Investigating the impact of religiosity on entrepreneurial intentions

•Self-determination theory is used to explore the impact of religiosity on social entrepreneurial intentions. To our knowledge this has not been used as a theoretical foundation to explore social entrepreneurship in the past.•This study used a sample of 563 business administration students in a large public university in Ghana.•A significant relationship was found between religiosity and the intent to participate in social entrepreneurial ventures.•In contrast to other findings, no relationship was found between religiosity and the intent to participate in traditional entrepreneurial ventures.•We found that both self-efficacy and an interdependent self-construal moderated the relationship between religiosity and social entrepreneurship intent.