Angelica Van Dou, Letty Mahlangu, Jurie Van Vuuren, Clint Davies
Abstract
Over 18,4 million social grants are paid in South Africa (SA) annually, simultaneously there was a below-average total early-stage entrepreneurial activity (TEA) rate of 10.96 during 2017-2018. The study set out to establish if social grant recipients are willing to start businesses, thereby developing better solutions to unemployment and social insecurity in the country.
The study utilized data (quantitative survey by means of personal interviews) from a sample of 725 social grant recipient respondents. Descriptive, and inferential tests were conducted using Pearson correlation, analysis of variance and the Tukey hsd test, to find statistically significant support for the hypotheses around entrepreneurial willingness amongst the sample. The sample displayed entrepreneurial willingness, with no difference between gender and education, but older social grant recipients were statistically significantly more entrepreneurially willing.
Insights reveal how entrepreneurial willingness is key in lessening grant dependency and increasing TEA. Dicksson’s (1989) seminal psychological influence model, form the study’s theoretical base of the push-and-pull theory of entrepreneurial willingness, which couples with the seminal work of McClelland (1961) on entrepreneurial motivation theory. These theories buttress the study conclusions that grant recipients who are supported to have positive expectations from entrepreneurial activity, will indeed start a business and stop receiving grants.