Peter H. Hackbert, and Karla S. RobinsonBerea College

Society of Business ResearchNashville ConferenceOctober 23-25, 2014

Creating Entrepreneurial Identities in Social Entrepreneurship

Education

What is and Who is Berea College?

1,600 Liberal Arts undergraduates

$ 40 M Budget

$ 1 B Endowment

$ 25,000 cost of education

122 Tenured faculty

EPG By the Numbers

What is EPG?

Program Improvement Goals

Review the Literature

Methods

Results

Conclusions

1. Program Improvements

(1) to instill a desire to proactively help find solutions to critical social issues

(2) to instill a belief that they have the ability to actually make a difference

EPG Program goal

I want to help tackle the world’s social ills because

“that is who I am.”

“I can be a social entrepreneur” world’s

“I am confident that I truly can make a difference in

the world”

“I can begin right now.”

2. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Social identity - Tajfel & Turner, 1997

Self-efficacy - Bandura, 1997

Entrepreneurial identity - Donnellon, Ollila and Middleton, 2014; Ollila & Middleton, 2013)

3. METHODS

a) Two separate studies with two different age groups representing different points in the education and career pipeline.

b) Reflection promptsc) Alumni Survey

Field Work

The Model

Identity construction & Excerptsself-efficacy themes

Socialization and collectivityUse of Oral symbolsStorytellingSelf-efficacy

Socialization /Collective Identity

Biography assignment

Algernon Sydney Sullivan Foundation

Appalachian IDEAS Network Showcase

Use of Oral Symbols

Ashoka Foundation

Echo Green’s Work on Purpose

Startup Weekends

Storytelling

All Hands dinners

2nd Summer Internship stories

Self-efficacy

Mastery experiences

Modeling

Social persuasion

4. Results of the descriptive excerpts

Identity construction & Excerptsself-efficacy themes

Socialization and collectivity 1Use of Oral symbols 2Storytelling 3Self-efficacy

Study 2 Alumni Self-Study

Quantitative Results

My ability to be enterprising

increased as a result of the EPG

program. 19 53% 8 22% 3 8% 0 0% 1 3% 14% 4.42

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Conclusion