The Social Dimension of the Entrepreneurial Motivation in the Central and Eastern European Countries

Objective: Discovering and categorising the entrepreneurial motivations of university student entrepreneurs in the CEE region, and uncovering the influencing factors behind the different motivation factors. The aim is to understand what factors shape the social motivations of entrepreneurs, and give insights on how these motivations may be enhanced in order to make social entrepreneurship more effective. Research Design & Methods: The study is based on the 2016 GUESSS database that contains 19.338 answers for eight selected CEE countries. Factor analysis was used to detect the motivation factors; a General Linear Model was set up to identify the influencing factors of the Social mission, one of the motivation factors of the university student entrepreneurs. Findings: Five factors of entrepreneurial motivations were identified: Social mission, Customer focus, Competition/market focus, Individual goals, and Collective/community goals. Most of the factors are intrinsic in nature. Social mission factor is influenced by education, the entrepreneurship-related courses and programmes, a cultural dimension called uncertainty avoidance, and country-level characteristics that are not cultural in nature. Implications & Recommendations: Entrepreneurship courses and programmes influence attitudes and motivations, and so higher education institutions should focus on such programmes. The standard courses do not enhance the importance of intrinsic motivations, such as the social mission, so more emphasis should be put on the social dimensions. Contribution & Value Added: Our study contributes to the entrepreneurial motivations and social innovation literature, and calls for further comparative research, as the social mission GLM showed that country-level differences exist in the CEE region.