Title: Social entrepreneurship and motivation to start up a business

Authors: Nouha Yangui; Anis Jarboui

Addresses: Faculty of Economic Sciences and Management of Sfax-Tunisia, LARTIGE Laboratory, University of Sfax, Airport Road km 4, 3018, Sfax, Tunisia ' Faculty of Economic Sciences and Management of Sfax-Tunisia, LARTIGE Laboratory, University of Sfax, Airport Road km 4, 3018, Sfax, Tunisia

Abstract: This study aims to investigate the entrepreneurial determinant and motivation to start up a business in specific groups, namely the disabled, immigrants, and women. The empirical part of this study was based on primary data collected through a heterogeneous sample of 272 Tunisian entrepreneurs. The obtained results support the paper's first central hypothesis that personal motivation has a positive impact on the motivation of social entrepreneurs in Tunisia. For the second main hypothesis, we found that discrimination has had no effect on the motivation of those entrepreneurs. Moreover, the results demonstrate that personal motivation influences the willingness to create firms. The present study equally attempts to explain the many political implications of these findings, the most important of which consisting in the mobilisation of entrepreneurs to launch their own businesses to develop social entrepreneurship in Tunisia.

Keywords: social entrepreneurship; entrepreneurial motivation; personal motivation; discrimination; business start ups; disabled people; immigrants; women; Tunisia.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSEI.2013.059954

International Journal of Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2013 Vol.2 No.6, pp.525 - 545

Received: 04 Dec 2013
Accepted: 07 Dec 2013
Published online: 29 Apr 2014 *

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