Intention towards social entrepreneurship of university students in an emerging economy: the influence of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurship education H.M. Kamrul Hassan Abstract Purpose – Entrepreneurial intention plays a crucial role in the research and application of social entrepreneurship (SE). The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of the factors affecting students’ intention towards social entrepreneurship (ISE). The study has taken entrepreneurial self- efficacy, along with entrepreneurial education, entrepreneurial network and perceived university support that have an impact on intentions, which instills interest amongst students in being future entrepreneurs. Design/methodology/approach – Data were primarily taken from a survey of 380 university students from public and private universities in Chattogram, the business capital of Bangladesh. Students were preliminarily selected, focussing on different profiles such as male/female, age, socio-economic status, education level, university status and employment level. Initially, using factor analysis factors were analyzed and later multiple regression analysis was used to identify the relationship with ISE. Findings – The study on the student reveals that four aspects significantly impacted the preference of students’ ISE. This study reinforces the influence of entrepreneurial self-efficacy, along with entrepreneurial education, as the factors contributing to aid young graduates recognizing and fostering an ISE. Entrepreneurial networks and perceived university support were found to have no association with social entrepreneurial intentions. Originality/value – This paper contributes to the understanding of the factors and provides a basis for explaining factors that affect the intention of students towards SE. It can contribute to future research related to social entrepreneurial intention. Furthermore, it was concluded that forming social entrepreneurial intention is highly influenced by entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurship education. Keywords Entrepreneurial education, Perceived university support, Entrepreneurial self-efficacy, Entrepreneurial network, Intention towards social entrepreneurship Paper type Research paper Introduction Currently, the research world has given more attention to social entrepreneurship (SE), an emerging field of entrepreneurship (Haugh, 2007; Lyne et al., 2018). Over recent years, numerous politicians in different countries worldwide have taken account of the impacts of SE on socio-economic development and the implications of SE in these nations (Gandhi and Raina, 2018; Tiwari et al., 2017a). Social business is a growing field of research in which people with a vision and enthusiasm for supporting and serving society are involved H.M. Kamrul Hassan is based at the Department of Marketing, University of Chittagong, Chattogram, Bangladesh. Received 13 April 2020 Revised 17 June 2020 Accepted 28 June 2020 DOI 10.1108/OTH-04-2020-0012 VOL. 28 NO. 3 2020, pp. 133-151, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1074-8121 j ON THE HORIZON j PAGE 133