Red boat spirit

Social entrepreneurship has increasingly been acknowledged as a powerful approach for tackling complex social challenges. Nevertheless, the role of national spirit as a motivational force driving such initiatives remains insufficiently explored. In response to the national goal of achieving comprehensive prosperity, China’s Ministry of Education, together with local authorities and higher education institutions, initiated the “Youth Red Dream Building Journey” program and inspired by the principles of the Red Boat Spiri. This research aims to explore how the Red Boat Spirit shapes social entrepreneurial intention, with specific emphasis on the mediating role of social entrepreneurial self-efficacy in the context of e-commerce education. The study integrates qualitative and quantitative analyses to investigate the influence of the Red Boat Spirit on social entrepreneurial intention. This study also evaluates whether social entrepreneurial self-efficacy functions as a mediating mechanism within this relationship. The empirical results demonstrate that the three dimensions of the Red Boat Spirit—innovative spirit, dauntless revolutionary spirit, and dedicated spirit—exert significant positive impacts on individuals’ social entrepreneurial intentions. Furthermore, social entrepreneurial self-efficacy partially mediates the association between the Red Boat Spirit and social entrepreneurial intention.