Venture creation through social connections: Role of social networking ties in developing entrepreneurial passion and intentions among university students

Drawing upon S-O-R theory, this study explores the direct and indirect influence of social networking ties (SNTs) on entrepreneurial intention (EI), via the mediation of entrepreneurial passion (EP). It also investigates the moderation effect of the need for achievement (nAch) on the direct relationship between SNTs and EP and further investigates the conditional moderation of nAch on the indirect path from SNTs to EI. Using a sample of 307 Pakistani university students, we employed the PLS-SEM approach to test the model. The results of the measurement model affirmed that the data meet the assumptions of convergent and divergent validities. The findings from the structural model showed that SNTs influence EI both directly and indirectly. Additionally, nAch is also found to positively moderate the link between SNTs and EP. Further, the results of conditional indirect effects infer that the indirect effect of SNTs becomes the most significant for the students who perceive a high level of nAch and the least significant for the students who perceive a low level of nAch. This study adds to the literature by employing the S-O-R approach to understand the link between SNTs and EI via EP and incorporating nAch as a boundary condition.