Why Create Value for Others? An Exploration of Social Entrepreneurial Motives

By Jennifer Ruskin, R. Seymour, Cynthia M. Webster. 2016

149 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Social entrepreneurs create value for and with target communities in need. This paper responds to calls for research addressing social entrepreneurs’ drive to benefit others. We draw from psychology to augment the understanding of motives in entrepreneurship before conducting a phenomenon‐driven, instrumental case study of social entrepreneurs’ motives. We find some emotions, such as entrepreneurial passion and frustration, lead to self‐oriented motives, while sympathy and empathy are precursors for other‐oriented motivations, such as altruism and social justice. This work provides a theoretical platform for future studies in entrepreneurial motivation that addresses the importance of nonfinancial motives and associated rewards for fostering engagement in the sector.

Subfields: Business and International Management, Management of Technology and Innovation, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6d32e0e813716a7c34aca391a9121ee248e96c25

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Business and International Management

1. Gemma Garima Chandan
2. Melissa S. Cardon
3. J. Moeller
4. M. Obschonka
5. Alexander Newman
6. Charles Y. Murnieks

In Management of Technology and Innovation

1. Alexander Newman
2. M. Obschonka
3. Charles Y. Murnieks
4. Gemma Garima Chandan
5. J. Moeller
6. M. Glauser
7. Melissa S. Cardon
8. S. Karimi

In Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

1. Alexander Newman
2. M. Obschonka
3. Charles Y. Murnieks
4. J. Moeller
5. Gemma Garima Chandan
6. Melissa S. Cardon
7. M. Glauser
8. S. Karimi

Citations in the corpus

• Entrepreneurial Passion: A Review, Synthesis, and Agenda for Future Research (2019, background): “Ruskin, Seymour, and Webster (2016) examined the link between entrepreneurial passion and motives for starting a social enterprise.”
• Passion for what? Expanding the domains of entrepreneurial passion☆ (2017, background): “For example, scholars hint that entrepreneurs may be passionate about the venture they have created (Bird, 1989; Cardon et al., 2005; Chen et al., 2009), or particular opportunities they are pursuing (Branzei and Zietsma, 2003; Ruskin et al., 2016), regardless of the venture involved.”