Are social and traditional entrepreneurial intentions really that different? A gendered perspective

This study explores the configurations of socially-oriented individual characteristics leading to entrepreneurial intentions with different foci (i.e., social and commercial) by students. Based pm the construal level theory, we employ a configurational approach - fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) – to identify the pathways leading to entrepreneurial intentions and social entrepreneurial intentions. We analyzed data from 65 students, and results showed that the configurations of antecedent attributes leading to EI and SEI are not disparate but share far more similarities even when considering socially-oriented antecedents, supporting our claim that students perceive both entrepreneurial intentions with different foci as high-level construals. In addition, we explored gender differences by considering gender as a condition in the fsQCA analysis. Our configurational approach demonstrated no differences within gender in the configurations leading to EI and SEI; but there are asymmetries between gender in the configurations leading to EI and SEI. We assume that such configurational approaches can help to uncover the complexity and idiosyncrasies underlying entrepreneurial intentions. These findings provide new insights on understanding how individuals perceive entrepreneurial intentions at an early stage of entrepreneurship.