Using social media and social entrepreneur’s network to increase resources: what’s it worth?

Resources are scarce, but critical for social the social entrepreneur, as the lack of them may undermine the accomplishment of the activities and mission of the social venture. This investigation aims to examine the extent to which the social entrepreneur reliance on its personal network and social media affects its capacity to attract resources for the social organization. For this purpose, a structural equation model was estimated based on data collected from a survey administered to a sample of Portuguese social organizations. The results show that social entrepreneur’s network linkages have a direct and an indirect effect on resources. Directly, the governance of the social entrepreneur’s linkages with new and actual stakeholders seems to attract more resources for the social organization. The indirect impact on resources occurs via social media usage: first, by managing and establishing relationships with new stakeholders; second, by managing the personal linkages with the current network of stakeholders.