A moderation approach to online social interaction in entrepreneurship using the effectuation and causation theory

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Abstract

Recently, there has been a growth in digital technology use and social media adoption by individuals, including entrepreneurs, that has changed the way individuals and businesses communicate and interact (Chatterjee & Kar, 2020; Harrigan, Miles, Fang, & Roy, 2020). Despite this, little is known about how the adoption of online social interaction affects entrepreneurial processes, especially opportunity evaluation. Through a moderation approach, this empirical study sought to fill the gap by investigating the effect of social interaction via social media on opportunity evaluation, specifically if the effect of online social interaction on opportunity evaluation depends on effectuation and causation. Using a quantitative method approach, survey questionnaires were used to collect data from a random sample of young entrepreneurs in Ghana. The questions were evaluated with SPSS and later exported to STATA for data analysis. A total of 383 questionnaires were analysed. The study found that the interaction effect from the linear regression model showed that although there is a positive relationship between effectuation and social interaction, while causation interacts negatively with social interaction, the moderation effects were not statistically significant. It is recommended that future research considers other factors that may facilitate or hinder the opportunity evaluation process and to what extent they do, which may lead to a better understanding of targeting entrepreneurial training.

Keywords: Online Social Interaction, Entrepreneurship, Causation, Effectuation, Opportunity Evaluation, Moderation

Authors’ individual contribution: Conceptualization — A.E.; Methodology — A.E.; Writing — Original Draft — A.E.; Writing — Review & Editing — C.C.N.; Supervision — C.C.N.

Declaration of conflicting interests: The Authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgements: This research was funded with bursary received from the University of South Africa.

JEL Classification: M13, M15

Received: 02.03.2021
Accepted: 14.06.2021
Published online: 15.06.2021

How to cite this paper: Engmann, A., & Ngwakwe, C. C. (2021). A moderation approach to online social interaction in entrepreneurship using the effectuation and causation theory [Special issue]. Journal of Governance & Regulation, 10(2), 328–342. https://doi.org/10.22495/jgrv10i2siart13