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The importance of sustainable development has become increasingly significant in today’s fast-paced world. The 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) aim to solve a range of environmental, economic and social challenges, which requires global collaboration among governments and private organisations. In light of this, social entrepreneurship has garnered significant attention as it combines the social purpose of non-profits with the market-driven approach of for-profits to address SDG goals. Yet the cognitive processes underpinning the career decisions of social entrepreneurs remain underexplored. This study aims to develop and validate a scale to measure social entrepreneurial career decisions based on the appraisal of perceived challenges.

The study followed the steps of tool development and was carried out in three phases: item analysis, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).

The final 20-item scale focuses on the appraisal components in pre-entry social entrepreneurial career decision-making and has four factors, which are relevance, coping potential, knowledge and resources and normative significance.

The study contributes to the literature on entrepreneurial cognition, specifically focusing on social entrepreneurship. The scale could guide model testing and quantitative research in social entrepreneurial cognition. The four-dimensional structure identified in the study may also have implications for researchers interested in the antecedents and effects of social entrepreneurial decision-making.

Accurate measurement of cognitive appraisal is necessary to understand the perceived challenges and thought processes of potential social entrepreneurs. The scale could be used to examine the cognitive appraisal patterns among students. Social entrepreneurship educators and policymakers can use the scale to design and assess educational programs.

Distinct from existing studies, this scale offers a multidimensional approach that captures the stages of career decision-making, providing a robust tool to enhance our understanding of the decision-making dynamics in social entrepreneurship.

The purpose of this study was to examine consumer data acquired by branded prescription drug websites and the ethics of privacy related to the interconnected web of personal information accessed, packaged and resold by tracker technologies.

The research used the DMI Tracker Tool to collect data on the top 17 branded prescription drug websites, with a specific interest in the tracker technologies embedded in those websites. That data was analyzed using Gephi, an open-source data visualization tool, to map the network of trackers embedded in those branded prescription drug websites.

Findings visualize the interconnections between tracker technologies and prescription drug websites that undergird a system of personal data acquisition and programmatic advertising vehicles that serve the interests of prescription drug marketers and Big Tech. Based on the theory of platform ethics, the study demonstrated the presence of a technostructural ecosystem dominated by Big Tech, a system that goes unseen by consumers and serves the interests of advertisers and resellers of consumer data.

The 17 websites used in this study were limited to the top-selling prescription drugs or those with the highest ad expenditures. As such this study is not based on a random sampling of branded prescription drug websites. The popularity of these prescription drugs or the expanse of advertising associated with the drugs makes them appropriate to study the presence of tracking devices that collect data from consumers and serve advertising to them. It is also noted that websites are dynamic spaces, and some trackers within their infrastructures are apt to change over time.

Branded prescription drug information has over the past three decades become part of consumers’ routine search for information regarding what ails them. As drug promotion moved from print to TV and the Web, searching for drug information has become a part of everyday life. The implications of embedded trackers on branded prescription drug websites are the subject of this research.

This study has significant social implications as consumers who are searching for information regarding prescription medications may not want drug companies tracking them in a way that many perceive to be an invasion of privacy. Yet, as the Web is dominated by Big Tech, web developers have little choice but to remain a part of this technostructural ecosystem.

This study sheds light on branded prescription drug websites, exploring the imbalance between the websites under study, Big Tech and consumers who lack awareness of the system that operates backstage.