Responsible entrepreneurship, social innovation, and value creation for grand challenges
基于利益相关者理论，研究了负责任创业如何通过社会创新促进企业应对重大社会挑战的价值创造，并发现对可持续发展目标的承诺会强化这一间接效应。
Drawing insights from the stakeholder theory, this study offers a fresh theoretical account of how and when responsible entrepreneurship contributes to value creation in addressing grand societal challenges. Using insights from the literature on responsible entrepreneurship and social innovation, we develop a moderated-mediation model that demonstrates (a) how responsible entrepreneurship enhances a firm’s capacity to create value in addressing grand challenges through social innovation (the ‘why’), and (b) how commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) influences this mediated effect (the ‘when’). Using survey data from 409 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in South Africa, we found that responsible entrepreneurship positively affects firms’ engagement in value creation for grand challenges and that social innovation mediates this relationship. Moreover, when firms exhibit higher commitment to the SDGs, the indirect effect of responsible entrepreneurship on value creation for grand challenges through social innovation becomes stronger. These findings advance research on responsible entrepreneurship by highlighting the social innovation mechanism and specifying SDG commitment as a critical boundary condition.