Purpose This paper investigates how distinct forms of social support facilitate the development and utilization of leadership skills among university students engaged in food-focused innovation and entrepreneurship programs. Design/Methodology/Approach Drawing on survey data from 568 undergraduates at the Bio-engineering Colleges within Jiangnan University and Tianjin Agricultural University, a structural equation modeling framework is employed. Social support is operationalized as three latent constructs – service support, caring support and group support – while leadership is expressed through four capabilities: technical, interpersonal, analytical reasoning and food-market control. Findings The measurement model demonstrates robust structural validity; the four-factor solution accounts for 68.76% of the total variance in leadership performance. Path analysis shows that service, caring and group support each exert a positive and significant influence on students’ leadership skills (standardized β 0.30; p 0.05), confirming the critical facilitation role of multi-dimensional social support in entrepreneurial settings. Practical implications Universities and program designers should engineer comprehensive support ecosystems – combining mentoring services, pastoral care and peer-to-peer communities – to accelerate leadership growth and, in turn, enhance venture success rates in student-led food innovation projects. Originality/Value By disaggregating social support into functional categories and mapping their differential effects on specific leadership competencies, this paper offers a nuanced, evidence-based blueprint for strengthening entrepreneurship education in the agri-food sector.
Wang et al. (Thu,) studied this question.