Profile of social entrepreneur in Serbia: Motivation and socio-demographic characteristics

Abstract

This paper explores the traits of social entrepreneurship in Serbia by addressing the role of motivation, education, personal experience, gender and age in developing social enterprises.The research done so far has not directly addressed the issue of characteristics of individuals who bring social innovation in Serbia and in that manner our research contributes to the existing body of knowledge. The data for this study were drawn from field research that started in June 2014, combining qualitative and quantitative research techniques. Our research suggests that social entrepreneurs in Serbia usually enter this venture without previous experience in founding a social enterprise or managing one. Education plays an important role in motivation to work for or establish a social enterprise: founders are by large people with higher education interested in continuous education and often engaged in some vocational education or training. Disparities in motivation to work in (or establish) a social enterprise are prominently different depending on the respondents' ages younger respondents are motivated primarily to address a specific social problem, while the older ones are motivated mainly to create a personal employment opportunity. KEY WORDS: social entrepreneurship, social enterprises, personal traits, Serbia APSTRAKT: U ovom radu istražuju se svojstva socijalnih preduzetnika u Srbiji kroz analizu uloge koju motivacija, obrazovanje, lično iskustvo, pol i starost imaju u razvoju socijalnih preduzeća. Dosadašnja istraživanja se nisu neposredno bavila pitanjem karakteristika pojedinaca koji su nosioci socijanih inovacija u Srbiji te na taj način ovo istraživanje dopunjava postojeći fond znanja u ovoj oblasti. Podaci na 1 gkrstic@ekof.bg.ac.rs 2 anaa@ekof.bg.ac.rs 3 zarkovic@ekof.bg.ac.rs Gorana Krstić, Ana Aleksić Mirić, Jelena Žarković Rakić: Profi le of Social Entrepreneur in Serbia 63 kojima je analiza zasnovana potiču iz empirijskog istraživanja koje je započeto u junu 2014. godine i koje je bilo zasnovano na primeni kvalitativnih i kvantitativnih istraživačkih tehnika. Naše istraživanje pokazuje da socijalni preduzetnici u Srbiji u posao ulaze često bez prethodnog iskustva u osnivanju ili vođenju socijalnog preduzeća. Obrazovanje ima veoma važnu ulogu u motivaciji pojedinca da počne da radi ili osnuje socijalno preduzeće: osnivači socijalnih preduzeća su u značajnoj meri visoko obrazovani pojedinci zainteresovani za kontinuirano učenje i često uključeni u programe dodatne obuke i profesonalnog usavršavanja. Postoje razlike u motivaci za rad ili osnivanju socijalnog preduzeća u odnosu na starost budući da su mlađi ispitanici motivisani prevashodno željom da reše konkretni socijalni problem, dok su stariji ispitanici uglavnom motivisani željom da stvore sebi priliku za zaposlenje.

Social Entrepreneurial Intention Factors of Tourism Management Students

“…Through education, students could gain various skills important for future business activities (Spear et al, 2013). Krstić et al (2017) denote the importance of education as a motivational factor to establish a social enterprise and enhance employment opportunities. Secondly, social entrepreneurship is recognized as one of the unexploited areas in Serbia and there is room for improvement but that improvement is connected to cultural change.…”

Leveling Entrepreneurial Skills of Vocational Secondary School Students in Indonesia: Impact of Demographic Characteristics

“…Devine (1994) found that there were more female entrepreneurs than male ones recently, suggesting that entrepreneurship is no longer seen as an exclusively male-orientated field of work. Another study showed that women are more interested than men in voluntary work, while men are more motivated to open their own businesses (Krstic et al, 2017). Another study conducted by Blanchflower and Oswald (1990) highlighted that young individuals with a self-employed parent tend to establish a business for themselves.…”

Do Proactive Personality and Self-Efficacy Really Matter in Shaping Social Entrepreneurial Intention?

“…Although various personal, demographic, and situational factors impact SEI (Ebrashi, 2013), to date, adequate attention has not been given to individual-level factors and characteristics of social entrepreneurs (Krstic et al, 2017). For instance, in spite of evidence that shows proactive personality has an important role in decision making to become a social entrepreneur (Kedmenec et al, 2015), little clear evidence exists in the literature (Dell and Amadu, 2015;Steiner and Teasdale, 2016).…”