The Influence of Social Media and Social Environment on

Entrepreneur Motivation in Medan During Pandemic Covid-19

Hafiza Adlina, Feronica Simanjorang and Nana Dyki Dirbawanto

Department of Bussiness Administration, Faculty of Social and Political Science, Universitas Sumatera Utara, Indonesia

Keywords: entrepreneur, social media, motivation, social environment, entrepreneurial motivation, Covid-19

Abstract: The purpose of this research is to analyse: (1) The influence of social media on entrepreneur motivation in

Medan during pandemic of Covid-19 (2) The influence of social environment on entrepreneur motivation in

Medan during pandemic of Covid-19. The type of this research is qualitative approach is beneficial in

exploring an area where little is known. The population of this research are young entrepreneurs in Medan

who owned coffee shop. The result of research shows that entrepreneurs are motivated by social media and

their social environment. Furthermore, entrepreneurs devised several social media to reach their audience and

target market. The social environment helps young entrepreneurs to develop their business strategies to

survive the competitions during the pandemic of Covid-19 in Medan.

1 INTRODUCTION

Indonesia is a develop country with a large population

that can be found in China, India, and the US. The

increasing population will also have impact on the

number of employees in Indonesia. The more

developed the country, the more educated people will

be, and many more people will be unemployed

because of the narrow employment opportunities.

Development will be more successful if supported by

entrepreneurs who can work with limited capabilities.

Unemployment is the term for people who do not

work at all, are looking for work, or looking for

decent work. To reduce unemployment, one of the

most effective ways is to use the labour as new jobs

through entrepreneurship. Nowadays, college

graduates and undergraduates who are still

unemployed and confused about what to do when

graduating from college are more willing to become

educated unemployed than entrepreneurship.

Unemployment in developing countries has become

serious issues and rise along with the pandemic

covid-19 that happened specifically in Indonesia.

Pandemic Covid-19 made people change their

behaviour where they speed up the digitalization era.

The main source of information for everyone

nowadays is social media and their inner social

environment. Therefore, the social media and social

environment has a role to motivated people in many

things that we do in our daily life. March 2019,

Pandemic covid-19 came to Indonesia which pushed

every aspect of people life to be living in limited

access to outside world, where people could not go

outside, and the government announce a regulation to

reduce outdoor activities and close all types of

existing businesses and offices. This event caused a

huge damage in Indonesia, not just the increase of

unemployment but also economic downturn since the

pandemic happened.

Due to limited activities that can be done for

people, some people see an opportunity in their

surroundings that helped them to turn restricted

access into something useful and creative for

themselves and others which creating a new

enterprise and opportunities. Many of

unemployment’s tries things and become self-made

entrepreneurs. Their condition helped them to

develop their new skills while they stay at home

waiting for the pandemic to become endemic.

Entrepreneurship is an ability and knowledge to

be a strength in facing work or business difficulties to

survive and achieve success. Moreover, if knowledge

and experience in the field of entrepreneurship starts

at a young age such as students. Entrepreneurial

competence is the ability of a person to create a new

business, previously that person has thought about the

bad risks and uncertain things in obtaining profits and

development with a good understanding by mixing

458

Adlina, H., Simanjorang, F. and Dirbawanto, N.

The Inﬂuence of Social Media and Social Environment on Entrepreneur Motivation in Medan During Pandemic Covid-19.

DOI: 10.5220/0011905100003460

In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Social and Political Development (ICOSOP 2022) - Human Security and Agile Government, pages 458-462

ISBN: 978-989-758-618-7; ISSN: 2975-8300

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

and matching the skills needed to take advantage of

opportunities.

Entrepreneurial competence is also someone's

knowledge in doing business in their field or someone

who has the skills and then applied in the habit of

thinking and acting in business. The competence of a

person will increase and continue to be of good value

if the person is willing to retrain that potential and

always considers it in the training of human

resources. How entrepreneurs behave during

pandemic of covid-19 has made a difference in how

events have been handled in recessions. The creative

and innovative behaviours of entrepreneurs lead them

to use social media to develop their business and

engage with their customers.

Social Media (SM) has grown by leaps and

bounds in recent years. Its use has made easier for

entrepreneurs to advertise and sell their products

especially during pandemic of Covid-19. The

influence of SM and digital tools has been overlooked

in research to date regarding its possible influence on

entrepreneur motivation to promote their business.

SM can serve as an avenue where they can effectively

market their products and reach out to their potential

clients, therefore encouraging business creation and

supporting business survival and growth.

SM playing a massive role in influencing the

marketing landscape by enabling transition away

from traditional media to focus on digital marketing.

Opportunities for businesses growth have risen

exponentially as SM takes the important role in taking

off a business. SM marketing can improve the

visibility of the business and build an engagement

with customer by provide interaction and attention as

the most relevant components (Gomez et al., 2019).

Increase in visibility has been a primary reason for

social media use by entrepreneurs which leads to

attracting new customers and an increase in sales if

they can linkage the social environment into their

platform.

For some reason, entrepreneur’s motivational

state of mind plays a central role in his/her

organisational success (Amabile, 1997; Shane,

Locke, & Collins, 2003) and context may influence

that motivational state. How entrepreneurs feel about

their entrepreneurial activities is highly important in

connecting an entrepreneur’s creativity to innovative

organisational outcomes (Cardon et al., 2009).

Nevertheless, while entrepreneurs’ attitudes, feelings

and emotions have received considerable attentions,

it is still unclear how such motivational factors are

formed and sustained (e.g., Baum & Locke, 2004;

Foo, Uy, & Baron, 2009; Segal et al., 2005) and how

other individuals may provide a context for

entrepreneurs’ motivations (Carsrud & Brännback,

2011). Entrepreneurs can be seen as persons who

need a continuous state of motivation with respect to

their work because they need to update a business

network every day and get attention from new ones

(potential clients/consumers) (Forbes, 2019).

Social environment in entrepreneurial activity is

linkage of an individual with society in perspectives

such as resources, friendship, family, norms, beliefs,

culture, economic, political, etc. because social

environment is an extension of social capital, and it

has been defined with characteristics of relations of

trust, common rules, norms, sanctions, reciprocity,

exchange, connectedness, networks and groups

(Pretty, & Ward, 2001). Social environment relates to

the people, planet, and profit (Thompson, & Kiefer,

2011). Entrepreneurship is a reason of the social

change, and it is influenced by changes at the societal

level (Welter, 2011). Relationship of

entrepreneurship and environment has been seen as a

more viable approach, the further environment has

been considered more important in understanding

about the formation of new organizations (Mazzarol

et al., 1999). And the socio-political environment is

too much influential because it can create or destroy

entrepreneurship in the country (Luthans et al., 2000).

Based on the explanation above, entrepreneurial

motivation is the key predictor for an individual’s

participation in the entrepreneurial process. An

entrepreneurship phenomenon is impossible without

the willingness of people to play the game (p. 258,

Shane et al. 2003). Furthermore, Shane and his co-

authors argued that understanding the development of

human motivation (i.e., entrepreneurial motivation) is

key to explaining who pursues entrepreneurial

opportunities.

Individuals lacking entrepreneurial motivation are

unlikely to engage in entrepreneurial behaviours or

actions required for their transformation into

entrepreneurs (Miller et al. 2012). Therefore, in this

article the author wants to analyse (1) The influence

of social media on entrepreneur motivation in Medan

during pandemic of Covid-19 (2) The influence of

social environment on entrepreneur motivation in

Medan during pandemic of Covid-19.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Entrepreneurs are performing entrepreneurial

activities in an environment of uncertainty, by

recognizing that this process occurs in a social

environment in which an entrepreneur can reduce

uncertainty, and it increases entrepreneurial success

The Inﬂuence of Social Media and Social Environment on Entrepreneur Motivation in Medan During Pandemic Covid-19

459

(Autio et al., 2014). Therefore, choice is an

antecedent of entrepreneurial motivation as a

response to a decision to create new values for

business growth. According to Shane et al., (2003) &

Erdelyi (2010), entrepreneurial activity can only take

place when they have entrepreneurs who identify,

rate, avail the opportunities and make decisions

related to them.

The motivation of entrepreneurs are not

always clear and precise, sometimes been called into

questions. Willingness to accept change is something

that be owned by an entrepreneurs, especially during

pandemic of covid-19. Looze & Desai (2020) found

that business owners saw the effects of pandemic on

their business as negative and reaching customers

without having SM as a challenge to face. During the

pandemic of covid-19, SM openness and connectivity

overcomes the inability or difficulty entrepreneurs

experience in identifying and reaching out the

environment (Kuhn et al., 2016; Nylander &

Rudstrom, 2011). SM has allowed entrepreneurs to

connect and establish relationship based on similar

interest which allow for partnerships that drives co-

creation and innovation (Bhimani et al., 2018). Usage

of SM has been shown to improve their firm

performance which is essential to entrepreneur’s

business.

Entrepreneurs use SM for various purposes

and the use of SM gone beyond maintance of personal

connections for entrepreneurs. SM allow for

networking and interaction with a wider environment

from a different geographical location (Wang et al.,

2016). Nowadays, social and interactive feature being

an inherent part of modern day customer. The

emergence of SM has changed the communication

paradigm including customers’ pattern of media

usage. Customers traditionally played a passive role

as product recipients, but today they actively involved

in the communications process as active seekers of

branded content. Research has also indicated the

importance of generating customer engagement via

the SM (Habibi et al., 2014; Hollebeek et al., 2014).

Social environment in entrepreneurial activity

is linkage of an individual with society in

perspectives such as resources, friendship, family,

economic, political, historical, etc. Because social

environment is an extension of social capital, and it

has been defined with characteristics of relations of

trust, common rules, norms, sanctions, reciprocity,

exchange, connectedness, networks and groups

(Pretty, & Ward, 2001). Similar to the importance of

SM, social environment also has an important role

that motivates an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurial

motivation is the key predictor for an individual’s

participation in the entrepreneurial process (Carsrud

& Brännback, 2011).

3 METHODS

The research method for this study is qualitative.

Qualitative Research is research that departs from the

perspective of the focus of research referring to the

quality of meaning (Maleong, 2014). In this research,

researchers used deep interview with five coffeeshop

owners in Medan to gain their experience and their

perspectives about the influence of social media and

social environment during this pandemic Covid-19

event.

These data will be analysed in a predetermined

theoretical framework to prove that the hypothesis is

accurate and finally able to answer the research

question. The collected data was analysed using

descriptive analysis to better describe. To systematize

the data collected, this analysis is carried out through

stages, namely: data reduction, data exposure,

description, and verification as well as drawing

conclusions.

The goal of descriptive research is to describe a

phenomenon and its characteristics. This research is

more concerned with what rather than how or why

something has happened. Therefore, observation and

survey tools are often used to gather data (Gall et al.,

2007).

4 RESULT AND DISCUSSION

4.1 The Influence of Social Media on

Entrepreneur Motivation in Medan

during Pandemic Covid-19

Pandemic of covid-19 is not only a public health

concern but also an economic crisis. The pandemic

has many impacts in many ways of people lives. This

makes it hard to anticipate and plan. Therefore, it is

believed that the pandemic not only increased the

challenges, but also affected the motivation of

entrepreneurs.

SM has an influence for entrepreneur especially

for their motivation, where the most people share

their daily life, their favourites and everything that

they do every day. For some of the informant, SM

media has become their daily motivational media to

develop their personal self and their brand or in this

case their coffee shop. The owner explained that SM

is a communication facility that really supports them

ICOSOP 2022 - International Conference on Social and Political Development 4

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during the pandemic of covid-19. Activity restrictions

indirectly require entrepreneurs to use SM’s

capabilities to reach potential consumers according to

the target and help improve the business performance.

In the other hand, SM rise the motivational impact for

young people to reach an opportunity in many

industries.

Since the breakout of covid-19, people tend to use

internet for daily entertainment and to support any

aspect of life. For example, people or any company

are using internet and social media to do their

business meeting or family gathering. People are also

can easily access and getting information about how

famous entrepreneurs and influencer’s life. It can

stimulate people to have entrepreneur intention and

motivation especially on this pandemic covid 19 eras.

Social media become one of the most needs that

people consume every single day, and since its

outbreak, people tend to become social influencer

from their account in many digital platforms. People

are trying to have a creative content that can be sold

in many digital platforms. This behaviour can also

count as entrepreneur motivation, and many teenagers

do this kind of thing.

This entrepreneur motivation can be growth from

new normal daily activities. Since the outbreak of

pandemic covid 19, students and collegian are using

video meeting platform to have a class. This new

behaviour can stimulate the new perspective of how

using the internet positively. And many students and

collegian can have a new sense to have many creative

mindsets to increase entrepreneur motivation.

Our findings show that SM’s virtual community

can influence entrepreneur motivation as it provides

insights into customers, brand awareness, feedback,

new product ideas marketing strategies etc. In

addition, active participation visually constructed

through SM is believed to enhance customer

engagement during the pandemic of covid-19. Vohra

& Bhardwaj (2017) observed that participation

characterized by mutual information sharing creates a

positive feeling of instilling trust in users and

increasing trust in the community.

4.2 The Influence of Social

Environment on Entrepreneur

Motivation in Medan during

Pandemic Covid-19

Pandemic of covid-19 crisis is a new and ongoing

situation of unknown time. This disruption to society

has caused many different problems, generated

negative reaction leading to crisis, and led to changes

in social environment. In addition, Pandemic has

changed the way of people communicate with each

other. People change their social environment from

face to face to online interaction. Some environments

may be more stable than others and make it easier to

judge how a business will be impacted by

environmental events. Social environment has

become daily influence for entrepreneur where the

influence has become their motivation from their

family and friends. They live their life and how they

stay motivated by their social environment. Most of

entrepreneurs spend their days within their

environment which make them influenced their way

of business. Social environment has become the

closest influence for entrepreneurs to develop their

skill and their selves.

Our findings show that social environment are

the pull factors related to a need for a change in

lifestyle. Even though the pandemic indirectly change

the social environment, the amount of public interest

in coffee shop motivates the owner to start their

business in this pandemic era. This is consistent with

Sun & Xu (2017) that the need for lifestyle changes,

environmental reasons, independence and social

networks are related to pull factors..

5 CONCLUSIONS

In this review, we summarize and integrate the wide

body of research surrounding entrepreneurial

motivation. In doing so, we develop a roadmap that

both outlines the extant literature and highlights

opportunities for future research. Motivation is a

cornerstone of the entrepreneurial process. Our

review reinforces the conclusion that entrepreneurial

motivation drives essential behaviours related to

venture initiation, growth, and exit. Although the

forceful nature of motivation is unquestionable, the

understanding of its pathways of operation still

requires further elaboration by scholars. Our review

displays the drastically uneven coverage given to

different aspects of motivation throughout the

entrepreneurial process and the relative lack of

integration of different types of motives that jointly

propel behaviour. We hope this review makes the

somewhat fragmented research on entrepreneurial

motivation more accessible and facilitates future

contributions to our understanding of what drives the

entrepreneurial process

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