Natural disasters and social entrepreneurship: An attention-based view

Drawing on the attention based view, this study explores the joint effects of natural disaster intensity at the country level with personal attributes in terms of gender, human capital, and fear of failure on the likelihood to enter social entrepreneurship. Using data on 107,386 observations across 30 countries, we find that natural disaster intensity has a positive effect on individuals likelihood to engage in social entrepreneurship. In addition, the effect of natural disaster intensity is greater for males, individuals lacking human capital, and those who fear failure. Our study helps elaborate on the antecedents of social entrepreneurship and extends the consequences of natural disasters to entrepreneurship at the individual level.