An Investigation of Students’ Social Entrepreneurial Intentions in Syria: An Empirical Test

Abstract

This paper is a contribution to the developing field of so-called fit models, person—entrepreneurship fit model among them. Such models aim at revealing factors that predict a person’s future being involved in social enterprises and his/her success in them. No work of this kind has been conducted in Syria previously. Here, we present our test of Mair and Noboa’s model (published in 2006, see J. Mair, J. Robinson, & K. Hockerts (Eds.), Social entrepreneurship. New York: Palgrave MacMillan) recently extended by Hockerts (Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2017) which identifies altogether five antecedents determining young people’s SEI: prior experience. empathy, moral obligation, social entrepreneurial self-efficacy and perceived social support. In the test, the empirical data collected from approximately 300 students of Syrian universities business and economics faculties was used. Several hypotheses were tested in course of the study: those described by K. Hockerts and some other authors. It is well known that, on one hand, social entrepreneurship is a matter of importance especially for women and, on the other hand, that one’s understanding of the significance of social activities (as well as one’s estimating of own opportunities and preferences) is developing gradually with age. Besides, social as well as business innovative ventures are launched usually by younger people. Our results support the common wisdom that gender and year of studying are important factors affecting students’ decision to launch a social venture in future. An important aspect of the study is also comparing the SEI of students of Syrian private and state universities in order to find out if there are any behavioral differences between the two groups. No special teaching courses with a social entrepreneurial profile are being taught yet in Syria neither at private nor at the state universities, so no hypotheses about relation between selecting such courses and students’ SEI is included in the study; but the results of our research call for introducing such teaching courses.