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This study aims to explore the characteristics and backgrounds of social entrepreneurs, particularly in relation to what motivates them to start new social ventures, through an empirical examination of the phenomenon of social entrepreneurship in the specific context of Egypt.

The study adopts a qualitative methodological approach based on a triangulation of data sources, including extensive interviews from five social entrepreneurs, interviews with senior executives in their organisations and industry experts, as well as secondary data.

The paper proposes a model that integrates common characteristics and motivations among individuals who start social ventures. Findings confirm the characteristics of social entrepreneurs as compassionate risk-takers with entrepreneurial mindsets who seek to address social issues in innovative ways. They also have the perseverance to face the inefficient institutional frameworks prevalent in developing economies. Social entrepreneurs are motivated by social problems and challenges, inspiration, and previous personal experiences, as well as their social networks.

There are limitations pertaining to the limited sample size and single country focus.

This research offers useful and practical insights for current and future social entrepreneurs, particularly in developing economies. Moreover, the study contributes to expanding future research on social entrepreneurship in similar contexts.

This study makes several contributions to the literature on social entrepreneurship. First, by presenting an integrated model for the characteristics/traits and motivations of social entrepreneur. Second, it provides deeper understanding of social entrepreneurship in emerging economies. Third, it highlights the importance of personal inspiration and informal social networks as two sources of motivation for social entrepreneurs, in emerging countries.

Young entrepreneurs' involvement in social entrepreneurship is gaining momentum, and the impact of their active participation in social enterprises is tremendous. As younger generation creates and leads social enterprises, self-identity that entails their leadership can bring benefits to various stakeholders. In particular, the engagement of younger generation in social entrepreneurship lead to positive identity development that brings impact not only to the founders but also to the employees, volunteers and recipients of the product and services offered by the social enterprise. In this context, the chapter explains the importance of social entrepreneurship in society-building, looking into how it creates values to its participants in regard to personal growth and development. The objective of this chapter is to elucidate the role of social enterprises in developing the personal identity of the younger generation. The chapter maps the characteristics of social entrepreneurs to the characteristics of young people with focus on the development of personal, social and role identities. The chapter also explains the significance of young social entrepreneurs' participation in social activities for the identity formation and how it directly and indirectly contributes to a balanced societal development.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the characteristics and personal values of a successful entrepreneur in order to understand the quality of such characteristics. Thus, this paper aims to investigate how these characteristics and personal values impact strategic decision-making and outcomes driving the success and growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The research question is answered through a single case study approach based on the case of the charismatic and flourishing entrepreneur and owner of Gemar Balloons, a balloon-manufacturing company established in the centre of Italy a century ago.

The paper shows how the success of SMEs in a dynamic environment is influenced by the central resource, “the entrepreneur”, whose entrepreneurial mindset, culture and leadership are essential and partially replicable. They allow strategic management to seek opportunities and develop innovation, achieving competitive advantages and creating wealth.

This paper contributes to an understanding of how values and specific personal characteristics establish an entrepreneurial mindset, culture and leadership, and whether and how these factors are exportable and repeatable. In this way, it allows a better understanding of how possible it is to establish an entrepreneurial mindset and culture by working on a younger generation's values and characteristics. Moreover, it explains why and how entrepreneurial SME leaders are best able to make decisions and manage resources strategically to create competitive advantages.

The paper is new because it shows the distinctive values and characteristics influencing the emerging strategic decision-making model and corporate outcomes.

Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV) and literature on relational embeddedness and network ties, we examine how personal relationships of international social entrepreneurs and accountability of social enterprises influence social value creation in cause-related marketing (CRM) of three UK-based international charities. The study also explores how personal relationships of international social entrepreneurs affect accountability of social entrepreneurship for social value creation of non-profit organizations in the UK context.

Our research aimed to inform international social entrepreneurship literature by exploring the impact of personal relationships on accountability and social value creation processes via cause-related marketing (CRM) practices using a case study method. The lack of clearly defined social value creation in social entrepreneurship, and somewhat intangible processes of relationally embedded ties, accountability, and their impact, the case study method is most suited for this study. In particular, inquiry-based investigation surrounding social value, embedded ties and accountability requires systematic and structured dissemination to capture latent constructs.

The findings show the importance of personal ties in the alignment of social mission with corporate social responsibility between UK-based international charities and commercial organizations across borders. In international social entrepreneurship, social value creation is facilitated by accountability of social goals while trust-based personal relationships assist access to commercial opportunities.

Further research could examine the role of trust in creating greater social value from an international social entrepreneurial perspective rather than from a solely non-profit social mission. It can also consider additional factors such as gender and cultural capital issues to investigate the role of personal relationships of international social entrepreneurs in the accountability and social value creation of non-profit organizations.

The need to fulfil social objectives, missions and obligations are central to the involvement of international social entrepreneurs in CRM activities with commercial organizations. Accountability through clear communications serves as the basis for brokering new ties or partnerships within the social relations of entrepreneurs, particularly weak ties rendering trust for third party endorsement and sharing of information. Although partnerships with commercial organizations may create social value in CRM, the reliance on personal relationships may expose international social entrepreneurs to unethical practice beyond immediate relationships and/or opportunistic behavior without formal contracting mechanisms. International social entrepreneurs must therefore match the core values of their social mission with potential partners in their CRM engagements.

The literature on international social entrepreneurship has not considered how social entrepreneurs' personal relationships at the individual level may impact accountability of social entrepreneurship for CRM and social value creation. This study builds on these studies by examining how individual level personal relationships of international social entrepreneurs with external stakeholders influence accountability of social entrepreneurship for CRM and social value creation at the organizational level. This study also builds on prior studies about entrepreneurial networks and network ties by examining the processes in which international social entrepreneurs use their personal relationships to access and utilize external resources for social value creation in CRM. Finally, this study contributes to previous research which provides limited insights into the international social entrepreneurship among organizations with reference to CRM where social value attributes are evaluated by embedded relational ties.

This study proposes personal network of social entrepreneurs as a key antecedent factor of their resource bricolage to understand the mechanisms underlying social entrepreneurial practices before the founding of social enterprises.

An empirical study is used to collect and analyze data. The questionnaire data are drawn from in-depth semistructured interviews with Chinese social entrepreneurs. This study develops a theoretical framework that draws upon two dimensions of social capital, namely, “ownership” and “use,” to explore relationships among personal network, resource bricolage and relation strength.

With data from 227 social enterprises in China, empirical results suggest that personal network of social entrepreneurs, that is, the “owned” social capital, shall be transformed by the intermediate role of resource bricolage into relation strength, that is, the “used” social capital. The relationship between resource bricolage and relation strength is positively moderated by the marketization degree and social class of social entrepreneurs.

This study introduces resource bricolage into the front-end course of social entrepreneurship. The results show that similar personal network can lead to different behavioral outcomes in the context of social entrepreneurship. Then the integration of resources and opportunities at the beginning of the social entrepreneurial process opens new avenues for future research. However, this study only investigates the transformation from network to resources implemented by social entrepreneurs before organization establishment. It does not explore potential outcomes of such a transformation for the development of social enterprises.

Social entrepreneurs at the prefounding stage shall make use of the values of available resources, fully use potential interpersonal relations in the personal network, and transform these relations into a close, steady relationship to realize potential values of available resources. Social entrepreneurs can start from excavation and foundation laying of strong relation networks, to avoid problems in legality, social awareness and failure risks generated from blind integration of external resources.

This study finds that social entrepreneurship exists between the motivation of the social entrepreneur and the establishment of the organization after the development over time. Creating first a phased result through the resource bricolage is necessary. This result establishes a complete process chain of social entrepreneurship from motivation to behavior, next to organization establishment and subsequent development. This study is an empirical test based on the theoretical interpretation to make a positive effect on the social entrepreneurship research in the theoretical construction and testing of the deficiencies.

Entrepreneurship is a social role, suggesting that different communities and societies will hold different typical expectations for who the entrepreneur should be (i.e., personal characteristics) and how an entrepreneur acts (behaviors). In this chapter, we describe the results of two studies that elucidate the content of the entrepreneur’s role and assess its generalizability and cultural uniqueness in three cultures: the United States, China, and Taiwan. We do so by examining the prototypes, or culturally shared implicit theories or schema that individuals hold about the attributes and behaviors characterizing the entrepreneur’s role. We suggest that the entrepreneur prototype has overlapping content across these three cultures, and that they also reflect cultural uniqueness due to different political, economic, and social histories and conditions. First, we conducted an initial inductive study designed to elicit a comprehensive list of representative characteristics and behaviors that are commonly recognized in each society as typical of an “entrepreneur,” resulting in an inclusive list of 87 prototypical/anti-prototypical items. These items were subsequently used in a survey-based study to assess the specific content that each culture endorses as prototypical of an entrepreneur, the extent to which those prototypes varied across the three cultures, and relationships of prototype evaluation with individuals’ personal values and exposure to entrepreneurship. Results showed that prototypes were distinct in each culture, but with some overlap of attributes, especially between China and Taiwan. Results showed some support for the relationship between top-ranked prototypical attributes and individuals’ exposure to entrepreneurship as well as openness-to-change values and conservation values, but also interesting differences in these relationships in the three cultures. The findings highlight that role prototype formation processes across these cultures were etic, but that the content of the role may well be emic or culturally specific.

A better understanding of the characteristics and capabilities of women entrepreneurs can significantly improve their chances of success. Therefore, three studies were conducted for this exploratory paper. We have discovered the characteristics of entrepreneurial intelligence among female entrepreneurs through semi-structured interviews based on conventional content analysis. According to the second study, qualitative meta-synthesis was utilized to identify characteristics of women's entrepreneurial intelligence at the international level. As a third study, we examined the evolutionary relationships of entrepreneurs' intelligence components following the discovery and creation of opportunities.

The present paper was based on three studies. In the first study, 15 female entrepreneurs were interviewed using purposive sampling in the Guilan province of Iran to identify the characteristics of entrepreneurial intelligence at the national level. An inductive content analysis was performed on the data collected through interviews. Using Shannon entropy and qualitative validation, their validity was assessed. In the second study, using a qualitative meta-synthesis, the characteristics of women's entrepreneurial intelligence were identified. Then the results of these two studies were compared with each other. In the third study, according to the results obtained from the first and second studies, the emergence, priority and evolution of entrepreneurial intelligence components in two approaches to discovering and creating entrepreneurial opportunities were determined. For this purpose, interviews were conducted with 12 selected experts using the purposeful sampling method using the fuzzy total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) method.

In the first research, this article identified the components of entrepreneurial intelligence of women entrepreneurs in six categories: entrepreneurial insights, cognitive intelligence, social intelligence, intuitive intelligence, presumptuous intelligence and provocative intelligence. In the second study, the components of entrepreneurial intelligence were compared according to the study at the national level and international literature. Finally, in the third study, the evolution of the components of entrepreneurial intelligence was determined. In the first level, social intelligence, presumptuous intelligence and provocative intelligence are formed first and social intelligence and provocative intelligence have an interactive relationship. In the second level, entrepreneurial insight and cognitive intelligence appear, which, in addition to their interactive relationship, take precedence over the entrepreneur's intuitive intelligence in discovering entrepreneurial opportunities. With the evolution of the components of entrepreneurial intelligence in the opportunity creation approach, it is clear that intuitive intelligence is formed first at the first level and takes precedence. At the second level, there is cognitive intelligence is created. At the third level, motivational intelligence and finally, at the last level, entrepreneurial insight, social intelligence and bold intelligence.

This study has the potential to discover credible and robust approaches for further examining the contextualization of women's entrepreneurial intelligence at both national and international levels, thereby advancing new insights. By conceptualizing various components of entrepreneurial intelligence for the first time and exploring how contextual factors differ across nations and internationally for women's entrepreneurship, this paper challenges the assumption that the characteristics of women's entrepreneurial intelligence are uniform worldwide. It also depicts the evolution of the components of entrepreneurial intelligence.

Examines the characteristics of the entrepreneurial personality and the effects of changes in the entrepreneur’s personal relationships. According to the empirical findings, becoming an entrepreneur and acting as an entrepreneur are both aspects of the entrepreneur’s learning process, which in turn has an effect on the personality characteristics of the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur’s drive to solve problems (= mastery) had increased, and control by powerful others decreased since the start‐up phase. Changes in the entrepreneur’s relations with others were also observed to have an effect on the entrepreneur’s personality characteristics. The empirical findings also show that as the number of co‐operative partners decreased, control by powerful others also decreased, and that, since the start‐up phase, entrepreneurs whose personal relations had increased also showed a clear increase in mastery.

Years of research into immigrant entrepreneurship motivation (IEM) call for a synthesis of the field to note field developments and identify thematic antecedents and measurement elements. The paper aims to fill this literature review gap in IEM field. Improving existing analytical frameworks and establishing a research agenda are also goals of the research.

Adopting the PRISMA procedure, a systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted. This produced 53 IEM research papers (internationally, from 1974 to 2020) from a database search and other sources, each of which was reviewed based on extracted variables, findings and suggestions. A well-accepted entrepreneurial motivation model is used for thematic measurement analyzes.

IEM research has gained attention over the past 25 years as to the number of publications, research foci and antecedent discoveries. The review suggests that there are six motivational thematic dimensions: individual characteristics, personal experiences and circumstances, personal values, business ideas and opportunities, goal-setting and self-efficacy and immigrant entrepreneurial ecosystem (IEE). The results also reveal a relationship between entrepreneurship motivations and the IEE which is one of the keys recommended future research strands.

This research contributes to entrepreneurship literature by providing a chronological timeline of IEM field development and antecedent discoveries. The review suggests applying the IEE and its associated components to investigate host and home countries’ interactive effects on IEM.

The research provides guidance for policymakers and practitioners concerning available policy instruments and IEM determinants in addition to individual factors.

This study is the first SLR on IEM. It presents a holistic view of the IEM field.

This study aims to examine the impact of social media (SM) on the creation of digital entrepreneurship by female (irrespective of age) and youth male (aged 18–29 years) entrepreneurs, investigate if SM empowers those entrepreneurs and compare the empowerment characteristics between female and youth male entrepreneurs before and after starting their businesses.

Self-assessment questionnaires were collected from a sample of 408 Egyptian female and youth male digital entrepreneurs from Greater Cairo, whose businesses had been operating for more than one year.

The research showed the following four results: Of the surveyed entrepreneurs, 95% asserted that without SM, they would not have started their businesses. Female and youth male entrepreneurs are empowered both on personal and relational levels, and women’s empowerment is more evident in the latter. Before digital entrepreneurship, youth males have significantly higher averages than female entrepreneurs in almost all empowerment characteristics, whereas after digital entrepreneurship, female entrepreneurs have significantly higher averages in making decisions related to investment, personal education and personal health, as well as those of other household members. Female entrepreneurs are relatively more empowered than youth males after digital entrepreneurship when each group is compared with its initial status.

This study’s originality stems from using a large sample of entrepreneurs, including youth males, not just females; employing a more structured, comprehensive measure of empowerment than found in the literature because it included the rarely used psychological dimension; considering more than one SM tool and comparing empowerment of females to that of youth males.