Awareness of social entrepreneurshipamong the public and small businesses: regionalaspect

The article reveals the study of awareness of social entrepreneurship among Volgograd citizens and representatives of small and medium-sized businesses of the Volgograd region. The authors specify the data of the eight-year all-Russian monitoring of public opinion of the Russians about social entrepreneurship, which show the lack of awareness of the Russians about social entrepreneurship. The empirical part of the article presents the data of two studies. First, the results of a mass formalized interview conducted in March-April 2018, N = 655 people aged 18 years and older, the sample quota representing the sex and age composition of inner-city areas of Volgograd. Secondly, a mass formalized survey of 804 small and medium-sized entrepreneurs from 6 urban districts and 32 municipal districts of the Volgograd region, conducted in January-April 2018 bythe Volgograd center for protection and development of business “Delo” with the support of the Department of Sociology of Volgograd State University. The data of the survey of the population of Volgograd as a whole repeat the trends identified by the all-Russian monitoring. The survey reveals that the awareness depends on age: the younger the Respondent, the more informed he is about social entrepreneurship. The type of activity affects awareness: twice as informed state and municipal employees, studying entrepreneurs, less aware are workers of large industrial enterprises, the unemployed, housewives. The level of material well-being affects awareness, one in five is informed among the better-off, one in twenty among the destitute. The gender of the Respondent has little impact on the level of awareness. In the mass consciousness of the population of Volgograd there is no well-formed idea of social entrepreneurship, its interpretation is implied in different meanings - from commercial activities to free aid, innovations are not correlated with social entrepreneurship.Among small and medium-sized entrepreneurs of the Volgograd region there is no clearly formed idea of social entrepreneurship, it was difficult to determine for more than a quarter of the respondents. Having regard to the above the author concluds that the development of social entrepreneurship is possible only with the support of the government, legislative registration of the status of social entrepreneur, tax and property preferences.