Multidimensional competency construct for social entrepreneurs: A logistic regression approach Garima Saxena Institute of Management Studies, Banaras Hindu University, India article info Article history: Received 5 August 2017 Received in revised form 23 September 2017 Accepted 16 December 2017 Available online xxxx Keywords: competencies, for-profit, logistic regression, not-for-profit, social entrepreneurs abstract Do social entrepreneurs running a for-profit (private, limited) enterprise require different competencies from those running a not-for-profit enterprise? The present research study aimed to answer the above question by proposing and vindicating a multidimensional competency construct that can serve as a succinct base to distinguish for-profit social en- trepreneurs from not-for-profit social entrepreneurs. An online survey method was used to elicit responses from 400 Indian social entrepreneurs. Logistic regression analysis was used to analyze the data and to test the hypothesis. The empirical results revealed that for-profit social entrepreneurs did not differ not-for-profit social entrepreneurs in four competencies. By vindicating the competencies relevant for the two different forms of social enterprises, the study contributes to theory development in the field of social entrepreneurship. Furthermore, the study makes an attempt to explore new avenues for social entrepreneurial competencies research, which offer special insight with regard to enterprise form/type. The logistic regression model provides valuable insights for future enquiries by postulating and vindicating competencies as an underpinning for differentiation. The research study is limited to India; hence, it provides scope for further research in other geographical regions in order to generalize the results. © 2017 Kasetsart University. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/ 4.0/). Introduction Social entrepreneurs are the ones who imagine an innovative, sustainable model for social change (such as Dees, 1998; Leadbeater, 1997) and engrave them into reality (as a social enterprise). This notion of reality (social enter- prise) cuts across a spectrum of organizational possibilities ranging from nonprofit organizations that engage in com- mercial activity to profit-making businesses that claim to be driven by social objectives (Dees, 1998). Selection of the enterprise form is a key strategic decision for a social pur- pose organization as it has an impact on firm performance and survival (Young, 2001). Being the initiator of the social entrepreneurial endeavor, the social entrepreneur takes this key strategic decision of selecting a particular enter- prise form over another. This decision molds the possible future course of actions related to the core processes of the establishment, success, and growth of a social enterprise. Hence, selection of the specific organizational forms de- cides the specific task/job roles associated with it. To perform these task successfully, specific individual abilities (competencies) are required. These individual abil- ities (competencies) are specific to the task associated with the specific organizational form; therefore different compe- tencies are required to perform different tasks associated with different organizational form/enterprise forms. Though individual (entrepreneurial) competencies are ubiquitously acknowledged as an important prognostic factor in enter- prise establishment, success and growth (Olson & Booker, E-mail address: garima@fmsbhu.ac.in. Peer review under responsibility of Kasetsart University. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Kasetsart Journal of Social Sciences journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/kjss https://doi.org/10.1016/j.kjss.2017.12.013 2452-3151/© 2017 Kasetsart University. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Kasetsart Journal of Social Sciences xxx (2017) 1e5 Please cite this article in press as: Saxena, G., Multidimensional competency construct for social entrepreneurs: A logistic regression approach, Kasetsart Journal of Social Sciences (2017), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.kjss.2017.12.013