Feeling capable and valued: A prosocial perspective on the link between empathy and social entrepreneurial intentions

Social entrepreneurship based on personal unmet needs: Lead user characteristics’ influences on nascent social entrepreneurs

“…Social capital is key in social entrepreneurship (Mair & Marti, 2006;Thompson et al, 2000); it helps to reduce resource scarcity by using networks to achieve objectives . Empathy and compassion help to explain social entrepreneurs' social entrepreneurial orientations (Bacq & Alt, 2018;Dees, 1998;Hockerts, 2017;Miller et al, 2012).…”

“…Several factors contribute to nascent entrepreneurs' prosocial orientation and can even trigger their opportunity recognition. Experiencing a psychological threat, altruism, sympathy, empathy, and compassion often trigger a prosocial orientation (Bacq & Alt, 2018;Miller et al, 2012;Shepherd & Patzelt, 2018).…”

“…Empathy's influences on social entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurial motivations, and startup intentions have been studied by Bacq and Alt (2018) as well as Dees (1998). Empathy influences how people respond to others' experiences, which influences their social entrepreneurial feelings, self-efficacy, and social worth (Bacq & Alt, 2018). This is consistent with Miller et al (2012, p. 620), who argued that social entrepreneurs start their businesses based on compassion for others.…”

“…Knowledge corridors, such as life experiences, help shape social entrepreneurs' opportunity recognition processes (Corner & Ho, 2010). However, the research into the drivers of prosocial entrepreneurial behaviors has received very little attention (Bacq & Alt, 2018;Germak & Robinson, 2014;Miller et al, 2012;Renko, 2013).…”

“…Our research enhances insights into the motivational antecedents of (lead) userbased and social entrepreneurship, which improves our theoretical understanding of the sources of entrepreneurial opportunity recognition (Shah & Tripsas, 2012). Likewise, many researchers indicated that there is a need for theory-building in the social entrepreneurship literature by specifying different motivations for starting a social business (Bacq & Alt, 2018;Dacin, Dacin, & Tracey, 2011;Hockerts, 2017). We respond to these calls by incorporating the insights from the literature on innovating lead users that shed light on the antecedents of new venture building as well-advanced insights into innovativeness levels.…”