Entrepreneurial Competencies and Social Value Creation for Sustainable Economic Development: The Facilitating Roles of Comprehensive Social Competence and Technological Opportunism

This study investigates how entrepreneurial competencies contribute to social value creation and sustainable economic development among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Turkey, an emerging economy, emphasizing the facilitating roles of comprehensive social competence and technological opportunism. Grounded in Competence-Based Theory (CBT), entrepreneurial competencies are conceptualized as higher-order strategic capabilities that enable firms to mobilize resources, coordinate relational processes, and generate both economic and societal value in line with sustainable development principles. Drawing on a two-wave survey of 607 senior managers across ten industrial sectors in Turkey and employing confirmatory factor analysis and Hayes’ PROCESS macro, this research tests an integrated sustainability-oriented capability model. The findings reveal that entrepreneurial competencies significantly enhance sustainable social value creation, while comprehensive social competence serves as a key mechanism that partially mediates this relationship. Although technological opportunism does not directly influence the relationship between entrepreneurial competencies and social competence, it significantly amplifies both the direct and indirect effects on social value creation. SMEs with higher levels of technological alertness are therefore better positioned to translate entrepreneurial competencies into sustainable, socially beneficial outcomes. By integrating CBT with emerging perspectives on sustainable entrepreneurship, social innovation, and technology-enabled opportunity recognition, this study advances theoretical understanding of how SME capability configurations jointly foster sustainable economic and societal development. From a practical perspective, the findings highlight the importance of cultivating socially and technologically oriented entrepreneurial competencies to strengthen SMEs’ contributions to inclusive and sustainable growth in emerging economies.