Determinants of social entrepreneurial intentions in a developing country context

Social entrepreneurial intentions have become a key area of interest in the entrepreneurship discourse. Studies conducted in developed countries have shown that crucial determinants involve previous experience, mediated by empathy, moral obligation, self-efficacy and perceived social support. This paper brings new contributions on such determinants by replicating Hockerts (2017) on a developing country, a rather distinct social reality when compared to other analyses. We successfully replicated the results on social entrepreneurial determinants, except on the effect of empathy and perceived social support, in the case of individuals with very low income. These have important implications for policy and research as it shows the importance of developing incentives considering contextual drivers and the need to explore how theories developed in more privileged scenarios would persist or change under more unstable and challenging environments. We also suggest that the application of items in different contexts goes beyond careful translation and validation, requiring a deeper consideration of the context in which the data is collected, with direct implications for results interpretation and discussions. •Prior experience influences social entrepreneurial intentions in poverty contexts.•Some determinants of social entrepreneurial intentions change in different contexts.•Use of items need deeper consideration of the context in which data is collected.•For the very poor, empathy and social perceived support don’t influence intentions.