Social Entrepreneurship Competitions: Hoping for Funding and Gaining Valuable Experience in the Process — An Exploratory Study

The purpose of this study is to better understand the role of social entrepreneurship competitions in the start-up process through implementation of pre and post surveys. Our exploratory research suggests that many students join these competitions seeking mentors and funding, but during the process of the competition, some elements of self-efficacy are actually reduced as a result of participation. Since competitions enable participants to experience first-hand the different layers of complexity of starting a venture, participants realize how challenging the process is and thus might have less confidence in starting a venture. Participants also suggest that the competition helped them better understand the needs of the society they are focusing on and that the mentorship gained through the competition is apparently more valuable than funding. In summary, although individuals might join competitions motivated by funding opportunities, they finish the process actually saving resources in the long term because through experiential learning they experience how difficult it is to actually start a venture. This insight can be used by competition organizers to better design social entrepreneurship competitions, so that participants might experience during the competition cycle even more of the complexities of starting a venture. At the same time, academics and doctoral students might conduct future studies with a larger sample size to better understand other types of knowledge gained through these competitions as well as which competition activities lead to the greatest levels of transformation and learning in participants.