Employment is crucial for young people’s personal development and society’s solidarity. However, this group of people is more prone to unemployment than adults in both local and global contexts. Not only does unemployment have a significant impact on the youth themselves, but it may also hinder social development. Various policy initiatives to boost employment and improve vocational training have been advocated to address the problem. Apart from waged employment, self-employment through entrepreneurship is also considered a possible measure for tackling this pressing challenge. In Hong Kong, the government has put forward plans to promote entrepreneurship as an alternative to traditional job-for-life models of employment. Yet, there is limited evaluation on the impact of entrepreneurship in job creation or helping young people establish their career directions and competence.
The study described here, conducted by Dr TAM Hau-lin of CityU’s Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences, was Hong Kong’s first empirical study attempting to fill this research gap. The results were presented in the article Developing Social Entrepreneurship as an Intervention to Enhance Disadvantaged Young People’s Sense of Self-Worth and Career Competence in Hong Kong, published in Applied Research in Quality of Life.
Comprising both quantitative questionnaires and qualitative individual and focus group interviews, the study took place when a local NGO collaborated with a French impact assessment fund to provide the “Social-Up Youth Entrepreneurship Programme” to disadvantaged and underachieving young people. The programme comprised a 21-session social entrepreneurship training, a 60-hour internship, and a 6-month pre-incubation project.
The training sessions aimed at helping young people understand themselves and taught them entrepreneurship knowledge and skills. Besides interactive lecture-type activities, social entrepreneurs were invited to share their experience using business tools to solve social problems. Midway through the programme, agency visits to social and technology start-ups were arranged. The participants were then divided into groups to develop a business plan that was financially sustainable and conceptually contributory to solving a social problem and pitched it to a jury.
After completing the training, participants were arranged to complete an internship at different social and technology start-up companies based on their career interest. Up next in the six-month pre-incubation training, the three groups of participants who won the pitching contest were supported to actualise their ideas.
The impacts of social entrepreneurship training on young people’s career competence and psychosocial development were measured against the changes in their entrepreneurial skills and intention, sense of self-worth, resilience, career-linked self-efficacy, and self-perceived employability at different waves of intervention. The quantitative analysis found that the impact of the programme was positive and significant after the 21-session training, particularly their entrepreneurial skills and intent and self-perceived employability. Participants learnt a lot of specific entrepreneurial skills, and their self-perceived competence to communicate with people, confidence in their work knowledge and skills and knowledge to start a business had improved significantly. Yet, the change in the youth’s psychosocial strengths was non-significant, though their sense of self-esteem and resilience were enhanced.
Compared to the training sessions, the influence of the internship was less pronounced. The placement companies were more satisfied with the young participants’ work ethics and attitudes than their work knowledge and skills. It showed that the young participants were more capable of following instructions than having their own ways of thinking, analysis, and a continuous review of their performance.
The qualitative findings obtained through interviews with participants were consistent with the quantitative part. Many participants found the training treasurable, for it was interactive, interesting, eye-opening, and could expose them to new technologies, social entrepreneurship knowledge and skills. They felt their abilities and competencies were fully respected and accepted. They also found the development of business plans practical and challenging. However, while the participants highly appreciated the mentorship arrangement, the short duration made it difficult for internship companies to arrange meaningful duties but tedious tasks for them.
This study demonstrated that using social entrepreneurship as an intervention to enhance disadvantaged young peoples’ sense of self-worth and career competence is positive and promising in Hong Kong. It also offered insight into what should be considered when implementing similar programmes. First, as in-school youths are highly occupied and may not have the time to complete an internship or actualise their plans, the impact of the entrepreneurial training will be affected. To guarantee in-school youth’s involvement, the training can be conducted as a curriculum-based programme. Moreover, the training must be interactive and experiential oriented to fully develop young peoples’ innovation and creativity in planning their career path. Finally, it is worthwhile to arrange internship where young people can examine their competence through real work experience, which helps enhance their self-worth and self-efficacy.
Achievements and publication
Tam, H-L., Asamoah, E., & Chan, A. Y-F. (2021). Developing Social Entrepreneurship as an Intervention to Enhance Disadvantaged Young People’s Sense of Self-Worth and Career Competence in Hong Kong. Applied Research in Quality of Life. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-021-09917-7
