This study sheds light on the role of compassion in driving individuals' intentions to pursue social entrepreneurship. Drawing on the embedded agent view of the social entrepreneur, we argue that individuals (agents) are embedded in regulative, cognitive and regulatory institutions that either facilitate or inhibit the relationship between compassion and social entrepreneurial intentions. Compassion as a motive supports personal feasibility and desirability judgments of social venturing, but whether they are actualized into social entrepreneurial intentions is linked to national institutions. We test our model by means of two independent survey studies with 350 respondents from the US population (Study 1) and 223 student respondents from nine countries (Study 2). The results suggest that compassion is linked to social entrepreneurship via the intervening cognitive mechanisms of feasibility and desirability and that this relationship is moderated by national institutions. These results have theoretical implications for social entrepreneurship research and useful practical implications for investors and policy-makers.

这项研究揭示了同情心在推动个人追求社会企业家精神的作用。借鉴社会企业家的内在代理人观点，我们认为个人（代理人）被嵌入在促进，抑制同情心与社会企业家意图之间关系的监管，认知和监管机构中。同情心作为动机支持个人对社会冒险的可行性和可取性的判断，但是是否将其实现为社会企业家的意愿与国家机构有关。我们通过两项独立的调查研究对我们的模型进行了测试，其中有来自美国人口的350名受访者（研究1）和来自9个国家/地区的223名学生受访者（研究2）。结果表明，同情心通过干预可行性和可取性的认知机制与社会企业家精神联系在一起，并且这种关系由国家机构来调节。这些结果对社会企业家精神研究具有理论意义，对投资者和政策制定者也具有实用意义。