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

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.