Revalidation of students’ social entrepreneurial behavioural intentions scale: the Fuzzy Delphi Method

This study focuses on social entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial intentions among students in higher education institutions in Malaysia. The aim is to revalidate the scale of social entrepreneurial behavioural intention and obtain expert consensus and views for this scale. This study uses the Fuzzy Delphi Method (FDM) with a 7-Likert scale to gather responses from seven experts in the field of business management and economics. The research is driven by the recognition of social entrepreneurship as an effective strategy for social change and the need to understand the factors influencing individuals’ intentions to engage in social entrepreneurial activities. The study focuses on university students as they represent the future generation of entrepreneurs and investigates their intentions and willingness to engage in social entrepreneurial activities. A total of six key constructs and 18 sub-elements or items of questionnaires was given to the experts for evaluation. The elements were evaluated and selected by examining previous research and literature reviews. The Fuzzy Delphi Method Logic Software (FUDELO) was used for data analysis. The results show that the level of response and expert agreement on the scale is good. The overall expert consensus score is higher than 75% and the overall threshold (d) value is < 0.2. The results from the defuzzification process show that all items reach a consensus and are valid through the expert judgment process. Therefore, the items that have been validated meet the required criteria. This will allow future research on the social entrepreneurial behavioural intention in Malaysia to use prior experience, empathy, moral obligation, social entrepreneurial self-efficacy, perceived social support, and the university’s ecosystem as scales. The findings will contribute to the development of a reliable scale for measuring social entrepreneurial behavioural intention among students in higher education institutions.