Social entrepreneurs' motivations

Social entrepreneurship provides societies with a new approach to tackle social issues. In an endeavor to understand this new phenomenon, this study has the purpose of exploring the motivations of social entrepreneurs. Identifying social entrepreneurs’ motivation can help government to employ policies which reinforces social entrepreneurship in the society. This study has investigated social entrepreneur’s motivation by employing a combination of interviews and surveys as the methodology in order to decrease the level of biased inferences. To do so, this study uses Self-determination theory (SDT) as a potential theory of motivation to shed light on the SEs’ motivation. The surveys are to determine the level of autonomous regulation and intrinsic motivation in two domains of prosocial and entrepreneurial activities. They are designed based on SDT’s characteristics of regulatory styles. In the end the study concludes that there is significant support for the assumption that SEs experience integration as regulatory style in moral behaviors and are intrinsically motivated in entrepreneurial domain. But the result questions that the reason for integration is the satisfaction of basic psychological needs identified by SDT.

Social entrepreneurship offre un nuovo approccio per affrontare i problemi sociali. Questo studio ha lo scopo di esplorare le motivazioni alla sua base. Comprendere questo nuovo fenomeno, può aiutare il governo a impiegare politiche che rafforzino l'imprenditoria sociale. Questo studio delle motivazioni viene svolto impiegando una combinazione di interviste e sondaggi per ridurre il livello di inferenze prevenute. Gli strumenti di indagine si basano sulla self-determination theory (SDT). Le indagini mirano a determinare il livello di autonomous regulation e la intrinsic motivation negli ambiti di attività prosociale e imprenditoriale. I due indici da nalizzare sono definiti in dettagio nella SDT. Lo studio conclude che esiste un supporto significativo per l'ipotesi che le SE sperimentino l' integrated regulation come stile normativo nei comportamenti morali e siano intrinsecamente motivate nel dominio imprenditoriale. Il risultato però mette in dubbio che la ragione dell' integrated regulation sia la soddisfazione dei bisogni psicologici di base identificati da SDT.