Author(s): Radin Siti Aishah Radin A Rahman, Mohd Fadzli Ismail, Sheerad Sahid
Social entrepreneurship education strategically focuses on the development of social entrepreneurship culture, especially among students In Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Malaysia. Previous studies have pointed out that the social entrepreneurial tendency among HEI students remains at a moderate level. In addition, low awareness on social entrepreneurship, as well as limited access to human capital and financial resources (Malaysia Social Enterprise Blueprint, 2015-2018), are some of the factors which discourage students from carrying out social entrepreneurial activities. Hence, the objectives of this study are: i) to determine the level of strategic domains of social entrepreneurship namely entrepreneurial personality, human capital and social capital among HEIs students; and ii) to determine the differences in the domains of entrepreneurial personality, human capital and social capital based on students’ duration of experience in social entrepreneurial activities at HEIs. The survey method was used on a total of 742 HEI students who were involved in social entrepreneurial activities. Proportionate stratified sampling was applied according to university category. The findings indicates that the level of social entrepreneurial personality and human capital was higher than social capital, based on students’ experience in social entrepreneurial activities. Moreover, the results show that there is a significant difference between entrepreneurial personality, human capital and social capital according to the duration of students’ experience in entrepreneurial activities. The longer the students were actively involved in social entrepreneurial activities (3 years and above), the more likely they are to possess the traits of entrepreneurial personality, human capital and social capital. The findings of this study have implications on the effective development of social entrepreneurship among HEI students and reinforces the usability of the Entrepreneurial Event Theory (Shapero, 1982). It also implies that the existing strategic domains of social entrepreneurship should be improved from time to time through various activities in order to progress towards new social innovations.