Purpose The role of entrepreneurship has changed to include issues beyond economic growth. This has turned attention toward the drivers of entrepreneurial intentions across entrepreneurship types, particularly in sustainable entrepreneurship. The purpose of this paper is to examine the drivers of entrepreneurial intentions in sustainable entrepreneurship. In particular, the paper aims to extend the existing intention models to include work values and attitudes toward sustainability, thereby bringing the model into the context of sustainable entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach Using a quantitative research design, data were collected in three European countries through anonymous questionnaires. The data consist of responses from 393 university students. Findings The results show that attitude toward sustainability and perceived entrepreneurial desirability enhance sustainability-oriented entrepreneurial intentions. Moreover, adding sustainability into the regression equation adds explanation power, hence suggesting that the theory of planned behavior needs to be adapted when applied to sustainable entrepreneurship. Attitudes toward sustainability are positively impacted by altruism, while perceived entrepreneurial desirability is driven by intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Research limitations/implications The study focuses on one particular type of entrepreneurship and one particular age group. Originality/value The paper contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by applying the entrepreneurial intention model to sustainable entrepreneurship. The results imply that it may be the time to consider the variance in entrepreneurial opportunities in intention models as well as the need to address the conflict between work values. The results show that sustainability-oriented entrepreneurial intentions are driven by attitudes toward sustainability and perceived entrepreneurial desirability. These two attitudes are driven by altruism and extrinsic rewards, and, especially, extrinsic reward plays an opposite role in both drivers of sustainability-oriented entrepreneurial intentions.

Entrepreneurial behavior research has widened its scope to focus on founders who engage in creating enterprises for both their economic self-interest and their concern for others. Yet, there is a lack of an empirically grounded understanding of the sustainable enterprise creation behavior of entrepreneurs at the bottom of the pyramid. This study contributes to sustainable entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial behavior literature streams by applying founder identity theoretical perspectives to explore and understand bottom of the pyramid entrepreneurs’ self-perceived identities in the creation of sustainable enterprises. The study applies a multiple case study design with qualitative data collected through field observations and in-depth interviews with enterprise founders and stakeholders. The data were complemented with secondary materials such as websites, founder blogs, online videos, news articles, and other media coverage. The data were analyzed in stages through thematic analysis. Findings show that sustainable entrepreneurs at the bottom of the pyramid possess multiple frames of reference, basic social motivations and adopt either single or multiple role identities, which influence their behavior during the process of creating their enterprises. Moreover, the analysis reveals that Fauchart and Gruber’s social identity typologies and the role identities of Cardon et al. can be applied to entrepreneurs at the bottom of the pyramid to understand their identity profiles and illuminate on how these identities result in observed behavioral differences during the process of creating their enterprises.

Both innovating and internationalizing can hold the key to survival and growth among small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Service innovation in particular is highly relevant in the increasingly digitalized and high-technology global trade. However, there have been until now few studies on service innovation in international entrepreneurship. Thus, in an effort to illuminate its role in entrepreneurial internationalization, the present study examines the profitability impact of service innovation in SME internationalization, while also outlining the differing impacts of entrepreneurial orientation and human capital as the antecedents of both. The empirical data were collected via an online survey of Finnish SMEs in the information and communications technology (ICT) industrial sector, the final sample comprising 104 companies. The data were analyzed through structural equation modeling. The results indicate, first, that entrepreneurial orientation underlies both degree of internationalization and service innovation, yet different dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation have distinct impacts on the two outcomes. Second, we find that the level human capital also determines the level of service innovation in as an antecedent and third, international expansion, but not service innovation, has a negative impact on profitability. We discuss the implications of these results, which imply that SMEs may face an internationalizationinnovation paradox in that engaging in both activities may not be a feasible strategic option for them, and that prioritizing internationalizing in favor of innovating may incur costs and result in lower profitability.

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The results of Entrepreneurship Education (EE) impact research have been equivocal, and one suggested explanation is the influence of contingencies such as the types of learning experiences, gender, and field of study. In this paper we aim to answer the question of which contingencies shape the outcome of EE by examining the outcome variables of entrepreneurial intentions (EI) and creative self-efficacy (CSE). Utilizing a quasi-experimental pre-post survey design, we surveyed 209 students from three universities who were exposed to three different learning experiences: writing a business plan, achieving proof-of-concept, and achieving proof-of-business. Through multi-value qualitative comparative analysis, we found six unique combinations associated with high levels of EI and CSE, respectively, after a learning experience. High EI and CSE are both associated with developing proof-of-concept and proof-of-business, but not with writing a business plan. Also, students’ fields of study play a role in high levels of EI regardless of the learning experience, while students’ prior work experience seems to play a role in EI and CSE.

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