The role of social entrepreneurs' compassion and identity in shaping opportunity recognition.

This study answers calls to examine the role of compassion and prosocial behavior (Miller et al, 2012), and opportunity recognition (OR) as process of interaction between entrepreneurs and their communities (Shepherd, 2015). Based on 32 life-story interviews social entrepreneurs, we develop a data-driven process model to explain the relations between compassion, identities, and OR. Compassion is an antecedent of OR. Empathy and sympathy provide different motivations for prosocial behavior. Founder's identity is related to compassion and OR based on affective-cognitive structural alignment. Study findings extend the theory on compassion as a motivational antecedent of prosocial behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]