Outcome expectations and social entrepreneurial intention: Integration of planned behavior and social cognitive career theory

Abstract

The paper examines social entrepreneurial intention through outcome expectations. The proposed model incorporates outcome expectations from social cognitive career theory and theory of planned behaviors. The study also introduces a scale for outcome expectations in social entrepreneurship, including solving social problems, innovation, family tradition of social involvement, meaning in life, prestige and social recognition, competitive and favorite job and wealth. A survey of 279 students was conducted through face-to-face structured interviews. The confirm factor analysis and technique of structural equation modeling were used to explore relationships among latent constructs. Research results show that the outcomes impact only through three determinants of theory of planned behavior and do not have significant impact to social entrepreneurial intention. It suggests that outcome expectations may be a flexible factor. Individual outcome expectations can shift to motivations when facing favorable conditions such as family support, government support, etc. The findings suggest that the ability to predict social entrepreneurial intention of attitude toward behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. The proposed model in this study contributes importantly to the emerging literature on entrepreneurial intention, particularly to social entrepreneurial intention. This study is also the first quantitative study to measure the impact of outcome expectations on social entrepreneurial intention.