Social Entrepreneurship Intervention Methodology for the Scaling

of Perceived Achievement of Social Entrepreneurship

Competency and Complex Thinking

José Carlos Vázquez-Parra

, Carles Lindín-Soriano

Marco Cruz-Sandoval

and Martina Carlos-Arroyo

Institute for the Future of Education, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico

Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

Keywords: Professional Education, Educational Innovation, Future of Education, Complex Thinking, Social

Entrepreneurship, Higher Education.

Abstract: The purpose of this text is to present the results of a pilot test that is part of a validation process of a proprietary

methodology, which aims to develop skills and competencies associated with social entrepreneurship, along

with the competency of complex thinking. This methodology considers the use of a technological platform

that, through self-directed activities, promotes the development of social entrepreneurship and complex

thinking skills. From these results, we seek to argue the relevance of this methodology by focusing on the

development of capabilities, beyond the generation of entrepreneurial projects. This text exposes the need to

develop educational technological tools that allow the development of people, regardless of the institution to

which they belong or the specialized human resources to which they have access.

1 INTRODUCTION

Social entrepreneurship is an excellent way to address

local problems, even more efficiently than

philanthropy and altruism (Ashoka, 2022). Therefore,

more and more universities are paying attention to the

formation of social entrepreneurship as a valuable

competency for any student (Alvarez, Melandet, &

Núñez, 2021). However, not all educational

institutions have human capital specialized in social

entrepreneurship training, causing many ideas and

proposals of their students to be diluted and not to be

developed.

Seeking to mitigate this need, a group of

academics from a university in western Mexico

specialized in social entrepreneurship, set out to

develop a methodology that would not only aim to

develop social entrepreneurship projects, but also the

development of skills associated with

entrepreneurship, i.e., a methodology for the

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9197-7826

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3640-1258

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5703-4023

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5987-1041

development of entrepreneurial skills and

capabilities. Thus Social Entrepreneurship Learning

for Complexity (SEL4C) was born, a proprietary

methodology that develops social entrepreneurship

and complex thinking competencies as part of a

process of ideation of social entrepreneurship

projects.

In this context, the present text seeks to share the

first results of the validation process of this

methodology, which considers a pilot implementation

carried out in the summer of 2022, and a wide

implementation that is currently being carried out

during the August-December 2022 semester. Part of

these results, beyond validating the methodology,

allow us to appreciate the relevance of scaling joint

competencies, by demonstrating the significant

relationship between the competencies of social

entrepreneurship and complex thinking. Although the

results of the broad implementation (i.e., August-

December 2022) are not yet available, it is considered

Vázquez-Parra, J., Lindín-Soriano, C., Cruz-Sandoval, M. and Carlos-Arroyo, M.

Social Entrepreneurship Intervention Methodology for the Scaling of Perceived Achievement of Social Entrepreneurship Competency and Complex Thinking.

DOI: 10.5220/0011816300003470

In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2023) - Volume 2, pages 357-363

ISBN: 978-989-758-641-5; ISSN: 2184-5026

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

357

that the results obtained at present are valuable to

guide and scale the work being done by the research

group.

1.1 Social Entrepreneurship

Competency

Currently, educational institutions are key factors in

the development of social entrepreneurship. This is

based on the fact that these institutions act as

environments in which people detonate and

materialize innovative ideas in complex

environments (Tecnologico de Monterrey, 2019).

Although programs focused on entrepreneurship have

become popular since the 1980s, they have been

focused on the development of triggering ideas and

business ideas, while ignoring or ignoring the

development of competencies in the training of

entrepreneurs (Bublitz, Nguyen, & Peracchio, 2020).

Table 1: Social Entrepreneurship Competency and its sub-

competencies and indicators.

Sub-competencies Indicato

Self-Control Motivation; Perseverance

and resilience;

Tolerance

to uncertainty, ambiguity

and master

of stress.

Leadership Strategic planning;

Communication and

persuasion; Mobilizing

people;

Collaborative

wor

Social awareness and

value

Social involvement;

Empathy;

Identification of

social/environmental

issues; Focus on

sustainability;

Ethical

sense.

Social innovation and

financial sustainability

Creativity; Economic and

financial literacy;

Assessment of ideas,

results and impacts on the

environment and people;

Learning and adaptability;

Management of limited

resources for social

rojects

Source: Created by the authors, inspired on García, Ramírez,

de León, and Aragón (2020).

Educational work should not be so reductionist in

focusing on entrepreneurship per se, but should pay

attention to entrepreneurship skills training

(According to García-González, Ramírez-Montoya,

de León, & Aragón, 2020). Particularly, training in

social entrepreneurship should consider domains in

cognitive, procedural and attitudinal aspects. In this

sense, these domains are expected to detonate in the

generation of innovation with a differentiating value

for society, always seeking to be sustainable (García-

Gonzalez & Ramírez-Montoya, 2021).

In this sense, for this study, social

entrepreneurship has been taken into account as a

macro-competency made up of four sub-

competencies that in turn are related to personal

dimensions, self-control, leadership, social

innovation, social value and entrepreneurial

management (for more information see García-

González, Ramírez-Montoya, de León and Aragón,

2020). Table 1 illustrates the sub-competencies of

social entrepreneurship, as well as the indicators per

sub-competency.

1.2 Complex Thinking Competency

For the present study, complex thinking is understood

as the set of knowledge, skills and attitudes that allow

the comprehensive analysis of phenomena,

developing a broad and interconnected vision of all

the elements and factors involved in them (Tobón &

Luna, 2021). Due to its versatility of applications,

complex thinking is qualified as a general or

transversal competency, as it is valued as a relevant

skill for any professional, regardless of the

disciplinary area in which he/she works (Drucker,

2021).

The competency of complex thinking considers

four sub-competencies or types of reasoning:

systemic thinking, critical thinking, scientific

thinking and creative thinking (Cruz-Sandoval,

Vázquez-Parra, & Alonso-Galicia, 2022). Systems

thinking is the type of reasoning that allows analyzing

problems in an interconnected way, recognizing the

elements that make it up and the dynamics between

them (Jaaron & Backhouse, 2018). For its part,

critical thinking allows evaluating the validity of

reasoning from its own vision, rethinking problems

beyond existing paradigms (Cui, et al., 2021).

Scientific thinking gives people the opportunity to

make decisions and solve problems from the adoption

of objective and validated methodologies, adopting

tools for reasoning, formulating and testing

hypotheses (Suryansyah, Kastolani, & Somantri,

2021). Finally, innovative thinking, or also called

creative thinking, considers the inclusion of processes

that evaluate reality from different angles and

perspectives, seeking to generate proposals and

solutions that are both original and feasible (Zhou,

2021).

CSEDU 2023 - 15th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

358

2 METHODOLOGY

As part of the work of an interdisciplinary research

group, a methodology for the acquisition and scaling

up of social entrepreneurship competency was

developed. This methodology comprises nine

practical training activities aimed at developing a

process of ideation and construction of a social

entrepreneurship project at a basic level (the activities

were designed by a team of specialists in social

entrepreneurship with training in pedagogy and

instructional design).

The design of this methodology contemplates the

development of other skills and therefore, each of the

activities has an objective, instructions and its

relationship with the development of the social

entrepreneurship competency and its sub-

competencies. Likewise, the methodology considers

the acquisition and development of the complex

thinking competency and its sub-competencies, with

the intention of guaranteeing the formative process of

both competencies at a basic level.

Aiming to promote the affordability of this

methodology to all people with entrepreneurial

desires, a technological platform was developed to

implement this methodology in a self-managed way.

Along with the design of the methodology, the

importance of including validated instruments to

measure the development of both competencies was

considered:

- Social Entrepreneurship: The instrument

entitled Profile of the Social Entrepreneur (García-

González et al. 2020), is a scale with 24 questions

evaluated with a Likert scale: 1: Strongly disagree, 2:

Disagree, 3: Neither agree nor disagree, 4: Agree, 5:

Strongly agree. This instrument considers 4 sub-

competencies: self-control, leadership, social

awareness and value, and social innovation and

financial sustainability. As for its validation,

Cronbach's alpha was calculated, which yielded an

overall reliability of the instrument of 0.86, in

addition to each of the dimensions: leadership for

change: 0.76, social innovation 0.60, social value

0.72 and management for change 0.77.

- Complex thinking: The E-Complexity

instrument has the objective of measuring the

perception of the participants' level of mastery of the

complexity reasoning competency and its sub-

competencies. It is an instrument validated both

theoretically and statistically, as well as by a team of

experts in the field. The averages obtained for the

criteria evaluated by the experts were: Clarity (3.31),

Coherence (3.38) and Relevance (3.54). Based on the

theoretical and content validation by means of expert

judgment, it was determined that the eComplexity

instrument is highly valid and reliable (Castillo-

Martínez et al., 2021). The instrument consists of 25

items divided into four sub-competencies: Systemic

Thinking, Scientific Thinking, Critical Thinking and

Innovative Thinking. Its implementation is self-

applicable and each item is evaluated by means of a

Likert scale: 1: Strongly disagree, 2: Disagree, 3:

Neither agree nor disagree, 4: Agree, 5: Strongly

agree.

Thus, the implementation process was carried out

in three stages:

a) Initial diagnosis: Comprises the

implementation of a validated instrument that

measures the initial state of social entrepreneurship

and complex thinking competencies and their sub-

competencies.

b) Training activities: Considers the

implementation of the nine activities designed by

means of a technological platform that allows the

realization of these activities in a self-managed way.

As part of these activities, we have considered the

identification of international problems, their

contextualization in their environment, the discovery

of causes and possible consequences, the ideation of

a value proposal that addresses some of these needs,

the socialization and validation of this proposal and

the capacity of abstraction to communicate their idea.

These activities were only implemented in the

experimental group, as this was the group that was

involved in the methodology.

c) Final diagnosis: Includes the

implementation of the diagnostic instrument to

evaluate the development of both competencies once

the intervention of the training activities has been

carried out.

It is important to point out that although the

activities can be carried out individually or in teams,

the diagnosis and evaluation of the acquisition and

development of the competencies and their sub-

competencies is done individually.

3 RESULTS

As part of the validation process of this methodology,

during the month of July 2022 a pilot test was carried

out on a small group of students. The objective was

to verify that the proposal did have a significant

impact on an experimental group, in contrast to a

control group. This pilot study was regulated by the

interdisciplinary research group R4C, with the

support of the Writing Lab of the Institute for the

Future of Education of the Tecnológico de

Social Entrepreneurship Intervention Methodology for the Scaling of Perceived Achievement of Social Entrepreneurship Competency and

Complex Thinking

359

Monterrey, who, since it is an experimental study

involving people, suggested that it be limited to a

single experimental group of students.

Thus, this pilot study was carried out with a

convenience sample of 35 students, divided into two

groups. The first group, composed of 17 students (10

males and 7 females) was considered for the

pedagogical intervention, i.e., it was the group that

carried out the three phases of the implementation

process and was called the Experimental Group. On

the other hand, the second group, composed of 18

students (9 men and 9 women) was not intervened

with the training methodology in social

entrepreneurship, so it only carried out the initial

diagnosis and the closing evaluation, and was called

the Control Group. The differentiation between the

two groups had the objective of identifying whether

the methodology and the proposed intervention were

effectively valid for the development of both

competencies and their sub-competencies.

Overall, this pilot test yielded positive results

(see Table 2), as it showed an increase of 5.9% in the

perception of achievement of the social

entrepreneurship competency in the group of

intervened students, also impacting all its sub-

competencies: Self-control (+1.3%), Social

Awareness and Value (+5.6), Social Innovation and

Financial Sustainability (+10%) and Leadership

(5.8).

Table 2: Experimental group. Results of the Social

Entrepreneurship Competency and its sub-competencies.

Initial Diagnosis and Final Diagnosis.

Men Women

Dia

Conce

t Mean Mean

I Self-control 4.47 4.64

F Self-control 4.47 4.78

I Soc. awareness and value 3.87 4.77

F Soc. awareness and value 4.33 4.73

I Soc. Innov & fin. Sust. 3.84 3.91

F Soc. Innov & fin. Sust. 4.34 4.16

I Leadership 4.25 4.28

F Leadership 4.53 4.50

I Social Entre

reneurshi

4.06 4.30

F Social Entre

reneurshi

4.41 4.51

Source: Created by the authors.

On the other hand, the violinplot in Figure 1

shows the development of the social entrepreneurship

competency of the experimental group. It is evident

that the mean values in the development of the

competency have increased from the methodology.

That is, the smoothed histogram shows a higher

density of distribution in higher mean values of the

competency in the final diagnosis of the students.

Figure 1: Results of the Social Entrepreneurship

Competency of the experimental group (Initial Diagnosis-

Final Diagnosis). Source: Created by the authors.

Likewise, Figure 2 shows the boxplot analysis of

the initial and final diagnosis with respect to the sub-

competencies of the macro competency of social

entrepreneurship of the experimental group. The

figure shows that there is a development in each of

the sub-competencies resulting from the

methodology through the final diagnosis.

Figure 2: Results by sub-competency of the Social

Entrepreneurship Competency of the experimental group

(Initial Diagnosis-Final Diagnosis).

Table 3: Results of the Complex Thinking Competency and

its sub-competencies of the experimental group and the

control group (Pre-Post Diagnosis).

Control Experimental

Thinking I Mean F Mean I Mean F Mean

Scientific 3.92 4.07 4.16 4.57

Critical 4.29 4.25 4.32 4.56

Innovative 4.12 4.16 4.28 4.53

stemic 4.32 4.37 4.50 4.60

Complex 4.15 4.21 4.31 4.56

Source: Created by the authors.

Regarding the perceived level of achievement of

the complex thinking competency, a considerable

difference was demonstrated between the control and

experimental groups (see Table 3). Regarding the

competency in general, the control group managed to

increase 5.4%, in contrast to the experimental group

that scaled 5.8%, as for the sub-competencies, the

results were similar: Critical Thinking (Control

group: no change, experimental group: +5.5%),

CSEDU 2023 - 15th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

360

Innovative Thinking (Control group: no change,

experimental group: +5.8%), Scientific Thinking:

Control group: +3.8%, experimental group: +9.8%),

Systemic Thinking: Control group: +1.1%,

experimental group: +5.8%).

In order to observe the distribution of the results

shown in Table 3, Figure 3 shows the violin plot of

the initial and final diagnoses in the experimental

group. The results show higher mean values in the

development of complex thinking in the final

diagnosis, as well as a higher distribution density in

mean values close to five.

Figure 3: Results of the Complex Thinking Competency.

Experimental Group (Initial-Final Diagnosis). Source:

Created by the authors.

Thus, although this pilot study yielded limited

results due to the small sample size, it did allow us to

appreciate a differentiated development between the

two groups, as well as shed light on the relationship

between both competencies, arguing for the need to

scale the test in a larger population.

On the other hand, Table 4 shows the correlation

analysis between the social entrepreneurship

competency and complex thinking. The table analysis

shows the correlation analysis of the initial and final

diagnosis of the experimental group. It should be

noted that the analysis seeks to find a significant

relationship between the competencies (p value <=

0.05) and does not seek a predictive capacity (i.e., R2

close to one). The results of the table show that there

is a significant correlation between both

competencies. This correlation is higher in the final

diagnosis of the experimental group.

Table 4: Correlation of development of Social

Entrepreneurship and Complex Thinking Competencies

(Initial-Final). Experimental Group.

Diagnosis R2

value

Initial 0.55 0.02

Final 0.75 0.00

Source: Created by the authors.

As a complement to the results described above,

Figure 4 shows a scatter plot with a trend line with

95% reliability. In addition to showing a positive

correlation between social entrepreneurship

competency and complex thinking, the figure

illustrates that both competencies increase with the

implementation of the methodology comprising nine

practical training activities aimed at developing a

process of ideation and construction of a social

entrepreneurship project at a basic level.

Figure 4: Results of the positive correlation between Social

Entrepreneurship and Complex Thinking Competencies

(Initial-Final). Experimental group. Source: Created by the

authors.

After the pilot implementation, the responsible

institution authorized a new implementation with a

larger population, which will be carried out during the

August-December 2022 semester. The

implementation format of the methodology is face-to-

face, with the support of a group of facilitators who

supported the intervened groups. Five experimental

groups and one control group have been considered

for this study.

Table 5: Experimental and control group characteristics.

Experimental Group

Men Women

n % n %

45 40 67 60

Control Grou

Men Women

n % n %

14 44 18 56

Source: Created by the authors.

As noted above, this study is ongoing, with results

expected by mid-2023.

4 CONCLUSIONS

A relevant feature of competency-based training is

usually the correspondence that can occur between

several of them, considering that when a person

develops certain skills, he/she can acquire and scale

Social Entrepreneurship Intervention Methodology for the Scaling of Perceived Achievement of Social Entrepreneurship Competency and

Complex Thinking

361

some others at the same time. Thus, the present study

not only corroborates the viability of the methodology

designed, but also the correspondence between the

competencies of social entrepreneurship and complex

thinking. It also demonstrates the efficiency of the use

of a technological platform for competency-based

training, which makes knowledge accessible to

anyone, regardless of the institution to which they

belong, their socio-economic or geographical

situation.

In conclusion, it can be pointed out that favorable

results were obtained from the pilot implementation,

which show that the proposed methodology is valid

both for the scaling of the social entrepreneurship

competency and its sub-competencies, as well as for

the complex thinking competency and its sub-

competencies. These results are not only

academically valuable, as they raise the need to

continue deepening the relationship between these

two competencies, but also allow us to appreciate

ample opportunities for practical implementation

both for universities that have entrepreneurship

programs, as well as for other institutions that work

directly with social entrepreneurs and seek

alternatives for the development of their skills when

devising, proposing or developing a social

entrepreneurship project. In conclusion, although we

recognize that this article may be perceived as limited

because it is based on the results of a pilot test with a

very limited population, it is proposed as a necessary

precedent to be documented as part of a broader study

with more conclusive and significant results. We

know that the results at this stage cannot be

generalized, but they shed light on the path and

process to be followed.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors acknowledge the financial and technical

support of Writing Lab, Institute for the Future of

Education, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico, in

producing this work. This paper is a product of the

project “EduToolkit: innovation with artificial

intelligence for the development of social

entrepreneurship, innovation and complex thinking

skills”, with funding from NOVUS 2021 and 2022

Fund, with ID Number 206 and 268 and the financial

support from Tecnologico de Monterrey through the

“Challenge-Based Research Funding Program 2022”.

Projects ID # I003 - IFE001 - C2-T3 – T, ID# I004 -

IFE001 - C2-T3 – T.

REFERENCES

Alvarez, I., Melandet, J., & Núñez, M. (2021). Social

Entrepreneurs as Role Models for Innovative

Professional Career Developments. Sustainability,

13(23), 13044. doi:https://doi.org/10.3390/su132313044

Ashoka. (2022). Emprendimiento Social. Recuperado el 11

de 05 de 2022, de https://www.ashoka.org/es-

mx/focus/social-entrepreneurship

Bublitz, M., Nguyen, L., & Peracchio, L. (2020). Rise Up:

Understanding Youth Social Entrepreneurs and Their

Ecosystems. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing,

40(2), 206-225. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/074391562

0937702

Castillo-Martínez, I. M., Ramírez-Montoya, M. S., &

Torres-Delgado, G. (2021). Reasoning for complexity

competency instrument (e-Complexity): content

validation and expert judgment. Assessment &

Evaluation in Higher Education. In evaluation

Cruz-Sandoval, M., Vázquez-Parra, J. C., & Alonso-

Galicia, P. E. (2022). Student Perception of

Competencies and Skills for Social Entrepreneurship in

Complex Environments: An Approach with Mexican

University Students. Social Sciences, 11(7), 314.

https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci11070314

Cui, L., Zhu, Y., Qu, J., Tie, L., Wang, Z., & Qu, B. (2021).

Psychometric properties of the critical thinking

disposition assessment test amongst medical students in

China: a cross-sectional study. BMC Medical

Education, 1-8. doi:https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-

020-02437-2

Drucker, J. (2021). Sustainability and complexity:

Knowledge and authority in the digital humanities .

Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 26(2), 86-94.

doi:https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqab025

García, A., Ramírez, M., de León, G., & Aragón, S. (2020).

El emprendimiento social como una competencia

transversal: construcción y validación de un

instrumento de valoración en el contexo universitario.

REVESCO. Revista de Estudios Cooperativos.

García-Gonzalez, A., & Ramírez-Montoya, M. (2021).

Social entrepreneurship education: changemaker

training at the university. Higher Education, Skills and

Work-Based Learning, 11(5), 1236-1251. doi:https://

doi.org/10.1108/HESWBL-01-2021-0009

Jaaron, A., & Backhouse, C. (2018). Operationalisation of

service innovation: a systems thinking approach. The

Service Industries Journal(38), 561–583.

doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/02642069.2017.1411480

R Core Team. (2017). A Language and Environment for

Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical

Computing. https://www.r-project.org/

RStudio Team. (2022). RStudio: Integrated Development

for R (2022.2.2.485). RStudio, PBC. http://www.

rstudio.com/

Suryansyah, A., Kastolani, W., & Somantri, L. (2021).

Scientific thinking skills in solving global warming

problems. IOP Conference Series: Earth and

Environmental Science, 683(1). doi:https://doi.org/

10.1088/1755-1315/683/1/012025

CSEDU 2023 - 15th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

362

Tecnologico de Monterrey. (2019). Competencias

Transversales Tec21. Monterrey: ITESM.

Tobón, S., & Luna, J. (2021). Complex Thinking and

Sustainable Social Development: Validity and

Reliability of the COMPLEX-21 Scale. Sustainability,

13(12). doi:https://doi.org/10.3390/su13126591

Williamson, D. F. (1989). The Box Plot: A Simple Visual

Method to Interpret Data. Annals of Internal Medicine,

110(11), 916. https://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-110-

11-916

Zhou, Q. (2021). Development of creative thinking skills

through aesthetic creativity in middle school

educational music course. Thinking Skills and

Creativity(40), 100825. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.

tsc.2021.100825

Social Entrepreneurship Intervention Methodology for the Scaling of Perceived Achievement of Social Entrepreneurship Competency and

Complex Thinking

363