Social entrepreneurs are viewed as having the abilities to combat social
and economic problems in which government, businesses, and non-profits
may not be able to solve the problems alone. Consequently, with the
collaboration among these sectors, more social enterprises can be
established to create social values and development in a nation,
specifically among the emerging economies. Therefore, it is timely to
investigate what motivates undergraduates to develop social
entrepreneurial intention. Drawing from the entrepreneurial models of
Shapero and Sokol (1982) and Kruger and Brazeal (1994), this study aims
to examine the social entrepreneurial intention among undergraduates
from the perspective of an emerging economy. The proposed conceptual
model differs from the existing entrepreneurial intention studies by
adding the concepts of empathy and social entrepreneurship exposure as
the antecedents to perceived desirability and perceived feasibility of
social enterprising start-up, which in turn link to social
entrepreneurial intention. Using the quota sampling technique, data were
collected from 257 business and economics undergraduates from both
public and private higher education institutions in Malaysia. The survey
instrument was adapted from prior related studies, for instance, Davis
(1983) for empathy; Shapero and Sokol (1982) for social entrepreneurship
exposure; Krueger (1993) for perceived desirability and perceived
feasibility; and Chen et al. (1998) for social entrepreneurial
intention. Partial least squares path modelling was used to analyze the
hypothesized relationships in the proposed conceptual framework. It is
hoped that the findings of this study will shed light on the existing
literature of social entrepreneurship, specifically the social
entrepreneurial intention studies from the emerging economies
perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]