Altruism towards others and sustainability intention of small business owners

Abstract

Though, small businesses are vital globally, they contribute to environmental and social challenges such as deforestation, pollution, use of polythene bags, poor working conditions, child labour and health hazards. Thus, it is vital to understand the concept of sustainability intention of small business owners. The purpose of this study therefore was to assess how altruism towards others influences sustainability intention of small business owners in Uganda. The study adopted a cross sectional design. A sample of 384 small businesses in Kampala was selected and self-administered questionnaire used to collect data. Statistical package for social science (SPSS) was used to process and analyze data from the respondents through correlation and regression analysis to determine the predicting power of altruism towards others on sustainability intention. The study findings revealed that altruism towards others significantly predicts the sustainability intention of small business owners. It is therefore recommended that small business owners should always be empathetic and sympathetic to the people and be mindful of conserving the environment for better long term profit gains.

Do Volunteers Intend to Become Social Entrepreneurs? The Influence of Pro-Social Behavior on Social Entrepreneurial Intentions

“…Furthermore, previous research shows that regular entrepreneurs do have a tendency toward altruism, presenting characteristics and acting aligned with such concerns. For instance, studies have confirmed these entrepreneurs have considerable levels of altruism (Riedo et al, 2019), which often also bears close connection to sustainability principles similarly to social entrepreneurs (Kimuli et al, 2018). In this sense, our research further confirms this altruistic trend with social entrepreneurs similarly to what other studies found (Chakraborty et al, 2021; Petrovskaya & Mirakyan, 2018), that is, the fact that social entrepreneurs are prone to altruism, but our study advances with it as our research question also investigates SEI from volunteers, which although it appears to be likely trend, it has not been properly explored by the previous studies cited above.…”