Activists' and social entrepreneurs' approaches towards consumer culture: Providing a protective space for sustainability transitions

Abstract

Social entrepreneurs and activists can contribute to sustainability transitions by influencing consumer culture. This can provide a protective space to shelter new sustainability solutions from market pressures until they are ready to scale to the mass market. We study how social entrepreneurs and activists within a sustainable market niche attempt to influence consumer culture. Using grounded theory, we analyse interviews with 26 activists and social entrepreneurs in the market for alternatives to animal products in the Netherlands. We find a synergy where social entrepreneurs' strategies pull consumers into sustainable consumption while activists' strategies focus push consumers out of unsustainable consumption. These strategies contain four tactics: connecting to, showing contrast with and broadening consumers' connection to values associated with sustainable consumerism and a radical innovation tactic. We show how strategies for consumer culture change interact on the niche level of sustainability transitions to create a protective space for sustainability solutions.

Managing entrepreneurial and corporate contributions to sustainability transitions

“…The authors use grounded theory as basis for their interviews with 26 activists and social entrepreneurs in the market for alternatives to animal products in the Netherlands. Enthoven and Thelken (2022) find a synergy where social entrepreneurs pull consumers into sustainable consumption and activists push consumers out of unsustainable consumption. Their case study reveals how a protective space for sustainability solutions strategies can be created.…”

Business research for sustainable development: How does sustainable business model research reflect doughnut economics?

“…SBM research might examine how such distributive design traits function (Dekhili & Achabou, 2013; Mjahed Hammami et al, 2018; Norris et al, 2021). The literature on social businesses (Gold et al, 2020; Schrader et al, 2012), social entrepreneurship (Enthoven & Thelken, 2022) and benefit corporations (Liute & De Giacomo, 2022; Mion et al, 2021; Stubbs, 2017) could provide valuable insights for this avenue of research.…”

“…The literature on social businesses (Gold et al, 2020;Schrader et al, 2012), social entrepreneurship (Enthoven & Thelken, 2022) Among the articles in our sample, three publications encapsulate the principle 'be agnostic about growth'. Among those, we identified sufficiency as the only concrete concept that mirrors growth agnosticism at the business model level.…”

Predicting the Indonesian sustainable marketing communication on 2023 trends

“…This data indicates that influencers not only play a role in building awareness or disseminating information but also help target markets decide to buy a product. Indeed, influencers are not only those who own capital but also those who are Social Entrepreneurs and activists (Enthoven & Thelken, 2023).…”