Factors influencing social entrepreneurial intention among university students in Malaysia, the mediation of perceived desirability and feasibility, and the moderation of prior experience

Social entrepreneurship is one of the emerging phenomena worldwide that supply potential social entrepreneurs and impactful social enterprises to address the social and environmental problems that arise in societies. Social entrepreneurship can be a platform to curb a serious problem such as youth unemployment and other social problems related to youth. Yet, there is a lack of youth, student, or graduate participation in social entrepreneurship in Malaysia. Highlighting the intention formation for social entrepreneurship can reflect individual readiness for social entrepreneurship. Several scholars have explored social entrepreneurial intention to identify the factors that influence individuals’ social entrepreneurial intention. However, limited studies have been conducted to empirically test the social entrepreneurial intention model. This study underlines the research framework based on theory of planned behavior and model of social entrepreneurial intentions. This study aims to examine the factors that influence social entrepreneurial intention among university students in Malaysia, namely empathy, moral obligation, social entrepreneurial self- efficacy, and perceived social support, with perceived desirability and perceived feasibility as the mediators and prior social entrepreneurial experience as a moderator. A total of 740 questionnaires were distributed to respondents through simple random sampling. The usable 415 questionnaires were analyzed using SPSS for descriptive analysis and SmartPLS for measurement model assessment, structural model assessment, mediation analysis, and moderation analysis. The findings of this study show that a) social entrepreneurial self-efficacy, perceived social support, and perceived desirability are positively related to social entrepreneurial intention, b) empathy, social entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and perceived social support are positively correlated with perceived desirability, c) social entrepreneurial self-efficacy and perceived social support are positively associated with perceived feasibility, and d) perceived feasibility mediates the relationships between social entrepreneurial self-efficacy and perceived social support with social entrepreneurial intention. Nevertheless, prior social entrepreneurial experience does not moderate the relationships between perceived desirability, perceived feasibility, and social entrepreneurial intention. Overall, this study provides a better insight and understanding of students' inclination towards social entrepreneurship, benefiting the government, the Ministry of Entrepreneur and Cooperatives Development, the Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysian public universities, society, agencies involved in social entrepreneurship, practitioners, and policy makers.