Imagining future success: Imaginative capacity on the perceived performance of potential agrisocio entrepreneurs

•Imaginative capacity includes: conceiving, initiating, and transforming imagination.•Social enterprise performance can be assessed by four dimensions.•3 types of imaginative capacity directly affect most dimensions of perceived success.•Interactive relationships were observed among 3 types of imaginative capacity.•The results benefit to perceiving business transformation and possible success.

Although social entrepreneurship has been the subject of considerable research and practitioner attention, detailed studies of the potential entrants, their perception of business performance, and the factors influencing this perception are rare. This study reviewed empirical data to determine how the imaginative capacities of potential entrepreneurs affect their perceived success in operating agrisocio enterprises. The reliability and validity, and the direct and interactive effects among different imaginative capacities were analysed. The study indicated that although conceiving and transforming imagination were positively related to all the dimensions of perceived performance, initiating imagination was negatively related to the dimensions of business operations and service programmes. Some interactions among the three types of imagination were also found. This study contributes to the social entrepreneurship literature by theorising and testing how imaginative capacities can be beneficial to potential entrants for perceiving business success.