Entrepreneurial Self-efficacy And Entrepreneurial Orientation In Social Entrepreneurship:The Impact Of Collective Efficacy And Policy Support

Social entrepreneurship originates from the "triple failure" in the field of public services,and it is a new social action mode that pursues both social value and economic benefit In the background of economic modernization transition,social problems are increasingly prominent.Social entrepreneurship is regarded as an important grasping point to alleviate social contradictions and provide public services,and becomes a hot research topic in the field of public administration.As a key factor to promote social entrepreneurship,social entrepreneurship orientation reflects the strategy of how social enterprises take into account duality.Although social entrepreneurship orientation has attracted much attention in academia and practice,as an emerging construct,the academic research of social entrepreneurship orientation is still in its early stage,and the existing literature mainly focuses on the exploration of the concept and dimension of social entrepreneurship orientation,the development of scales and the study of social entrepreneurship orientation as an independent variable,the research on the antecedent variables of social entrepreneurship orientation is relatively insufficient.It mainly explores the influence of organizational variables on social entrepreneurship orientation,while few studies explore the influence of individual variables on social entrepreneurship orientation.As the founder of social entrepreneurship,social entrepreneurs largely determine the survival and extinction of social entrepreneurship.Faced with the particularity and difficulty of social entrepreneurship,government policy support,as a key link in the social entrepreneurship ecosystem,plays a key role in maximizing social and economic value of social entrepreneurship.Therefore,under the heterogeneity of regional policy support,how social entrepreneurs lead their teams to implement social entrepreneurship-oriented strategies is a topic of great research value.Considering the heterogeneity effect of policy support,this study explores the antecedent variables of social entrepreneurship orientation from the perspective of individual cognitive factors of social entrepreneurs based on the social cognitive theory and policy mix theory.At the same time,collective efficacy and perspective taking are introduced as moderating variables,and a systematic theoretical model is proposed.Based on 268 questionnaires collected in 16 provinces including Guangdong,Sichuan,and Beijing(4 provinces have policy support,12 provinces have no policy),this study employs hierarchical linear regression to examine the obtained first-hand questionnaire data,and discuss the association between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and social entrepreneurship orientation under the heterogeneity of policy support.The result is as follows.Firstly,social entrepreneurship orientation is positively influenced by entrepreneurial self-efficacy,which is to say,the better entrepreneurial self-efficacy,the stronger the social entrepreneurship orientation.Secondly,collective efficacy acts as a positive moderator of the positive relationship that exists between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and social entrepreneurship orientation,that is,the higher the degree of collective efficacy,the greater the positive impact of entrepreneurial self-efficacy on social entrepreneurship orientation.Thirdly,in a high-perspective-taking team,collective efficacy plays a more significant role in shaping the connection between the entrepreneur’s belief in their ability to succeed and their inclination towards creating social impact through their business.Fourly,the relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and social entrepreneurship orientation has the heterogeneity effect of regional policy support.The research results provide a theoretical basis for enhancing social entrepreneurship orientation,enrich the application of social cognitive theory and policy mix theory in the field of social entrepreneurship,and expand the scope and depth of research in the field of social entrepreneurship.This study provides useful reference and guidance for how social entrepreneurs’ individual cognitive factors improve social entrepreneurship orientation at the organizational level,how social entrepreneurship solves diversified social problems and how the government provides policy support for social entrepreneurship.