In the pursuit of social business venture an empirical study

entrepreneurial intention by accentuating the role of opportunity evaluation andopportunity exploitation.2 For the second study: Firstly, our study suggests that employees with highentre

1 Associate Professor Ngo Viet Liem

2 Associate Professor Tran Ha Minh Quan

Ho Chi Minh City, July 2021

Purpose – The purpose of this dissertation is to clarify two separate objectives:

(1) We develop a cognitive-affect model of social entrepreneurship that begins withempathy (i.e perspective taking and empathic concern) and progresses throughprosocial behavior to social entrepreneurship intention We further conduct twocontingencies – namely entrepreneurial opportunity evaluation and exploitation -that moderate the proposed relationships (paper 1)

(2) We propose two mechanisms as to how perceived entrepreneurial passion ofemployees impact on their creativity The first mechanism involves the mediatingrole of creative process engagement in the perceived passion-creativity linkage Thesecond one, we focus on the moderating role of mindfulness in the mediating pathway(paper 2)

Design/methodology/approach – This dissertation consists of two separate surveys on

social entrepreneurship in Vietnam

(1) Our sampling frame includes would-be entrepreneurs We utilize variance-basedSEM to examine the psychometric properties of focal constructs We also use Baronand Kenny (1986), SPSS macro PROCESS to test the proposed hypothesis

(2) The dyads of employees and supervisors or founders of social venture are sampled

to fill out our survey The empirical findings rely on Partial least squares structuralequation modelling (PLS-SEM)

iii

Findings and contributions

(1) For the first study: First, our findings highlight the significance of including bothcognitive and emotional aspects of empathy (i.e., perspective taking and empathicconcern respectively) in prosocial decision making in social entrepreneurshipcontext Secondly, our findings enrich existing theory and research byhighlighting the essential role of prosocial behavior as a modus operandi throughwhich perspective taking and empathic concern are linked to socialentrepreneurship intention Lastly, our study is the first to broaden the focus ofempathy in social entrepreneurship research

(2) For the second study: First, our study extends the literature by demonstrating thatentrepreneurial passion influences employee creativity via creative processengagement Secondly, our study confirms with prior studies that have empiricallydemonstrated the efficacy of mindfulness to improve employee creativity

Practical implications

(1) For the first study: First, our findings recommend that the ability to sense others’thoughts and feeling are of paramount importance in identifying and supportingpromising social entrepreneurs Secondly, managers’ understanding of howprosocial behavior intervenes the relationship between empathy and socialentrepreneurial intention suggests that prosocial behavior can be broadened anddeepened by appropriate training programs Lastly, managers should also note thatopportunity contingencies shape the impact of prosocial behavior on social

entrepreneurial intention by accentuating the role of opportunity evaluation andopportunity exploitation.

(2) For the second study: Firstly, our study suggests that employees with highentrepreneurial passion are more likely to get engaged on the creative process andsubsequently, produce more novel and useful ideas Secondly, employees are morefamiliar and are more interested to the activities related to inventing anddeveloping as those activities are related to their current occupation thanfounding Third, our study provides a more specific guideline for management inadopting mindfulness and entrepreneurial passion within the company, especially

to improve creativity

Research limitations

(1) For the first study: First, we cannot make conclusions on the causal order of theobserved relationships because of the cross-sectional nature of the study Thesecond concerns the limited scope of this study, which focuses on undergraduateand postgraduate students, thus limiting the generalizability of the findings Third,future research could enhance our understanding of the indirect effect of empathy

by examining other types of employee attitudes and behaviors

(2) For the second study: First, the context of this study is limited to social ventures inVietnam Second and also related to the context, the sample of this study onlyinvolves social ventures which have a distinct characteristics compare to thegeneral commercial venture Lastly, future studies should examine variouspositive emotions within the job context and examine their relationship withcreativity

STATEMENT OF AUTHENTICATION

I certify that any content in this thesis has not previously been submitted for a degree

at this or any other institution

I also certify that dissertations is prepared by me Any help that I have received in myresearch work has been acknowledged In addition, I certify that all sources andliterature used are adequately indicated in the reference

Le Thanh Truc

Firstly, I would like to thank sincerely to The ISB.PhD1 Program, The ISB board inViet Nam and all the professors who have been helping me a lot to equip me theintellectual knowledge, the most favorable environment conditions during the study andimplementation of this thesis

With respect and deep gratitude, I would like to express my great gratitude to Assoc.Prof Ngo Viet Liem, Assoc Prof Tran Ha Minh Quan – my supervisors, and Assoc.Prof Nguyen Dinh Tho for their instruction, enthusiastic helping, intensive support,caring and oriented advises on my work

Secondly, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the organizations,individuals and businesses which have collaborated to share information, give me a lot

of resources, responses and useful material for the subject of my study, especially forthe fulfilling of research questionnaires Without these help, I could not believe that

my study would come to an end as today

Lastly, I would like to send my deep gratitude to my family, friends, colleagues whohave encouraged and supported me very much during the learning process, work andcompletion of this thesis

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

July 14h 2020

Le Thanh Truc

LIST PUBLICATIONS RELATED TO THE THESIS

Study 1.

Truc Thanh Le, Thi Nguyet Que Nguyen, Quan Ha Minh Tran (2017) When Giving is

Good for Encouraging Social Entrepreneurship Australian and New ZealandMarketing Academy (ANZMAC), 949-952, ISBN: 1447-3275 Paper to bepresented at Anzmac 2017, Melbourne, Australia

Le, T T., Nguyen, T N Q., & Tran, Q H M (2020) When Giving is Good for

Encouraging Social Entrepreneurship Australasian Marketing Journal, 28,

253-262

Study 2.

Truc Thanh Le, Quan Ha Minh Tran (2020) Improving employee creativity through

entrepreneurial passion and mindfulness: An insight from the broaden-and-buildtheory International Conference on Business and Finance (ICBF), 464 – 480,ISBN 978-604-301-028-2

Le, T T., & Tran, Q H M (2020) Improving Employee Creativity Through

Entrepreneurial Passion and Mindfulness: An Insight from the

Broaden-and-Build Theory Australasian Marketing Journal, under review.

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.1: Conceptual Model 1 14

Figure 1.2: Conceptual Model 2 19

Figure 2.1: Conceptual Model 36

Figure 2.2: Interaction of prosocial behavior and opportunity evaluation on social

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1: Demographic characteristics of respondents (n=537) 38

Table 2.2: Construct means, standard deviations, and correlations 39

Table 2.3: Measurement model and results 40

Table 2.4: Structural model results 42

Table 2.5: Path analysis results with cognitive empathy 43

Table 2.6: Path analysis results with emotional empathy 44

Table 3.1a: Demographic characteristics of founders or supervisors 63

Table 3.1b: Demographic characteristics of employees 63

Table 3.2: Scale items and latent variable evaluation 64

Table 3.3 Construct means, standard deviations, and correlations 68

Table 3.4: Summary of structural model results 70

AVE: Average Variance Extracted

CI: Confidence Interval

CMV: Common Method Variance

Engagement CR: Composite

Reliabilities

EC: Employee Creativity

ECN: Empathic Concern

EPT: Emotional Empathy

GQ: General Questions

OEV: Opportunity Evaluation

OEX: Opportunity Exploitation

OLS: Ordinal Least Square

PB: Prosocial Behavior

PD: Passion for Developing

PF: Passion for Founding

PI: Passion for Inventing

PLS: Partial Least Square

MAR: Marker Variable.

MF: Mindfulness

NGOs: Non-Governmental Organizations

SD: Standard Deviations

SE: Social Entrepreneurship

SEI: Social Entrepreneurial Intentions

SEM: Structural Equation Model

VIF: Variance Inflation Factor

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW 1

1.1Background and Research Objectives 1

1.2Literature Review 8

1.2.1Social Entrepreneurship 8

1.2.2Literature review for study 1 10

Empathy, Prosocial Behavior, and Social Entrepreneurship Intent 10

Social Entrepreneurial Opportunity Evaluation and Exploitation 12

1.2.3Literature review for study 2 14

Employee Creativity and Entrepreneurial Passion 14

Creative Process Engagement 15

Mindfulness 16

The Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions 17

1.3Research Methods 19

1.3.1Research methods for study 1 20

1.3.2Research methods for study 2 21

1.4Contributions 22

1.5Thesis structure 24

CHAPTER 2 STUDY 1 25

2.1Introduction 25

2.2Literature review and research hypotheses 27

2.2.1Empathy, prosocial behavior, and social entrepreneurship intention 27

2.2.2Social entrepreneurial opportunity evaluation and exploitation 34

2.3Research methods 37

2.3.1Measurement instrument 37

2.3.2Samples and data collection 38

2.4Results 38

2.4.1Common method variance 38

2.4.2Psychometric assessment of focal constructs 39

2.4.3Hypothesis testing 41

2.5Discussion and conclusion 46

2.5.1Theoretical implications 46

2.5.2Managerial implications 47

2.5.3Limitation and future research 49

CHAPTER 3 STUDY 2 50

3.1Introduction 50

3.2Theoretical Development 53

3.2.1The Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions 53

3.2.2Employee Creativity and Entrepreneurial Passion 55

3.2.3The Mediating Role of Creative Process Engagement 57

3.2.4The Moderating Role of Mindfulness 58

3.3Research Method 61

3.3.1Data Collection and Sample 61

3.3.2Measurement Instrument 61

3.4Results 62

3.4.1Sample profile 62

3.4.2Assessment of measurement model 64

3.4.3Hypothesis testing 68

3.5General Discussion 70

3.5.1Theoretical Contributions and Managerial Implications 70

3.5.2Limitations and future research 73

CHAPTER 4 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 75

4.1Summary 75

4.2Discussion and conclusion 78

4.3Theoretical Contributions and Managerial Implications 80

4.4Limitations and future research 82

REFERENCES 84

APPENDICES 109

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter describes a broad overview of the research This chapter begins withbackground and research objectives Chapter 1 also clarifies the significance of theresearch The thesis has two separate research objectives which are solved by twocorresponding research methods Therefore, this thesis includes two separate studies(study 1 and study 2) Finally, contributions of the research are presented

1.1 Background and Research Objectives

While social problems and create social value has always been an important andglobal issue of market economies (Hall, 1987; Thompson et al., 2000), the term

“social entrepreneurship” is a more recent definition (Dacin et al., 2016) Socialentrepreneurship is seen as different forms of entrepreneurship, which focus andcreate social value than capturing economic value (Mair & Marti, 2006) Therefore,social entrepreneurship is considered to be a truly interesting and fruitful researchfield

However, social entrepreneurship term still has been poorly defined (Mair & Marti,2006), variety of meanings and lacks of unifying paradigm (like entrepreneurship)(Shane & Venkataraman, 2000) “Despite this increasing academic interest, themanagement field lacks a conceptual understanding of the economic role and logic ofaction of social entrepreneurs” (Dacin et al., 2010; Santos, 2012)

Social entrepreneurship is distinct from other forms or entrepreneurship (Dacin et al.,2016) and can be promoted by using variety of theoretical lenses combination ofdifferent research methods (Mair & Marti, 2006) This has been seen as a uniqueopportunity for researchers from other field like: spychology, sociology andorganizational theory rethink concept and assumption For the future promising

16

research directions, scholars can attend to five possible aspects: institutions and socialmovements, networks, culture, identity and image, and cognition (Dacin et al., 2016)

In these aspects, examining the characteristics of social entrepreneurs (Certo & Miller,2008) and the ideas of opportunity-recognition are encountered (Peredo & McLean,2006) Because the social entrepreneurship is driven by its mission, while the socialentrepreneurs are often driven by their passion (Bornstein, 2004), and the leadershipskills (Thompson, Alvy & Lees, 2000) Future research could also elaborate on theprocess or behaviors of social entrepreneurs that make the venture success (Certo &Miller, 2008) or find out the personality and cognitive schemas of social entrepreneurs(Roper & Cheney, 2005)

We believe that a cognitive perspective and personality of the social entrepreneurs(empathy, passion, leadership skills, …) have been necessary for the study of socialentrepreneurship theory (Dacin et al., 2016) Specially, researches on empathy andpassion aspects are increasingly concerned

The fact that Vietnam begins to enter the threshold of low middle-income country, this

is a new development opportunity for the nation That means capital in the Vietnameseeconomy has been more abundant and proactive than before, and poverty has beensignificantly improved among the majority of the population However, this has alsoled to changes in the humanitarian and social development policies of countries andinternational organizations in Vietnam We have witnessed the departure of a number

of bilateral development organizations such as SIDA, Ford Foundation; or graduallyreducing ODA funding from Vietnam to move to poorer countries (Denmark, UK) If

we continue to depend on external aid, Vietnam will face the risk of serious shortageof

capital for community development activities in the near future Meanwhile, themobilization of funding and community capital in Vietnam is quite limited A recentstudy by the Asia Foundation (2011) on charitable donations in Vietnam shows thatthe potential contribution of people and businesses is quite large, but due to the lack offormal charity channels and lack of policies Appropriately, most charitable activitiesare spontaneous, small in scope and limited in small communities Lack of funding foroperations is a great pressure on thousands of Vietnamese NGOs and communitydevelopment projects in the near future.

Currently, social enterprises in Vietnam operate in many different industries andfields, but the rates are not uniform According to the Research Report on the CurrentState of Social Enterprises in Vietnam, the most popular field in which Vietnamesesocial enterprises operate is agriculture - accounting for 35%; followed by health(9%), education (9%) and the environment (7%); child care 5%; jobs and skills 4%;retail 4%; business support 3%; industry (web; design, printing) 2%; health care 2%;financial support and services 2%; social care 2%; traffic 2%; culture andentertainment 1% and other fields 35% It can be seen that social enterprises inVietnam have quite rich fields of activity, but still focus on the agricultural sectormainly Therefore, the field and scope of activities of social enterprises in Vietnam arenot equal; It is still quite modest in terms of its size, quantity, revenue and itscontributions to the society

In summary, social entrepreneurship has a lot of potential for developed countries and

in Vietnam, it has not been paid enough attention Therefore, researching on socialentrepreneurship in Vietnam is extremely necessary and linked to the country's

sustainable development goals Therefore, researches that focus on the empathy andpassion aspects of social entrepreneurship in Vietnam seem more interesting.

The purpose of this thesis is to clarify two separate research objectives which aredeveloped in study 1 (paper 1) and study 2 (paper 2):

1 Exploring mechanism that how the empathy influence on the socialentrepreneurship intention via prosocial behavior, and the moderating effects ofopportunity evaluation, exploitation

2 Exploring mechanism that how the social entrepreneurs’ passion affectemployee’s creativity via creative process engagement, which is moderated bymindfulness

For the first objective, we build the cognitive model with empathy, prosocial behaviorand social entrepreneurship intention concept

Understanding the role that empathy plays in social entrepreneurship has been afruitful venue of academic inquiry (Mair & Noboa, 2006; Short et al., 2009; Hockerts,2017) Empathy is defined as “an individual’s ability to imagine what feelings anotherperson has [cognitive empathy or perspective taking] or a tendency to respond toanother being’s mental state emotionally or compassionately [emotional empathy orempathic concern]” (Hockerts, 2017, p 108) Social entrepreneurial behavior refers tothe discovery or identification of opportunities to create social impact through thegeneration of market and nonmarket disequilibria (Hockerts, 2017, p 105) From thisreason, researchers have to motivated to find out the direct causal link betweenempathy and social entrepreneurial intention (Hockerts, 2017; Ip et al., 2017; Lacap etal., 2018;

Aure, 2018) Yet, research has left a fundamental question unanswered: through whichmechanisms empathy is related to social entrepreneurial intention.

Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the mechanisms through which empathy

is associated with social entrepreneurial intention Premised upon altruistic motivationtheory and theory of planned behavior, we propose that two mechanisms, whichcombine and interact, are fundamental to connecting empathy to social entrepreneurialintention The first mechanism involves the mediating role of prosocial behavior in theempathy-intention linkage Prosocial behavior is defined as a voluntary behavior

“performed to benefit others, rather than to benefit the self” (Twenge et al., 2007, p.56) Attention to prosocial behavior in extant literature has focused primarily on whenand why people help, emphasizing empathy as a critical aspect of human emotion inpromoting prosocial behavior (Penner et al., 2005; Rameson et al., 2011) In thecurrent study, we expand to examine the prosocial behavior as a mediating role inexplaining how empathy impact on social entrepreneurship

The second mechanism we propose in this study focuses on the moderating role ofentrepreneurial opportunity evaluation and exploitation in the aforementionedmediating pathway We argue that opportunity evaluation and opportunity exploitationcreate the conditions that will mediate individuals to engage in socialentrepreneurship A person also might choose to become a social entrepreneuralthough with a minimum level of empathy and prosocial behavior after facing aparticular social problem (Mair & Noboa, 2006) The extant literature, however, issilent on the role of opportunity evaluation and opportunity exploitation in socialentrepreneurship development (Hockert, 2006) Thus, we suggest that opportunityevaluation and opportunity

exploitation create conditions that make empathy and prosocial behavior will choose

to engage in social entrepreneurship

For the second objective, we build the model based on perception of entrepreneurialpassion, creative process engagement and employee creativity concept

Employee creativity has been long associated with company success becausecreativity leads to innovation, effectiveness and survival (Amabile, 1997; Shalley etal., 2004) Creativity is generally defined as the production of novel and useful ideas(Amabile, 1997) Many companies have been relying on employee creativity to surviveand remain competitive, ranging from multi-billion dollar commercial companies such

as Apple Inc., Gucci Group, Bain & Co, and Procter & Gambler (Ng & Yam, 2019) tosocial ventures (Eleanor & Carter, 2007; Rostiani et al., 2014) Therefore, one majorconcern of research on creativity is to identify factors that promote employee creativity(Henker et al., 2015)

Prior studies have revealed the role of individual and organizational aspects as well asthe interaction between them on employee creativity (Oldham & Cummings, 1996) Forexample, a number of empirical studies have found that leadership style (Gong, et al.,2009; Wang, et al., 2017), role stress (Coelho et al., 2011), and organization creativityclimate (Oldham & Cummings, 1996) significantly predict creativity In addition,several individual variables such as creativity personal characteristic (Oldham &Cummings, 1996), employee learning orientation (Gong et al., 2009), and employeeintrinsic motivation (Tierney et al., 1999) were also found to influence employeecreativity In general, those studies assume while individual aspect is not manageable

and can only be identified whereas contextual variables are more manageable to theorganization (Oldham & Cummings, 1996).

Recently, researchers have been establishing links between creativity and two otherconstructs, as such entrepreneurial characteristic of the employees that often termed asintrapreneurship (Bierwerth et al., 2015; Gawke et al., 2017; Kuratko et al., 1990) andmindfulness (Lebuda et al., 2016; De Dreu et al., 2012) Interestingly and moreimportantly, conceptual paper and empirical studies show that both constructs aremalleable personal tendency and hence, is more manageable for organization(Rigtering & Weitzel, 2013; Zahra, 1991; Colzato et al., 2012) For example, previousstudies show that employee entrepreneurial characteristic is affected by organizationalvalues, formal organizational structures, company strategy (Zahra, 1991) andtransferrable from the leaders (Cardon, 2008) In another separate study, mindfulness

is shown to be enhanced through meditation training (Colzato et al., 2012).Consistently, more companies such as Google and Nike have been investing onmindfulness program (Dube, 2019) Therefore, the current research aims to examiningthe link between intrapreneurship, mindfulness and creativity

Although the influence of entrepreneurial characteristic and mindfulness on creativityhave been widely studies, a closer look to the literature reveals some importantresearch gaps First, empirical studies examining the link between mindfulness,intrapreneurship and creativity mainly focus on the direct effects and thus, lack of theexplaining mechanism (Bierwerth et al., 2015; Lebuda et al., 2016; Henker et al.,2015) Second, literature on intrapreneurship suggests that intrapreneurship is amultidimensional construct and thus, examining the dimension that taps intocreativity is deemed

important (Felicio, et al., 2012; Dess et al., 1999) This paper focus onexamining entrepreneurial passion as literature suggests that entrepreneurial passion atthe heart of entrepreneurial characteristic (Cardon, et al., 2005; Maier & Zenovia2011), yet any empirical examination on the influence of entrepreneurial passion oncreativity had barely conducted (Felicio et al., 2012).

Built upon the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions (Fredrickson, 2001), thispaper aims to fill the research gaps within the literature on creativity by looking at theemotional aspect of intrapreneurship (i.e entrepreneurial passion) and furtherproposes that creative engagement process mediates the relationship betweenintrapreneurship, mindfulness and employee creativity Subsequently, we also proposethat the indirect relationship between entrepreneurial passion and creativity ismoderated by mindfulness In particular, the influence of entrepreneurial passion oncreative engagement process increases when the employee mindfulness is high Thisstudy is expected to contribute theoretically by empirically demonstrating that theinteraction between entrepreneurial passion and mindfulness positively influencecreative engagement process

1.2 Literature Review

1.2.1 Social Entrepreneurship

Social entrepreneurship definition is “entrepreneurial activity with an embedded socialpurpose” (Austin et al., 2006), has become an important global economic concept andscale (Dacin et al., 2010; Mair & Marti, 2006; Zahra et al., 2008; Santos, 2012) Socialentrepreneurship as a process that combine economic and social value creation (Mair

& Marti, 2006)

As we mention above, the concept of social entrepreneurship has been taken onvariety of meanings for different people and researchers (Dees, 1998) One group ofresearchers suggests that social entrepreneurship is non-for-profit strategy to createsocial value (Austin et al., 2003) A second group of researchers refers it ascommercial businesses (Sagawa & Segal, 2000) And a third group views socialentrepreneurship as a way to reduce social problems and enhance socialtransformation (Alvord et al., 2004).

In general, whether social entrepreneurs choose a not-for-profit or a for-profit strategyoften depends on the specific business model and the social needs Today, socialentrepreneurs can operate enterprises with two business strategies: (1) Non-profit withearned income, (2) For-profit with mission-driven strategies (Abu-Saifan, 2012).However, main difference between business entrepreneurship and socialentrepreneurship is the priority to social value creation versus economic wealthcreation, rather than on profit versus not-for-profit (Mair & Marti, 2006) In socialentrepreneurship, social wealth creation is the central objective, while economic valuecreation is needed to make sure the development and financial self-sufficiency

Definitions social entrepreneurship is viewed as a process or behavior which involvesthe innovative and combination of resources to match social needs While the socialentrepreneurs is understood as the founder of the innovation; and social enterprises issocial entrepreneurship’s outcome (Mair & Marti, 2006)

As we view social entrepreneurship as a process in which the social entrepreneurcombines limited resources to create value Actually, in the process of combiningthese resources, social entrepreneurs try to explore and exploit opportunities to createsocial value and adapt social change or match social needs Finally, socialentrepreneurs as a

one kind of entrepreneur (Dees, 1998) try to push innovation in organization in theprocess of offering services and products.

“Social entrepreneurship is exercised where some person or persons recognizing andexploiting opportunities to create this value, employing innovation” (Peredo & McLean,2006) Therefore, we support that it is necessary to elaborate about the entrepreneurs’characteristics (empathy, passion), exploit opportunity, employees’ innovation insocial entrepreneurship

1.2.2 Literature review for study 1

Empathy, Prosocial Behavior, and Social Entrepreneurship Intention

Empathy is a multidimensional construct with cognitive and emotional dimensions(Davis, 1983; Bettencourt et al., 2001) The cognitive component is namedperspective taking, which refers to an ability to sense how people think and act towardeach other Empathic concern is considered the emotional component, which refers to

a person’s emotional response to others’ experiences (Eisenberg, Spinrad & Sadovsky,2006; Wieseke, Geigenmüller & Kraus, 2012) These other-oriented emotions mayinclude the feelings of pity, sorrow, compassion, warmth, tenderness, soft-heartedness,sympathy, and the like (Padilla-Walker, Nielson & Day, 2016) Consequently, whereasthe cognitive empathy (or perspective taking) helps people to understand others’perceived needs and motivations, the emotional empathy (or empathic concern)enables them to express their concern for the welfare of others, both resulting inaltruistic behaviours (Nguyen, Tran & Chylinski, 2020)

Building upon the altruistic motivation theory, a well-established body of researchprovides significant evidence that empathy is a necessary condition that leads peopleto

action for the sake of others and so individuals higher on empathy are more likely toengage in prosocial behaviors (Prot et al., 2014) Prosocial behavior is defined asvoluntary behavior meant to help or benefit another (Eisenberg, Spinrad & Sadovsky,2006; Mestre et al., 2019) This multifaceted behavioral construct is conceptuallydiverse in that it may be directed at different targets (from those in relationships such

as a family member or a friend, to a complete stranger), and the helper’s primarymotivation (egoistic or altruistic), the level of analysis (interpersonal ororganizational), and the amount of time and energy it requires may vary (Carlo andRandall, 2002; Penner et al., 2005; Padilla-Walker & Fraser, 2014) Empathy has beenfound a consistent strong predictor of a broad range of prosocial behaviors in extantliterature (Smith, 2010; Eisenberg & Spinrad, 2014; Van Noorden et al., 2015; Mestre

et al., 2019) Penner et al (2005) argue that one of the mechanisms to explain whypeople engage in interpersonal helping is arousal and affect (e.g empathic arousal)which recognizes the important role of emotion (e.g feelings of empathic concern) inmotivating prosocial response (e.g altruistic motivation) Researchers have found thatboth cognitive and emotional empathy act as prosocial motivators, and thus facilitateprosocial behaviors (Hoffman, 2000; Mestre, 2014; Mestre et al., 2019)

Empathy is considered a basic requirement of all socially directed behaviors andforms a prerequisite for intention formation in the context of social entrepreneurship(Mair & Noboa, 2006; Miller et al., 2012; Forster & Grichnik, 2013; Pangriya, 2019).Despite the lack of a unified definition of SE in extant literature, Mair and Marti’s(2006, 37) broad definition of SE has been highlighted for management scholars(Short, Moss & Lumpkin, 2009), viewing SE as “a process of creating value bycombining resources in

new ways… primarily to explore and exploit opportunities to create social value bystimulating social change or meeting social needs, and when viewed as a process, SEinvolves the offering of services and products but can also refer to the creation of neworganizations” What makes SE distinctive from entrepreneurship in the businesssector is that whereas SE creates value from both social and economic aspects, it paysmore attention on social value (Mair & Marti, 2006; Ahuja, Akhtar & Wali, 2019).Understanding the determinants of social entrepreneurial intentions (SEI), defined as aperson’s belief and desire to establish a social business (Tran & Von Korflesch, 2016),

is important for policy makers and educators so that they are able to motivate morepeople to engage in SE

Social Entrepreneurial Opportunity Evaluation and Exploitation

Mair and Noboa (2006) posit that an individual with a low level of empathy andprosocial behavior might still choose to become a social entrepreneur when theyrecognize an unmet social problem as a source of SE opportunity Although evaluation

of potential new ideas and decision on allocating available resources is a fundamentalcognitive process for entrepreneurial success (Grichnik, Smeja & Welpe, 2010),research to date knows very little about the way social entrepreneurs evaluate andexploit social opportunities, as well as the relationship between opportunity evaluationand exploitation in SEI development (Mair & Marti, 2006)

Like any venture creation process, SE process involves three distinct but relatedphases, namely discovery, evaluation, and exploitation of a new SE opportunity(Haynie & Shepherd, 2009) While this process begins with a perceived socialopportunity (Tiwari, Bhat & Tikoria, 2017), the willingness to establish a newbusiness depends on how one

evaluates the attractiveness of a given opportunity, which should in turn inform why,when and how to take action to exploit it (Shane & Venkataraman, 2000) Haynie andShepherd (2009) state that opportunity evaluation is a future-oriented, cognitive process

of ‘what will be’ if the opportunity were exploited, and thus should take into accountexisting and future resources required to exploit the opportunity under evaluation.Sharing the same point of view of opportunity evaluation as future-focused cognition,Wood and McKelvie (2015, 256) broadly define this concept as individuals’judgments, beliefs, and decisions regarding the degree to which external stimuli such

as events, situations and circumstances represent a personally desirable and feasiblefuture course of action In addition to the evaluative process, potential entrepreneurswill also have to choose how much of their personal resources (i.e human capital andfinancial capital) to recombine and invest in order to exploit a given opportunity(Shane, 2003) From this perspective, opportunity exploitation refers to the pursuit of

an actual opportunity in the form of a decisive action, consisting of a set of decisions

on how to allocate available resources to develop a new product or service offering, or

to set up a new venture, which comprise a certain amount of risk (Grichnik, Smeja &Welpe, 2010; Wood & McKelvie, 2015)

Figure 1.1 presents a theoretical model hypothesizing the two mechanisms thatmediate and moderate the relationship between empathy (perspective taking andempathic concern) and social entrepreneurial intention That is, prosocial behaviorplays a mediating role in the empathy-intention linkage while opportunity evaluationand opportunity exploitation moderate this mediating pathway

Prosocial Behavior

Opportunity Exploitation Opportunity Evaluation

Social Entrepreneurial Intention

Cognitive Empathy

(Perspective taking)

Figure 1.1 Conceptual Model 1

1.2.3 Literature review for study 2

Employee Creativity and Entrepreneurial Passion

Employee creativity had been associated with the employee entrepreneurialcharacteristic within an organization that is often termed as intrapreneurship(Bierwerth et al., 2015; Gawke et al., 2017; Kuratko, et al., 1990)

Entrepreneurial characteristic is a multidimensional construct that may consists of

risk taking, innovativeness, proactiveness, competitive energy (Dess et al., 1999;

Felicio et al., 2012) Another dimension of intrapreneurship, that is the heart of

employee entrepreneurial characteristic yet has not widely been examined, is

entrepreneurial passion (Cardon, 2008; Thornberry, 2003) Entrepreneurial passion is

a positive intense feeling that consciously accessible and experienced as individuals

involved in entrepreneurial activities associated with roles that are meaningful and

salient to the self-identity (Cardon, 2008; Cardon et al., 2009) Specifically,

employees that have strong entrepreneurial passion are more likely to experience

positive emotion and sense of meaningfulness and connection to their identity when

they involved in the entrepreneurial activity within the firm where they work for

(Cardon, 2008)

Emotional Empathy

(Empathic concern)

Literature on entrepreneurship has categorized three distinct entrepreneurial activitiesthat are considered as important for identification purpose, such as (1) activitiesinvolved on identifying, inventing and exploring new opportunities (passion forinventing); (2) activities involved in establishing a venture for commercializing andexploiting opportunities (passion for founding); (3) activities related to nurturing,growing and expanding (passion for developing) (Cardon, et al., 2009; Mathias

& Williams, 2017) Therefore, entrepreneurial passion can be measured by assessing howthose activities are considered as central, distinctive, defining and enduringcharacteristic about the self (Cardon, et al., 2009; Stryker & Burke, 2000) It isimportant to note that for an employee, one type of activity might be more self-definingcompared to other types of activities whereas it is also possible for others to considerthat those three activities are equally important (Cardon et al., 2009)

Creative Process Engagement

Creative process engagement refers to individual engagement toward the activitiesthat lead to the production of novel and useful ideas (Henker et al., 2015) Literaturesuggests that there are three activities that sequentially lead to creativity, as such: (1)problem identification, (2) information search and encoding, and (3) idea generation(Zhang & Bartol, 2010; Henke et al., 2015) Problem identification refers to severalactivities as such structuring and identifying the goals, procedures, restrictions, andinformation relevant for the solution to the problem to define the problem (Reiter-Palmon & Illies, 2004; Zhang & Bartol, 2010) The next stage is the informationsearch and encoding that aims to get an advanced understanding of the identifiedproblem refers by considering already existing concepts and developing new concepts

by using

information from the memory and external sources (Reiter-Palmon & Illies, 2004;Mumford, 2000) The last stage, which is the idea generation, involves any activities

of combining and reorganizing of the gathered information to produce a newunderstanding and further exploring the applications and implications of this newunderstanding that leads to a set of new ideas (Mumford, 2000)

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is commonly defined as the state of being attentive to and aware of what

is taking place in the present (Brown & Ryan, 2003) In other words, being mindfulmeans that individual has an increased non-judgmental attention and awareness ofcurrent experience or present reality so that individual has a more consciousness ofongoing events and experiences (Brown & Ryan, 2003; Martin, 1997) Not onlyconscious about the external environment, mindful people are also conscious abouttheir inner states, including thoughts, emotions, sensations, and actions that exist at aparticular moment before or beyond their perception about what is happening (Brown

et al., 2007)

A number of empirical studies have demonstrated the relationship betweenmindfulness and creativity (Ostafin & Kassman, 2012; Agnoli et al., 2018; Lebuda etal., 2016) Those research suggest that mindfulness promotes creativity as mindfulnessprevent individuals access to the past and habituation that may hinder the production

of novel ideas (Ostafin & Kassman, 2012) In addition ,there is another feature ofmindfulness that is related to creativity, which is the cognitive flexibility (Brown, et al.,2007; Ruedy & Schweitzer, 2011) Cognitive flexibility might involve attentionflexibility such as, mindful people tend to have higher ability to control their attentionwhether to perform

divergent or convergent thinking (Brown, et al., 2007) as well as to categorize familiarstimuli in novel ways (Ruedy & Schweitzer, 2011) and hence, promotes creativity.Another feature of mindfulness that promotes creativity is its non-judgmental attention

to the environments (Colzato et al., 2012; Capurso et al., 2014) Similarly, individualsare more likely to produce novel ideas when they do not automatically exclude stimulifrom attention that have been previously judged as being irrelevant (Kudesia, 2015).Drawing from literature on emotion, this research focuses on another distinct feature

of mindfulness that is the awareness of one’s own emotional state, often termed

as emotional awareness (Brown & Ryan, 2003; Brown et al., 2007) Previous studies have empirically confirmed that mindfulness is associated with clarity of emotion and the ability to label one’s own emotion (Hill & Updegraff, 2012; Baer et al., 2004) In other words, mindful people are more likely to have the ability to correctly label their emotion and internalize their emotional experience accordingly (Hill & Updegraff, 2012; Barrett, 2009) Thus, we expect that mindful people are more aware of their passion elicited by entrepreneurial activities and thus are more likely to engage in creative

process The Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions

The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions generally account for uniqueeffects of positive emotions (Conway et al., 2013) Fundamentally there are threebasic tenets of the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions (Fredrickson, 2001).First, this theory posits that positive emotions broaden people’s momentary thought-action by widening the array of thoughts and actions that come to mind (Fredrickson,2001) For instances, an empirical study shows that people who experienced positiveemotions tend to be able to identify more things compared to others whoexperienced negative

emotions (Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005) Another study shows that people whoexperienced positive emotion perform a more broaden thinking (Fredrickson &Branigan, 2005) Similarly, Isen and colleagues have demonstrated across severalexperimental studies, that experiencing positive emotion leads to flexible, creative,integrative, open to information, and efficient (see Isen, 2008 for a review).

Second, this theory also posits that positive emotions can undo or correct the lingeringeffects of negative emotions (Fredrickson, 2004) The fundamental explanation isbecause positive emotion tend to broaden individual’s thought-action repertoire, itmay loosen the hold that negative emotion has done on an individual’s mind and body

by dismantling preparation for specific action (Fredrickson, 2004; Fredrickson, 2001).For example, people who experienced negative emotion have their cardiovascularactivity increased and further experience of positive emotion could speed up thecardiovascular recovery (Fredrickson et al., 2000; Fredrickson & Levenson, 1998).Last, broaden momentary thought-action also brings a long term and indirect benefit

to an individual as such, it builds people’s personal resources (Fredrickson, 2004).Specifically, to the extent that positive emotions broaden one’s scope of attention andcognition, enabling flexible and creative thinking, it should augment people’senduring coping resources (Fredrickson & Joiner, 2002; Aspinwall, 1998).Furthermore, broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions also asserts that thepersonal resources accrued during the states of positive emotions are durable and can

be drawn within subsequent moments and in different emotional states (Fredrickson,2004) There are several empirical evidences that have demonstrated the efficacy ofpositive emotion to

Creative Process Engagement

of intrapreneurship Precisely, using this theory we will examine the indirectrelationship between intrapreneurship and creativity via creative process engagementand moderated by mindfulness The research framework is depicted in Figure 1.2

Figure 1.2 Conceptual Model 2 1.3 Research Methods

We used two separate research methods to solve the two separate research objectivesproposed

Employee Creativity

1.3.1 Research methods for study 1

The study 1 tested a theoretical model hypothesizing the two mechanisms that mediateand moderate the relationship between empathy (perspective taking and empathicconcern) and social entrepreneurial intention That is, prosocial behavior plays amediating role in the empathy-intention linkage while opportunity evaluation andopportunity exploitation moderate this mediating pathway

Measurement Instrument

We used the existing scales to measure the focal constructs On the basis of Wieseke et

al (2012), we measured cognitive empathy or perspective taking with three items andemotional empathy or empathic concern with four items Prosocial behavior wasmeasured with 9 items borrowed from (Padilla-Walker & Fraser, 2014) We measuredopportunity evaluation using 7 items adapted from Keh et al (2002) and opportunityexploitation with 3 items taken from Grichnik et al (2010) Lastly, we followedHockerts (2015) to measure social entrepreneurial intention with three statements.Apart from the measures of opportunity exploitation rating on an 11-point Likert scale(ranging from 0% to 91-100%), all other measures use 7-point Likert scales (where 1was strongly disagree and 7 is strongly agree) We also included several controlvariables such as age, gender, and education level

Samples and Data Collection

Our sampling frame included undergraduate and postgraduate students ofEntrepreneurship and Business majors at one of the largest public universities in thearea of business and economics in a metropolitan city in Viet Nam; members of theVietnam Association of Management and Entrepreneurship who want to start the new

venture This sampling method was in line with prior research on socialentrepreneurship (e.g Aure, 2018: Lacap et al., 2018; Hockets, 2015; 2017; Ip et al.,2017; Tiwari et al., 2017; Urban & Teise, 2015; Nga & Sham, 2010) in which samples

of students were used for examining entrepreneurial intention

The original English survey questionnaire was translated into Vietnamese which wasthen translated back into English (Brislin et al., 1973) The two bilingual academicsthen compared and discussed the two translated versions to ensure correct wording,conceptual equivalence and accuracy Upon finalizing the survey items, in-depthinterviews were conducted with ten business students (Entrepreneurship ManagementMinor) to assess the understandability, clarity, relevance, and overall structure of thequestionnaire The onsite interview method was used to collect data for the mainsurvey

Step 1 The original English survey questionnaire was translated into VietnamesStep 2 The two bilingual academics then compared and discussed the two

translated versions

Step 3 In-depth interviews

Step 4 Onsite interview

1.3.2 Research methods for study 2

The study 2 tested hypotheses of perceived entrepreneurial passion types have a differential impact on employees’ creativity via creative process

Measurement Instrument

We used the the scale on entrepreneurs’ self-reported passion (Cardon, Stevens &Gregoire, 2009) to assess about the entrepreneurs’ passion of employees’ perception

(passion for inventing, passion for founding, passion for developing) Creative processengagement was measured with 11-item scale borrowed from Amabile (1983) andReiter Palmon and Illies (2004) We measured employee creativity using 13 itemsadapted from Zhou and George (2001) on a five-point scale ranging from “not at allcharacteristic” to “very characteristic” Mindfulness was followed Brown and Ryan(2003) with 15 items We also used control variables such as age, gender, and education

level Samples and Data Collection

We connected with Business Startup Support Centre and Vietnam SocialEntrepreneurship Association to approach the social businesses To evaluate therelevance and clarity of the questionnaire, in-depth interviews were conducted withthree social entrepreneurs and seven employees in the social venture (who workdirectly with the entrepreneurs) And we employed a research company to monitorand manage the entire data collection process

Step 1 The original English survey questionnaire was translated into VietnamesStep 2 The two bilingual academics then compared and discussed the two

translated versions

Step 3 In-depth interviews

Step 4 Dyads of employees and supervisors or founders were sampled to fill out

our survey (A professional research company was employed to monitorand manage the entire data collection process)

1.4 Contributions

Generally, our study extends the literature of social entrepreneurship by collaboratingand extending prior findings in several ways This research dissertation providesfurther

insights into the social entrepreneurship literature First, we build a cognitive-affectmodel of social entrepreneurship (Study 1) that examines how and when cognitiveempathy and affective empathy are associated with socal entrepreneurship intention.Second, we examine the creativity implication of entrepreneurship passion, an intenseaffective state that bears cognitive and behavioral manisfestations of high personalvalue (Study 2).

In Study 1, we attempt to examine the relationship between empathy and socialentrepreneurial intention, an important yet under-researched facet of socialentrepreneurship literature (e.g., Hockert, 2017) We develop and empirically test acognitive-affect model of social entrepreneurship We find that perspective taking andempathic concern emerge as key drivers of prosocial behavior, which in turnpositively influences social entrepreneurial intention We also find that opportunityevaluation and opportunity exploitation moderate the effect of empathy on socialentrepreneurial intention through prosocial behavior

In Study 2, we extend the literature by demonstrating that entrepreneurial passioninfluences employee creativity via creative process engagement The research shedsinsights on the role of mindfulness in improving employee creativity That is, ourstudy confirms with prior studies that have empirically demonstrated the efficacy ofmindfulness to improve employee creativity (Ostafin & Kassman, 2012; Agnoli et al.,2018; Lebuda et al., 2016) Finally and practically, despite the popularity ofmindfulness and entrepreneurial passion adoption in numerous commercial companies(Levin, 2017; Deeb, 2015), our study provides a more specific guideline for

management in adopting mindfulness and entrepreneurial passion within the company,especially to improve creativity.

1.5 Thesis structure

This thesis includes 4 chapters

Chapter 1 – Introduction In this chapter, research problems, existing gaps, overallreview, research methods and contributions are presented The thesis has two separateresearch objectives which are solved by two corresponding research methods

Chapter 2 – Study 1 is introduced with the title “When Giving is Good forEncouraging Social Entrepreneurship” The paper of the study 1 published in AustralasianMarketing Journal Chapter 3 – Study 2 is introduced with the title “ImprovingEmployee Creativity Through Entrepreneurial Passion and Mindfulness: An Insightfrom the Broaden-and- Build Theory” The latest revision of the study 2 that issubmitted for the Australasian Marketing Journal (under review)

Chapter 4 – Conclusion In this section, key conclusions of the research are presented

At the end of this Chapter 4, some limitations and future research directions areintroduced

CHAPTER 2 STUDY 1When Giving is Good for Encouraging Social Entrepreneurship

This chapter presents the study 1 In this chapter, we develop a cognitive-affect model

of social entrepreneurship that begins with empathy (i.e perspective taking andempathic concern) and progresses through prosocial behavior to social entrepreneurshipintention We further propose two contingencies – namely entrepreneurial opportunityevaluation and exploitation - that moderate the proposed relationships We verify theseseffects with a sample of 537 respondents Results suggest that prosocial behaviormediates the relationship between empathy (perspective taking and empathic concern)and social entrepreneurial intention We also find that opportunity evaluation andopportunity exploitation moderate this mediating pathway Finally, some discussionand conclusion are presented

2.1 Introduction

Understanding the role that empathy plays in social entrepreneurship has been afruitful venue of academic inquiry (Mair & Noboa, 2006; Short, Moss & Lumpkin,2009; Hockerts, 2017; Pangriya, 2019.) Empathy is defined as “an individual’s ability

to imagine what feelings another person has [cognitive empathy or perspective taking]

or a tendency to respond to another being’s mental state emotionally orcompassionately [emotional empathy or empathic concern]” (Hockerts, 2017, 108).Social entrepreneurial behavior refers to the discovery or identification ofopportunities to create social impact through the generation of market and nonmarketdisequilibria (Hockerts, 2017, 105) From this reason, researchers have to motivated tofind out the direct causal link between empathy and social entrepreneurialintention (Hockerts,