Socioeconomic Status as a Predictor of Social Entrepreneurship Intention with Mediating Effects of Authentic Leadership Style and Emotional Intelligence

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is important for the socioeconomic progression and overall newlinedevelopment of a nation as it improves the job opportunities, expands the market and newlineenhances the overall national productivity and competitiveness. Social entrepreneurship is newlinedefined as an innovative, social value creating activity that can occur within or across the newlinenon-profit business, and public sectors. In highly populated countries like India, Social newlineentrepreneurship can be adopted as an effective tool for tackling social challenges and newlinerespond to them when the market and the public sector do not. Social entrepreneurship newlinefocuses on the effort of individual, group, network, organization, or alliance of organizations newlinethat pursues sustainable, large-scale change through pattern breaking ideas on what newlinegovernments, non-profit businesses do to address significant social problems for which newlineneither the market nor the government have been able to offer concrete solutions. newlineThe plethora of research opportunities in social entrepreneurship is abundant and the newlinecurrent state of research on social entrepreneurship is still in infancy. The entrepreneurial newlineintention has been considered as an important measure of entrepreneurial behaviour and newlineentrepreneurial activity. Several studies have reported on the influence of various factors in newlinepredicting entrepreneurship intention. On similar lines, the role of socio economic status of newlinean individual in shaping the social entrepreneurship intention of individuals is an interesting newlinearea of research which has been largely unexplored. In addition, the role of leadership newlinecapabilities and emotional intelligence on the social entrepreneurship intention needs to be newlinestudied. newlineThe current study examines the impact of socio economic status on the social newlineentrepreneurship intention among postgraduate business management students in Chennai, newlineTamilnadu, India. The mediating effect of emotional intelligence and authentic leadership newlinestyle on the relationship between socio economic status and social entrepreneurship intention newlinewas also investigated in this research. The study employed descriptive research method and a newlinequantitative survey instrument was used to collect data from the student respondents. The newlinestudy used multi-stage sampling procedure and the sample included students undergoing Post newlineGraduate Course in Management (MBA) in the Chennai region. The final sample of the study newlineconsisted of 400students representing four regions of Chennai, Tamil Nadu namely north, newlinesouth, east and west. The survey instruments used for data collection were derived from newlinedifferent studies. The socioeconomic status of the respondents was measured using Modified newlineKuppuswamy socioeconomic status scale (1976), revised for 2016 (Shaikh and Pathak, 2017). newlineA modified version of authentic leadership scale (Walumbwa et al. 2008) and Emotional newlineintelligence scale (Hyde et al. 2002) were used in this study. Questionnaire with 31 items newlinedeveloped by the researcher was used to measure Social Entrepreneurship Intention (SEI). A newlineset of 17 hypotheses was framed to test the research objectives developed in the study. newlineThe data collected from the respondents were analyzed using SPSS.25 software newlinepackage. The statistical techniques like Descriptive Statistics, Cronbach sAlpha Reliability newlineAnalysis, Exploratory Factor Analysis, Pearson Bivariate Correlation, Independent Sample ttest newlineand One way ANOVA were performed. In addition, Structural Equation Modeling newline(SEM) analysis using AMOS 21.0 software was also carried out in this research. newlineThe findings of this study suggest that Socio Economic Status has significant impact newlineon the social entrepreneurship intention. In addition, Authentic Leadership Style and newlineEmotional Intelligence were found to be significantly influencing the relationship between newlineSocioeconomic Status and Social Entrepreneurship Intention. newlineSocial Entrepreneurship is emerging as a sustainable solution for the integration of newlinefinancial and social values. The need of the hour is envisioning social dimensions for newlinebusiness decisions. The socioeconomic factors of an individual can predict the social newlineentrepreneurship intention. newline