Spreading entrepreneurial news—investigating media influence on social entrepreneurial antecedents

Abstract

Attitude towards social entrepreneurship (SE),i.e. the positive or negative evaluation of this career and perceived behavioral control (PBC),i.e. the conviction that one is able to succeed as a social entrepreneur have been identified as suitable individual predictors for SE-intention,i.e. the intention to found an enterprise with the aspiration to generate revenue and address social problems. Recent research found evidence for external influences on attitudes,PBC,and SE-intention like culture or economic and political circumstances,however,to date no study has been conducted on the extent to which attitudes and PBC can be altered by external media-related influences. Investigating two students' samples (Ntotal = 345),a randomized 2 × 2 experimental design was used to examine the influence of newspaper articles on SE-related attitudes and PBC. The experiment featured four different conditions,namely articles presenting rather positive (1) and negative (2) information on SE (attitude condition) and articles featuring rather successful (3) or unsuccessful (4) role-models (PBC-condition). The participants were randomly assigned to one attitude and one PBC-condition each. I hypothesized that articles (i) conveying rather positive or negative information on SE (attitude condition) and (ii) featuring rather successful or unsuccessful SE-role models (PBC-condition) in and decrease SE-related attitudes and PBC. The MANCOVA-results suggest that there were higher SE-related PBC levels in the successful role model condition compared to the unsuccessful one. No effect was found for the attitude condition. Despite the study basing on convenience sampling,evidence for the influenceability of SE-related PBC by role models is provided. Future research should investigate the stability of the effect and examine other media forms like television or social media. The findings reveal that presenting appropriate SE role-models can be an effective part of SE-education and governmental programs.

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