ROLES OF ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET AND INNOVATION ON SOCIAL VALUE CREATION OF COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANISATIONS IN KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA

Community-based organisations (CBOs) are positioned across Nigeria's development architecture as grassroots implementation partners, yet many struggle to convert entrepreneurial intent into measurable social outcomes, particularly under conditions of unstable donor funding and weak institutional coordination. This study investigates the roles of entrepreneurial mindset and innovation in social value creation among community-based organisations in Kaduna State, Nigeria. Drawing on Social Entrepreneurship Theory and Innovation Diffusion Theory, the study hypothesises that entrepreneurial mindset is positively related to social value creation both directly and indirectly through innovation. Data were collected from 102 valid respondents, comprising owners and managers of registered CBOs, using a cross-sectional census survey design, and analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) in SmartPLS Version 4 with bootstrapping of 5,000 subsamples. The results show that entrepreneurial mindset is significantly associated with social value creation (β = 0.342, p < .001) and with innovation (β = 0.614, p < .001), that innovation is significantly associated with social value creation (β = 0.441, p < .001), and that innovation partially mediates the entrepreneurial mindset–social value creation relationship (β = 0.271, p < .001, VAF = 44.2%). The study offers an integrated account of how entrepreneurial cognition is associated with community-level social value creation through the innovative work behaviours with which it is associated, with implications for leadership development and donor programme design among community-based organisations in resource-constrained public sector contexts.