How Gender, Age and Education Influence the Entrepreneur’s Social Orientation: The Moderating Effect of Economic Development

Abstract

A social entrepreneur is an individual that creates a company to generate social value. Social entrepreneurs tend to develop these initiatives because they have a strong social orientation. The reason why people have a stronger or weaker social orientation has been analyzed through the lens of different subjects, among biological, social, and behavioral sciences. However, the literature does not agree about which variables influence individuals to have more or less social orientation. We investigated which variables influence the entrepreneur’s social orientation by using a large sample of individuals (n = 176,460) in 59 countries. Our results show that an entrepreneur’s social orientation is stronger for women, more educated, and older people. The economic development of the country moderates these relationships among the social orientation, gender, and education level of the individual. We found that the individual’s social orientation increases at the same rate as the country’s development level.

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