International Journal of Entrepreneurship (Print ISSN: 1099-9264; Online ISSN: 1939-4675)

Abstract

The Effect of Social Entrepreneurs Characteristics on Resource Acquisition and Firm Performance

Author(s): Youngkeun Choi, Sugin Chang

Social enterprises receive a lot of attention, because of their functions for contributing to balance between social service-enhancing and profit-making activities. They can survive and have financial sustainability in market mechanism and provide social service that cannot be provided due to the failure of market and government. In Korean context, social enterprises have another function to provide jobs and increase employment rates in the time of low economy growth and economy inequality. Given this situation, it is necessary that researchers investigate what characteristics of social entrepreneurs are helpful to obtain particular types of resources and what types of resources from resource providers may have mediating effects on the relationship between the characteristics of social entrepreneurs and the social performance of social ventures. In the Korean context, first, the younger the founder of a social venture, the more positive it is in obtaining financial and marketing resources. Second, if the founder of a social venture is highly educated, it has a positive impact on financial resource acquisition. Third, if the founder of a social venture is from a prestigious university, it will have a positive impact on financial and marketing resources acquisition. Fourth, age and prestigious school are helpful for the social performance of social ventures, but educational level for social ventures weaken the social performance of social ventures contrary to my expectation. Finally, age, educational level and prestigious school decrease the social performance of social ventures by providing financial support contrary to my expectation and they don’t contribute to the social performance of social ventures by providing marketing supports.

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