Social enterprise SE outputs are not merely a result of the social entrepreneur's personal vision, but an accumulation of resources and support from multiple stakeholders, particularly customers. Although marketing communication studies have long established the effects of corporate credibility on consumer attitudes and behaviors, it is worth noting that corporate credibility comprises three distinct dimensions, namely trustworthiness, expertise and dynamism, which do not necessarily have equal levels of influence on the endogenous variables. Additionally, from a social entrepreneurship perspective, the relationship between corporate credibility and consumer psychology requires a deeper inspection because of the role of religion in charitable and care-giving activities. Most religions stress the importance of spirituality, which may override their concern with the business aspects of the SE. In other words, for religious customers, it is likely that trustworthiness has a higher influence on their attitudes and support intention than expertise and dynamism. These conceptual relationships among corporate credibility, religion and consumer psychology in social entrepreneurship are elaborated in this article through a literature review, followed by the development of a theoretical framework and its associated propositions. The article concludes with some implications for SE governance, distinguishing societies with different religious backgrounds.Keywords: corporate credibility, customer support intention, moderating effect, religion, Social Enterprises
. IntroductionA social enterprise SE is distinguished primarily by its social purpose and exists in multiple and varied organizational forms [ -]. According to Dees [ ], social entrepreneurship bridges © 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.the old culture of charity and the modern culture of entrepreneurial problem-solving. SEs do not engage in charity in the traditional, alms-giving sense but transform traditional charity, such as monetary donations from their supporters, into sustainable improvements. Although there are criticisms over the value of donations and fundraising in social entrepreneurship [ ], in reality many SEs rely on donor contributions, at least in the initial phase of the venture, as they enable the social entrepreneur to carry the required enthusiasm and necessary capital to the table [ ]. In social entrepreneurship, donors can be defined as customers [ , ] because of the financial transactions involved between them and the SE. Based on this definition, SE customers are distinguished from its beneficiaries, who are the ultimate users of its final products and services.Newth [ ] argued that the outputs of a SE are not merely a result of the entrepreneur's personal vision, but an accumu...