Interlocking Effects of Self-Efficacy and Self-Regulation on Social Ties and Social Entrepreneurial Orientation

In recent years, the projection of Social entrepreneurs’ cognitive drive is a critical factor that needs attention in determining the efficiency of social entrepreneurial orientation in entrepreneurship studies. In order for Social entrepreneurs to be fully oriented in improving social well-being through long term developmental project and not merely considered to perform acts of charity, there has to be a social cognitive mechanism as a key characteristic of social value creation. There are however, significant gaps in understanding social entrepreneur orientation hence, few empirical studies on the subject. This paper using both the Social Network and Social Cognitive theories attempts to identify the relationship between Social ties, self-efficacy, self-regulation and entrepreneurial orientation outcomes. Using the Partial lest square of the structural equation model to analyze a survey data of 397 Philanthropist (i.e. social activist, environmentalist and other social innovators) NGOs in Ghana, the findings proved that, the level of an individual’s self-efficacy and Self-regulation is not only important to consider as a driving social entrepreneurs’ cognitive behaviors but also fruitful in improving social Entrepreneurial orientation. The study reveals some directions for social innovators seeking to promote their social entrepreneurial orientation skills using cognitive measures alongside social connections in solving a social problem.


Introduction
In an increasing scholarly era of innovation, having a critical assessment of factors that shapes and strengthen Social Entrepreneurial Orientation (SEO) capability to perform is a key issue to discuss in the management field. Having passion and capability to perform a specific task is the most potent way in which a social entrepreneur with social ties ( CL Wang, HFL Chung 2013) can strengthen the act of being proactive, innovative and risk taking (W. Zhu et al., 2017) to perform efficiently. Many resources and benefits accrued from these social ties would be used judiciously and efficiently to affect lives positively in the society by a social entrepreneur with high selfefficacy and self-regulation.
Extensive research proves that, Social entrepreneurial orientation is characterized by how well a social entrepreneur is motivated by his/her own perceived belief in accomplishing a specific task which is described as perceive self-efficacy (Bandura ,1997) and how it is regulated (Grant & Higgins, 2003). Given this analogy, one might assume that Social entrepreneurs are naturally self-efficacious, since they are being defined with Proactiveness, Risk taking and Innovativeness (Wiklund, 1998). However, a critical assessment of social entrepreneur's performance shows that the capabilities vary from persons to persons even with all things being equal and equal opportunities given (Wiklund, 1998). After critical assessment, a research question is developed: To what extent does social ties enhance social entrepreneurial activities? The aforementioned observation thus necessitates the need to evaluate the effects of cognitive mechanisms on SEO and its social ties. and other related studies on Social ties (Granovetter, 1985;Peng and Luo, 2000) to propose that, forming networks which is an effective means for social entrepreneurs to gain access to a lot of opportunities for problem solving is not enough tool for success hence there are other driving forces.
Furthermore, drawing from the social cognitive theory (Bandura ,1997), we emphasize on the points from previous scholars (Fast, Burris, and Bartel, 2014) that a central feature of an entrepreneurial orientation is to demonstrate high self-efficacy and self-regulation, to possess ample confidence necessary to be efficient in solving a specific problem in as much as the magnitude of entrepreneur's internal capabilities varies. Moreover, based on previous related research, we suggest that being a social entrepreneur doesn't guarantee a possession of entrepreneurial characteristics, there are causal agents behind an individual's ability to be proactive, innovative and risk loving which boosts the strength of entrepreneurial orientation.
This research aims to contribute to the existing literatures on social ties and cognitive factors. First and foremost, we seek to offer insight into why some social entrepreneurs actively reach out to their social ties for resources, opportunities and efficiently put them to use and why others are limited by their own actions. Specifically, we propose that the relationship between social ties and social entrepreneurial orientation has a positive impact and stronger when self-efficacy and self-regulation influence this relationship (Bandura, 1991).
Second, we seek to highlight from the social cognitive theory how self-efficacy and self-regulation serve as better mechanisms to influence pro-activeness, Risk taking and Innovativeness in enhancing and building entrepreneur's capacity to be more efficacious. In other words, we examine these entrepreneurs' variations in performance as a cognitive phenomenon rather than tangible and intangible resource effects (B.S. Anderson, Y. Eshima 2011).
Third, this study contributes to the social entrepreneurship literature, which has invested meaningful effort in understanding the outcomes of various entrepreneurial orientations and its social ties but has generated less knowledge about the determinants of building an efficient entrepreneur orientation. The arguments and studies described in this paper will project social entrepreneur's cognitive drive as a critical factor that determines efficient entrepreneurial orientation. For as long as entrepreneurs with varying Self-efficacy and self-regulation come into contact with social ties, the cognitive aspect that grooms a social entrepreneur's characteristics when well understood is an essential effort.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT 2.1 Social ties and social entrepreneurial orientation
The term social entrepreneur in recent years has been used frequently in the field of academia and business (Witkamp, Royakkers, and Raven 2011). Considering the fact that it has been used in diverse ways with different perspectives, some scholars' states there is no clear definition for the concept (Dacin and Dacin 2011;Harding 2004;Mair and Martí 2006;Weerawardena and Sullivan 2006) causing a lot of confusion and gaps in specialized literature and empirical studies (Cukier et al. 2011;Helm and Andersson 2010;Mair and Martí 2006;Nicholls 2006;Zahra et al. 2008). This is because there is more to who a social entrepreneur is, than to be seen as just social problem solvers (Austin et al. 2006;Martin and Osberg 2007;Zahra et al. 2009). Other scholars after critically assessing this definition as elemental approach which does not reflect social entrepreneurs' motivations, examined deeper ideas that reflects a more idealistic concept of social entrepreneurs and more pragmatic perspective (Miguel et.al, 2013). From the idealistic perspective, authors such as Mort, Weerawardena, and Carnegie (2003); Peredo and McClean (2006) ;Chell 2007;Light 2006;Mair and Martí 2006;Roberts and Woods 2005, attribute social entrepreneurs with the aim of social value creation, innovation, taking risk, and the creation and diffusion of social values to bring social well-being to the community which creates deep transformation in the society at large. Several scholars (Austin et al. 2006;Boschee, 2001;Defourny and Nyssens 2010;Haugh 2007;Nicholls 2006;Thompson, Alvy, and Lees 2000) with the pragmatic ideology considers that social entrepreneurs seek to generate revenue by obtaining social results focusing greatly on community's social welfare than for making money. Combining both idealistic and pragmatic ideas, a more detailed definition for social entrepreneur is the kind of entrepreneur who focuses on seeking solutions through building, evaluating, and pursuing opportunities to solve social problems, permitting the generation of sustainable social value, including nonprofit organizations, firms, and governmental organizations' direct actions in achieving new stable balances (Guzmán and Trujillo, 2008).
Social entrepreneurship has some set of attributes and behaviors that form the backbone to social entrepreneur's culture. One of the components of this culture is networks (Baum et.al, 2000). Social networks adding up to an individual competency by having access to opportunities from its ties, being able to tap these resources and utilizing it efficiently is an integral aspect of social entrepreneurial orientation. Ties with business partners is an important predictor of business success that creates opportunities in facilitating information sharing, resource exchange and knowledge transfer (Park and Luo, 2001). In this respect, we draw on recent work on Social ties which some scholars refer to as managerial ties (e.g. Chung, 2012;N. Boso et al. 2013) to suit this study by defining business ties as the relationships social entrepreneurs develop with other funding partners and social innovators in a society. In view of this, social entrepreneurs become oriented in being proactive, risk takers and Journal of Resources Development and Management www.iiste.org ISSN 2422-8397 An International Peer-reviewed Journal Vol.68, 2020 63 innovative through this opportunity creation. Business ties helps to overcome institutional barriers as it allows social entrepreneurs connect to banks, suppliers, distributors, buyers and customers (Liao and Welsch, 2003) for support in curbing societal problems.
According to Peng & Luo, (2000), social entrepreneurs can achieve more institutional support, such as enforcement of contracts, favorably interpreting regulations, settlement of negotiations, and erecting entry barriers when there is a strong intimate relationship with government officials. Thus, having close ties with government can help facilitate the social entrepreneur to quickly capture opportunities by accessing the latest news about relevant policies and regulations which aids in industrious planning and to tap scarce resources such as capital support and land.
As (Park and Luo, 2001) mentioned in previous studies, despite the fact that both types of ties impact opportunity capture, they may exert different effects in the sense that business ties involve not only the sharing of operational resources (e.g., raw materials, production facilities, technologies, financial capital, and distribution channels), but also strategic resources (e.g., information, experience, and knowledge). Ozgen and Baron (2007) also stated that entrepreneurs with wide social networks tend to be more successful at grasping opportunities than those with narrower ones. This makes both ties very essential in improving social entrepreneurial orientation as far as this study is concerned even though some fast developing countries like China are shifting from cultivating relationships with government officials to building ties with other business partners (Peng & Zhou, 2005). Therefore:

Self-Efficacy
Self-efficacy (Bandura, 1989) is the self-confidence built in an individual to perform specific task which varies from persons to persons and that is why individuals having equal ability perform differently. In line with this, irrespective of one positing social entrepreneur characteristics will still perform differently since the degree of self-efficacy existing in every individual differs for a specific task given. The higher the self-efficacy of a person, the greater the efforts to execute for a lengthy period of time, persist through setbacks, be determined for higher achievements and plan more creative strategies and solutions for the task (Bandura, 1989). Even though the basic principles that lies in the theory of self-efficacy from the Social Cognitive Theory derived by Bandura states that people are likely to engage in activities with the perception of being competent which automatically gives an entrepreneur that credits of having a certain level of self-efficacy which cause them to be courageous enough to take up big decisions and still portray all the entrepreneurial characteristics, it is still not enough basis for all social entrepreneurs to be equally effective or efficient when having equal opportunities (like social ties). Scholarly research reveals the influential role of self-efficacy in determining the level of effort, choice and the perseverance of an individual (Chen, Gully, & Eden, 2004) self-efficacy as an important determinant concept of explaining human behavior. As it is clearly stated by Bandura (1997), individuals possessing high self-efficacy for a specific task are most likely to pursue, persist and innovate efficiently in that task compare to those who possess low selfefficacy. Despite the availability of opportunities for an individual, he/she can still be inefficient and ineffective when there is no or low sense of efficacy which will enable one to make good use of the existing abilities. Taking insight from the Social Network Theory which emphasizes on the resources and benefits tapped from Social ties, a social entrepreneur with high self-efficacy would be zealous in strengthening its connections to be able to tap more benefits to solve societal problems. Hence self-efficacy in an important motivational element as it has the ability to increase or reduce an individual's effort. The above statements prove how an entrepreneur would react differently to opportunities that comes from its social ties when influenced by cognitive thinking which has been described as self-efficacy (Bandura, 1898) and regarded as internal motivation. From this perspective, the following hypothesis were developed: Hypothesis 3a. Self-efficacy plays a moderation role on the relationship between business ties and social entrepreneurial orientation. Hypothesis 3b. Self-efficacy plays a moderation role on the relationship between political ties and social entrepreneurial orientation.

Self-Regulation
Another relevant aspect, related to the social cognitive theory, is self-regulation. This is an individual psychological process that significantly contributes to professional performance, since it influences the agency of actions. They aim to explain behavior and its results on the basis of the active perception and interpretation of information by the individual (Grants and Higgins, 2003). The approach taken in this study relies on the social cognitive theory of Bandura (1991Bandura ( , 2006 which can help by providing input on the self-regulatory processes that would result in entrepreneurial orientation development. Self-regulation is defined as the process that includes monitoring, evaluating, and providing feedback on personal actions through self-reinforcement and emotional self-Journal of Resources Development and Management www.iiste.org ISSN 2422-8397 An International Peer-reviewed Journal Vol.68, 2020 control to redirect actions toward achieving goals (Bandura, 1991(Bandura, , 2006. The function of self-regulation is to make the actor take personal control of the environment in which he/she is located, increasing his/her capacity as an agent. This is essential in social entrepreneurial activity and leads to successful performance. This study concentrates on promotion focus which is one of the two dimensions (i.e. promotion focus and prevention focus) of self-regulation (Grant & Higgins, 2003). Promotion focus increases the desire to attain gains whereas prevention focus increases the desire to avoid potential losses (P. Bryant, 2009). Based on these mechanisms, entrepreneur's response to opportunities from both business and political ties will be stronger by creating the enabling environment to eagerly seek opportunities through vigilance and cautious means (Grant & Higgins, 2003). Hypothesis 4a: Self-regulation plays a moderation role on business ties and social entrepreneurial orientation. Hypothesis 4b: Self-regulation plays a moderation role on business ties and social entrepreneurial orientation. Based on these projections, this paper will contribute to existing literatures by exploring and identifying the extent to which social ties enhance social entrepreneurial orientation

Sample
The analysis was based on the results collected as a primary data from Ghana through an online survey. There were 397 effective responses from Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO), which was close to the estimated intended sample size of 450 for this study. Participants from Ghana were considered. Ghana is a developing country with a different culture, administrative system and individuals with high sense of social entrepreneurship zeal. The study adopted the Purposive sampling method for the survey. Purposive sampling as stated by Fraenkel and Wallen, (2006) could be used by researchers to dig out those knowledgeable about the target population in achieving the purpose of a study. Potential participants (Philanthropist, social activist, environmentalists and other social innovators) were contacted via email and social media platforms. The demographic information of the respondents and the various social entrepreneurs surveyed is summarized in (Table 1).

Procedure
We sampled the social entrepreneurs in Ghana mostly through the help of the internet. Letters were then sent to all the social entrepreneurs sampled mostly through emails, with a brief proposal of the study attached to it. After receiving a reply from those social entrepreneurs who were interested in the study, we sent them the questionnaires which was completed and returned to the research team. It took a maximum of about two months for the entire data collection process.
This study aims to empirically test the influence of Self-efficacy and Self-regulation capability at the individual level on innovative social entrepreneurial behaviors (social networks activities and cognitive mechanisms) of Social entrepreneurs. This resulted to the proposed causal model of antecedents and the adopted method for analyzing the data has been the analysis of structural equation modeling (SEM) using the partial least square (PLS), SEM-specification (Fornell and Chan;1994). The sample size of 397 qualifies for the use of PLS-SEM since it is more than 100 as proposed by (Kline, 2005). PLS uses ordinary least square (OLS) algorithm. It is designed to reflect the theoretical and empirical qualities of social science and behavior, (Wold, 1979).

Measurements
This article adapted the Social Entrepreneurship item scale (Carraher, 2013) to measure the dimensions of the dependent variable, Social Entrepreneurial Orientation. 5 item constructs of which some are; 'I am adopting a mission to create social value', 'I am relentlessly pursuing new opportunities to serve my mission', 'I seek to be a world changer through the accomplishment of my mission', were modified to suit the study context. Social ties  Peng, 2000). Two dimensions were assessed; Business ties and Political ties. The overall construct consisted of 15 modified items, 7 items measured business ties and 8 items measured political ties. Some items include; 'We have cultivated close connections with our partners', 'Personal relationships with our partners are important to our social responsibilities', 'We ensure good relationship with influential government officials' 'We have invested heavily in building relationships with government officials'. An adapted New general self-efficacy scale (Chen et.al., 2001) was used to measure the moderator, self-efficacy with 6 items. Some items include; 'I will be able to achieve most of the goals I have set for myself' and 'In general, I think I can obtain outcomes that are important to the society'. A standardized regulatory focus scale adapted from Grant & Higgins, (2003) was assessed. It comprises of two dimensions; Promotion pride and Prevention pride but only 4 items of the promotion pride, for example; 'doing well at different things', 'unable to get what you want', deemed fit for this study as a cognitive mechanism promoting Social Entrepreneurial Orientation, hence considered. All variables were rated on a 5-point Likert scale (response ranging from 1 strongly disagree to 5 strongly agree). Some of the control variables considered were; Gender, level of education, year of operation, number of awards and position in organization (Mirabella, 2012;Nga et. al, 2010).

Data Analysis and Results
Before analyzing the structural model, we assessed the reliability and validity of each construct. (Hair et al. 2010) recommended the acceptance of items with a minimum loading of 0.7. The reliability of the individual items was reasonably judged, given that no items exhibited loading of less than 0.7 ( Table 2). Composite reliability (CR) is measured in relation to internal reliability. The CR of all the constructs were above 0.7 (Table 2), which satisfies the rule of thumb in (Hair et al. 2013). The average variance extracted (AVE) was used to evaluate the convergent validity; this value exceeded 0.5 in all the constructs (Table 2) the finding indicates that the convergent validity of these constructs is satisfactory . The alpha of all the construct is above 0.7 ( Table  2). The R-Square for the dependent variable social entrepreneur orientation is 0.864 ( Table 2). The mean, standard deviation (SD) and discriminant validity of all the constructs are summarized in (Table 4). The Q 2 of the dependent variable social entrepreneur orientation is 0.693 ( Table 2). The Stone-Geisser Indicator (Q 2 ) evaluates how much the model approaches what was expected of it (or the model prediction quality or accuracy of the adjusted model). Q 2 >0 means that the PLS-SEM model is predictive of the given endogenous variable under scrutiny (HAIR et al., 2014). From the results, SRMR=0.078 is within the accepted threshold of and NFI=0.840 although it is slightly lower than the 0.90 threshold, it is believed that, one of the consequences of comparison between covariance structure analysis modeling approach and PLS is that, no proper overall goodness-of-fit measures exit for models using the latter (Hulland, J. 1999), (Henseler. J. & Sarstedt, M., 2013). The structural model is often evaluated examining the "R" Square values and size of the structural path coefficients (Alon, I., et. al., 2013). Fig 2, shows the outer model with factor loadings of the structural model according to PLS SEM application method. The structural model resulting from the PLS analysis through the bootstrapping procedure with 397 cases and 1000 samples is summarized in (Table 3), where the T-values observed and their corresponding, path weight (), Pvalues, and F-Square values with the level of significance achieved from the bootstrap test are shown. For the degrees of freedom, t-values of (t > 1.96) correspond to p-values (**p <0.05) As observed, five out of the six hypotheses presented have been verified. With respect to the relationship of business ties (BT) and the consequent variable of the model, in accordance with hypothesis (H1), the influence of business ties on social entrepreneur orientation (SEO) has been fully confirmed (T=2.982; =0.366**). The effect of political ties (PT) on social entrepreneur orientation (SEO), H2 is significant (T=2.031;  = 0.166**). Also, the moderating effect of selfefficacy and business ties (SE*BT) on social entrepreneur orientation (SEO), H3a is positive but not significant (T= 1.411; = 0.096). Again, the moderating effect of self-efficacy and political ties (SE*PT) on social entrepreneur orientation (SEO), H3b is negative but significant (T= 2.367, =-0.186**). The moderating effect of self-regulation and business ties (SR*BT) on social entrepreneur orientation (SEO) H4a, is negative and significant (T=2.612, =-0.116**). Finally, the moderating effect of self-regulation and political ties (SR*PT), H4b has been fully confirmed (T= 2.153; =0.152**).    For the degrees of freedom, t-values of (t  1.96) correspond to p-values of (**p< 0.05)

Discussion and Conclusion
This study conducted an empirical test for social entrepreneurs of a developing country to analyze the cognitive influence (Social cognitive) and Connections (Social networks) on individual social entrepreneurial orientation. This is because recent research calls for the attention of Social innovators to be much concerned about realizing and building upon who they are and improving their capabilities as the best opportunities when combined with other factors rather than depending solely on external factors to improve productivity.
Basing on the Social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1997), we examined the cognitive consequences (when wellregulated) of social entrepreneur's engagement in social ties in facilitating Social entrepreneurial orientation. Our findings show that the level of an individual's self-efficacy and Self-regulation is not only important to consider as driving social entrepreneurs' cognitive behaviors but also fruitful in achieving more resources and opportunities. We find that social entrepreneur with higher self-efficacy would or would not need a business partner to achieve target set. It is only when one's self efficacy is low that political ties will be needed most to improve social entrepreneurial orientation. Also, when a social entrepreneur's self-regulation is high, business ties will be needed more to achieve SEO and political ties will be considered most when self-regulation is low. Theoretically, our study contributes to the social networks, social cognitive and the social entrepreneurship literature by implementing a clear conceptual model at the individual level and outlining the relationships among social variables in the management field. Considering the Methodological aspect, this study has contributed as well by using the Partial Least Square (PLS) which has been rarely used in a study of this kind in proving the validation of all constructs.
In conclusion, our study has highlighted the importance of using social cognitive perspective and social network theory to examine the relationship among self-efficacy, self-regulation, business ties, political ties and social entrepreneurial orientation in social entrepreneurship setting. Our findings suggest that, a social innovator's social entrepreneurial orientation directly depends on both the business and political ties and indirectly depends on, self-efficacy and Self-regulation mechanisms.

Limitations
This paper has limitations that should be addressed in future research. First, we did not consider all items of the regulatory focus scale that may be of important hence future research should explore all items in justifying the relationship between social ties, self-efficacy, self-regulation and social entrepreneurial orientation. Second, we Journal of Resources Development and Management www.iiste.org ISSN 2422-8397 An International Peer-reviewed Journal Vol.68, 2020 chose the New General Self-efficacy scale which future researchers can consider other self-efficacy scales. Also, future research should consider two or more countries for this research since only one country might not be enough to justify our inclusions. Finally, future research could link social ties to social entrepreneurial orientation by testing the mediation effects of self-efficacy and self-regulation on the relationship.