Opportunity Recognition Behavior And Readiness Of Youth Towards Social Entrepreneurship

The present study focuses on opportunity recognition behavior and readiness of youth towards social entrepreneurship as career selection.This research thesis tries to reduce these shortcoming and confusion by combining opportunity recognition behavior and willingness of youth towards social entrepreneurship through comprehensive theoretical modeling and empirical testing.The main research question of this research thesis is "what mechanism are important to develop opportunity recognition behavior to create social entrepreneurship readiness among youth".To test the phenomena,the main theoretical constructs are social capital,social empathy,institutional environment(normative and regulative environment),formal education and training,pro-activeness,alertness and readiness of youth.The study hypothesized that social capital,social empathy,institutional environment(normative and regulative environment),formal education and training enhances opportunity recognition behavior(pro-activeness and alertness)among the youngsters.Study also hypothesized that this opportunity recognition behavior further leads to readiness of youth towards social entrepreneurship.Further,study hypothesized that collectivism/individualism as an important domain of culture has moderating effect on the relationship between opportunity recognition behavior and readiness.The data for this research was collected from youth belonging to Pakistan,China,and India.A total number of 750 questionnaires were circulated among respondents,out of which,555 was obtained from respondents for further analysis.In the analysis,confirmatory factor analysis was used to test constructs theoretically and multi-regression and structural equation modeling was used to test hypotheses.Then hierarchal regression was used to test the moderating effect of cultural domains on readiness and opportunity recognition behavior.It is concluded from the results that social capital has a significant influence on opportunity recognition behavior of youth.Reason is very apparent that when individual more indulge in social interactions,have dialogues,share information and thoughts,they get access to different kind of information channels and this information becomes source of knowledge for youth who want to serve the society.Education and training(E&T)has significantly influence the opportunity recognition behavior of youth.Results show that E&T provide youth with the abilities to convert information intouseful knowledge.E&T help youth to learn about theories,rules,regulations,and techniques which provide tools and knowledge to analyze the situation and market.Social Empathy has a significant impact on alertness of youth.The higher will be the social empathy;the higher will be opportunity recognition behavior in the form of alertness.Individuals with social competence as an integral part of social empathy has higher level of opportunity recognition behavior,because they have emotional,cognitive,and soft hearted skills which motivate them to alert and pro-active to problems and troubles faced by society or community.They are always in a state of vigorous concentration with high level of sensory awareness such as scanning,exploring,and exploiting opportunities to solve problems faced by societies or communities.Regulative Institutional environment,has no significant affect the opportunity recognition behavior whereas normative institutional environment has significant impact on opportunity recognition behavior of youth.Regulative environment has no impact on opportunity recognition behavior of youth because of less support from the government for social entrepreneurship.Normative Environment'(NE)where society supports youth to adopt social entrepreneurial career which is the core factor that directly affects the individual's ability to generate,gather,promote and realize opportunity with the aim of implementing those ideas.Readiness towards social entrepreneurship is positively affected by opportunity recognition behaviour in terms of alertness and pro-activeness.Individuals with social entrepreneurial readiness are alert to discover new knowledge and information differently so they may take advantage of new opportunities with the help of creativity and imagination they have in their cognition.Alertness and pro-activeness is a unique and critical opportunity recognition behaviour which helps entrepreneurs in identifying the new prospects to provide solutions or fulfil the needs and wants of the society by creating new products and serv ices which are not currently exist in the market.Individual with social entrepreneurial readiness are intend to search and perceive changes in the society,environment,and community,and adjust their realistic framework according to the changes and react according to this mental perception.Individualism/collectivism cultural dimension dampens the positive relationship between pro-activeness,alertness and readiness of youth towards social entrepreneurship.Culture is a unify theme that provide meaning,direction and mobilization to individual living in society.At micro level,culture affects individual cognitive and interpretive classifications.It helps them in shaping their behavior,motivation and attitude.Whereas at macro-level,culture influence the members of society to understand their relationship with the society and environment in which they are living.Attributes of the culture are established and are transmitted across generations,and shapes the behavior of the society.Culture not only affects behavior of the individual towards society but it also impacts the social,psychological and economic functioning of the society.