2.437	1	2.437	1.69	0.195
Standard	250.886	174	1.442
Total	3,772.21	179
Corrected total	257.118	178

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E-mail: rausp@usp.br

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[1] Corresponding author Márcia Maria Garçon can be contacted at: mgarcon@gmail.com