Investigating the mediating role of social entrepreneurship for social and human capital to affect operational performance

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

• Belgheys Bavarsad ¹
• shadi jaldani ²
• Hosein Ghezelbash ²

¹ Associate Professor, Department of Management, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran

² M.A. in Business Administration, Department of Management, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22067/tmj.2022.31039.0

Abstract

 
1-INTRODUCTION
Today’s situations have made entrepreneurial activities a necessary issue for organizations. social entrepreneurship includes innovative programs to improve the livelihoods of those who lack business and financial resources or who have limited access to social service opportunities. Human capital is the tacit or explicit knowledge of employees as well as their ability to produce knowledge from individual behaviors and attitudes, education, experiences, skills, and abilities. On the one hand, human capital is the most important capital for organizations. On the other hand, researches show that, by improving the employees’ attitudes and behaviors, the proper use of social and human capital has an impact on improving employees’ job performance. Accordingly, the purpose of the current study was to investigate the effect of human and social capital on the operational performance of the shahid chamran university of ahvaz through its social entrepreneurship.
 
2-THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Social entrepreneurship is a concept derived from entrepreneurship but has different goals and objectives than entrepreneurship. The purpose of social entrepreneurship is to solve or encourage a social issue in order to create a sustainable solution. Social entrepreneurship refers to businesses that solve critical social problems in a sustainable and different way with charities and non-profit organizations. In other words, it creates products and services that improve the lives of low-income and disadvantaged people, while also earning an income to maintain and grow themselves. social capital is the sum of material and spiritual resources that allow employees to have a stable network of institutionalized relationships resulting in mutually beneficial cooperation. Social capital has three dimensions: structural, cognitive, and communicative. Human capital is a set of entrepreneurial and managerial skills like employees’ creativity and leadership. organizations with much human capital act more innovatively and solve customer problems faster. Operational performance is the basis for evaluating progress toward achieving predetermined goals and helping the organization identify its strengths and weaknesses and take effective actions. this approach potentially enables the organization to compete effectively in today's competitive business environment.
 
3-METHODOLOGY
The present research is a descriptive correlational study in regard to nature and is an applied study in terms of purpose. The library method was used to review related literature and theoretical basis, and a questionnaire was used to collect field data. The statistical population of the study was comprised of staff, experts, and managers of shahid chamran university. based on morgan's table, a sample size of 400 was calculated for distributing the questionnaires, among which 390 people returned the questionnaire.
 
4-RESULT & DISCUSSION
Research findings indicated that 73.9% of respondents were female. In terms of education, 5% of them had diplomas, 13.02% associates, 51.28% bachelors, 28.71% masters, and 1% doctoral degrees. Regarding the age, 8.7% of them were 20 to 25 years old, 17.17% were 26 to 30, 51.79% were 31 to 35, 12.5% were 36 to 40, and 9% were above 41. testing the relationship between variables confirmed all the direct hypotheses. in terms of indirect relationships, analyses indicated the mediating role of social entrepreneurship in the association of social capital and human capital with operational performance.
 
5-CONCLUSIONS & SUGGESTION
Findings showed that social and human capital had positive and significant effects on social entrepreneurship. the other research findings were that social and human capital had significant effects on operational performance. Moreover, social entrepreneurship led to the improved operational performance of the shahid chamran university of ahvaz. Regarding the limitations of this research, it can be said that the current study has considered a limited number of influential variables. It is suggested that future research examine the other organizational variables such as creativity, innovation, etc. on the other hand, this study was conducted in one university and cannot be generalized to all universities. therefore, it is suggested to repeat the current research in several universities to increase the predictive power of the results. Additionally, it is suggested to repeat the present research in other governmental or non-profit organizations.

Keywords

• Social capital
• human capital
• social entrepreneurship
• operational performance

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