| Coming into being in 1990 s,Social entrepreneurship is considered as a subspecies of entrepreneurship,which aims to solve social problems,to meet public demands and takes social value creation,or both social and economic value creation as its first target.When one of the most outstanding social entrepreneurs Muhammad Yunus,who is a Bangladeshi economist and also the founder of Grammen Bank aiming to help poor Bangladeshis get rid of poverty through small loans,got the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006,social entrepreneurship began to rise and develop rapidly and globally.Nowadays,under the current policy of“public innovation and entrepreneurship”in the Chinese society,Chinese university students begin to take part in social entrepreneurship.The benefits of encouraging university students start an social enterprise are not only to improve employment rate,enhance economy,but also to accelerate social and environmental problems solving progress,to innovate social governance models,to expand government public service functions,to achieve social fairness and justice,and promote social progress with professional knowledge and innovative thinking of universities students.However,social entrepreneurship awareness of Chinese university students is weak,the motivation for social entrepreneurship is insufficient,and the participation rate of social entrepreneurship is low.In order to inspire and encourage university students to start social business,to enhance value of entrepreneurship,to cultivate young leaders with social responsibility to lead social development,this study takes motivation,which is an important psychological factors influencing one’s behaviors,as our main research theme.Combining theoretical researches and empirical researches,this study conduct a survey with 2512 students from 21 universities and colleges located in7 regions,15 provinces and cities in China as its sample,and a case study on 5 university student social entrepreneurs concerning the construct,current situation,influencing factors and formation process of university students’ social entrepreneurial motivation.The conclusions are as follows:(1)University students’ social entrepreneurial motivations are a mixture of other-oriented motivations and self-oriented motivations.The other-oriented motivations include four dimensions,namely public responsibility,social development,social change,sacrifice and self-oriented motivations consist of two dimensions: internal rewards,autonomy and independence.(2)University students’ social entrepreneurship motivation level is generally low,and other-oriented motivation level is lower than self-oriented motivation level.(3)Gender,whether participate in volunteer service,whether join in social entrepreneurship clubs,hometown,family economic level,school type,and grade have caused significant differences in college students’ social entrepreneurial motivation level.Specifically speaking,the motivation level of girls is significantly higher than that of boys.The motivation level of who have ever participated in volunteer service is significantly higher than that of who have never.The motivation level of college students who join in social entrepreneurship student organizations is significantly higher than that of non-joined.The motivation level of students from rural and county-level cities are significantly higher than that of students from the large and medium-sized cities.The motivation level of students with the best and worst family economics are significantly weaker than that of students with good,fair and inferior families’ economic level.The motivation level of freshmen are significantly higher than that of other grades.(4)Entrepreneur personality traits,including achievement needs,risk-taking,autonomy and innovation,have a significant positive impact on students’ social entrepreneurial motivation,other-oriented motivation and self-oriented motivation.Altruistic personality,including Empathy and social responsibility have a significant positive impact on students’ social entrepreneurial motivation and other-oriented motivation.The background influencing factors do not have significant predictive power for college students’ social entrepreneurial motivation level.Especially after entrepreneurs’ personality traits,empathy and social responsibility gradually entered,the regression equations show that only the "hometown" and "school type" have impact on students’ social entrepreneurial motivation,and “ hometown ” and“volunteer service” have an impact on the other-oriented motivation,and all of their regression coefficients are small.(5)The personality traits of five university student social entrepreneurs all have varying degrees of achievement needs,risk-taking,autonomy and innovation,empathy and social responsibility.These personal traits have a strong relation to their social entrepreneurial behaviors.This conclusion verifies the rationality of the conclusions we get from questionnaire survey.(6)The formation of university students’ social entrepreneurial motivation is based on the internal foundation of social entrepreneurial willingness.Once one have social entrepreneurial willingness,it means that individuals are willing to start a social business,or want to solve social or environmental problems.The in-depth research of social issues and social needs and finding the ideal solution to social problems is the external condition for one to generate social entrepreneurial behavior.Under the influence of external conditions,the individual have a clearly direction and aims of social entrepreneurial behavior.In other words,one knows “ how to solve a social issue in social entrepreneurship way ”,then social entrepreneurial behavior occurs.(7)External factors that influence the formation process of university students’ social entrepreneurial motivation include whether individuals have access to social issues,whether individuals get involved in solving social problems and whether individuals are supported by other people,such as teachers,schools,etc.According to findings we get from empirical researches,we believe that stimulating and cultivating college students’ social entrepreneurial motivation requires collaboration between family education and school education,needs synergy between basic education and higher education to foster young people’s entrepreneurial personality,altruistic personality,to enhance university students’ social entrepreneurial willingness,and to help potential student social entrepreneurs get involved in solving social issues then initiate projects.In addition,it is necessary for universities to cooperate with the government,society,foundations,social entrepreneurial organizations,communities,etc to form a joint effort to stimulate and cultivate university students’ social entrepreneurial motivations. |
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