Altruism, Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy and Outcome Expectations: Learnings from a Veterinary Context about Entrepreneurial Intention for Socially Purposed Business.

Abstract

The entrepreneurial disposition of veterinary sector entrants is poorly understood. Entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship foster business innovation, growth, wealth creation, and employment in privately and corporately owned businesses, such as those delivering veterinary services. However, stress and retention issues pervade the Australian veterinary sector, possibly linked to poor profitability and inability to invest in team growth and remuneration. Theories, such as the Theory of Planned Behaviour and the Theory of Other-Orientation, underpin my exploration of the extent to which future veterinarians want to own or grow a business and what propels them towards starting or developing a business. I test the impact of other-orientation on the assumed positive relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) and entrepreneurial intention (EI) in the context of socially-purposed business (dual missioned - social and profit) typical of veterinary practice. Respondents included final-year veterinary science students from five Australian veterinary schools, entrepreneurship, engineering, science and human nursing students from one Australian institution, small-scale farmers and NGOs in Papua New Guinea, and Australian 'senior workers'. Data analysis techniques include ANOVA, MANCOVA, principal components analysis, hierarchical regression modelling, metric conjoint experiment analysis, K-means clustering, factor analysis, and traditional and Bayesian structural equation modelling. I found veterinary respondents to have high EI, particularly for independence more than for profit or creating social value, and high outcome expectations of business but low financial ESE. Discipline and veterinary school-of-study, more than gender, explained variance in business intention after accounting for ESE and outcome expectations. Other-orientation varied for respondents of different disciplines and veterinary schools, with a balanced other-orientation/self-interest profile most represented in human nursing but not veterinary respondents. Based on theory, ESE sub-dimensions did not impact general-, profit-, independence- and social-EI as expected. Notably, financial ESE did not drive independence-EI and negatively drove social-EI in our study population, especially for other-oriented individuals. My inclusion of other-orientation as a moderator of the agency-intention axis provides a way forward for methodological, theoretical, and practical dilemmas associated with the dual mission nature of social entrepreneurship. Using Bayesian structural equation modelling, I contribute to entrepreneurship methodology by demonstrating the factorial handling of McGee et al.'s (2009) multidimensional ESE scale retaining all validated indicators. I highlight implications for the veterinary sector of (i) the mismatch of high independence-EI considering the typical veterinary practice is essentially a socially purposed business (dual missioned – social/profit), and (ii) that low financial self-efficacy of veterinary respondents may impact financial decision-making skills or play out in 'avoidance' practices. I alert veterinary accreditation bodies to this issue, as veterinary business curricula competencies focus on financial capability. Individuals in veterinary and other STEMM career paths have entrepreneurial intentions, but the assumed antecedents may not hold, and this may play out practically in their future business endeavours. Policymakers and educators should address that veterinary 'business' and 'personnel' sustainability issues may originate in attitude and belief clashes and misunderstandings of the dual mission ‘profit for purpose’ veterinary business model. I propose extending (social) entrepreneurship theory in future research with other-orientation as a moderator of the agency-intention axis.