Sustained Social Entrepreneurship: The Moderating Roles of Prior Experience and Networking Ability

Abstract

The intention to set up social ventures remains an unpopular choice for intending entrepreneurs due to its obvious limitations of resource constraints. Yet it remains a vital means of making social goods available to disadvantaged people, especially in developing countries. Our study aims to investigate how prior experience and networking ability interacts with empathy, moral obligation, self-efficacy, and social support to induce social entrepreneurial intentions in budding entrepreneurs in Nigeria. Using simultaneous linear regression, we analyzed data from a collection of 315 respondents enrolled in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC)—a one-year mandatory national service scheme for graduates of higher institutions who are on the verge of making critical career choices. Our findings show that the main effects were statistically significant, while networking ability, more than prior experience, moderated the main effects. Conclusively, budding entrepreneurs need to hone their networking skills in order to exploit their social networks and complement the benefits of prior experiences as they contemplate social entrepreneurship. Future investigations can focus on determining how other environmental factors such as government/institutional support, technological adoption, and infrastructure would affect social entrepreneurial intentions.