The early bird catches the worm: an empirical analysis of imprinting in social entrepreneurship

Petra Dickel, Monika Sienknecht and Jacob Hörisch ()
Additional contact information
Petra Dickel: University of Applied Sciences Kiel
Monika Sienknecht: Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel
Jacob Hörisch: Leuphana University of Lüneburg

Journal of Business Economics, 2021, vol. 91, issue 2, No 2, 127-150

Abstract: Abstract Understanding the antecedents of social entrepreneurship is critical for unleashing the potential of social entrepreneurship and thus for tackling social problems. While research has provided valuable insights into imprinting of the conventional entrepreneur, research on differences between social and conventional entrepreneurship suggests that social entrepreneurs evolve differently. Using survey data of 148 social entrepreneurs, we draw on the concepts of imprinting and critical incident recognition as a framework for understanding how social entrepreneur’s childhood experiences and parental exposure to social entrepreneurship affect social entrepreneurial activity in adulthood. First, our results suggest that social entrepreneurs are imprinted by their childhood experiences but not by parental exposure to social entrepreneurship. Second, imprints tend to persist over time when they are linked to critical incidents regarding social entrepreneurship. These insights contribute to a deeper understanding of imprinting mechanisms in social entrepreneurship contexts and highlight the importance of making examples of social entrepreneurship tangible to children.

Keywords: Social entrepreneurship; Imprinting; Childhood; Critical incidents; L26; L31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11573-020-00969-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jbecon:v:91:y:2021:i:2:d:10.1007_s11573-020-00969-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/11573

DOI: 10.1007/s11573-020-00969-z

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Economics is currently edited by Günter Fandel

More articles in Journal of Business Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().