The social stock exchange (SSE) is an innovative concept aimed at connecting social enterprises with philanthropic investors. It operates in countries like Canada, Singapore and Jamaica. India established its first SSE in 2022 to facilitate capital flows for social enterprises struggling with traditional financial assistance. However, the success rate of these exchanges is not encouraging. With an aim at soliciting the support from social enterprises by analysing their perspective on Indian SSEs, the study aims to investigate the relationship of awareness, perceived benefits, and cost with the intention of social enterprises to list and use the mechanism of SSEs.
The study analysed the primary data collected from 269 social enterprises using a moderated mediation approach to investigate the influence of awareness on intention to use. Perceived benefits and compliance cost have been taken as mediators individually and sequentially. Geographical location and organisational type of social enterprises have been taken as moderating variables.
Findings indicate a positive influence of awareness level on social enterprises’ intention to use the SSEs. Furthermore, awareness has a greater and more substantial indirect impact on intention to use through the mediation of perceived benefits. However, this indirect effect is more substantial in northern enterprises than those in southern location. However, the mediation of compliance cost and sequential mediation of benefits and compliance cost have insignificant influence on intention.
The outcome of the current research is expected to expand the understanding of human intention most especially in relation to success and functioning of SSEs from the lens of social enterprises. Further it is expected to make significant contributions to the literature on intent of social enterprises to ruminate the SSE as a platform to attract philanthropic investors.
The study explores the impact of awareness, perceived benefits and compliance cost on intention to use and adapt SSE, a topic not previously explored in this domain, with the findings potentially aiding in resolving issues with India’s newly launched SSEs.
