The New Field of Sustainable Entrepreneurship: Studying Entrepreneurial Action Linking “What is to be Sustained” with “What is to be Developed”

Abstract

Informed by the sustainable development and entrepreneurship literatures we offer the following definition: Sustainable entrepreneurship is focused on the preservation of nature, life support, and community in the pursuit of perceived opportunities to bring into existence future products, processes, and services for gain, where gain is broadly construed to include economic and non-economic gains to individuals, the economy, and society. To illustrate the diversity of potential research avenues that will advance this field, we offer a research agenda derived from an economics, an institutional, and a psychology perspective. We suggest research questions exploring "what is to be sustained" and "what is to be developed" in sustainable entrepreneurship research.

Tourism Entrepreneurship – Review and Future Directions

“…Hence, the opportunity-based view broadens the focus from new business start-ups only to additional ways of organising opportunity exploitation. The broadening of entrepreneurship as a field of research has also led to several new subtopics, such as sustainable entrepreneurship (Dean & McMullen, 2007;Shepherd & Patzelt, 2011), social entrepreneurship (Dees, 2001;Zahra, Gedajlovic, Neubaum, & Shulman, 2009), community entrepreneurship (Cooney, 2008;Johannisson & Nilsson, 1989) and institutional entrepreneurship (Garud, Hardy, & Maguire, 2007); all of these topics have received attention as topics for special issues of the leading entrepreneurship journals in recent years.…”

“…Such indications are also found in theoretical perspectives, as only a few studies build on or aim to contribute directly to the mainstream entrepreneurship literature. However, the topics and research questions in focus touch on ongoing debates in the entrepreneurship literature, such as sustainable entrepreneurship (Shepherd & Patzelt, 2011), the role of place and space in entrepreneurship (Johnstone & Lionais, 2004), or the influence of social capital on entrepreneurial performance (Davidsson & Honig, 2003;Tötterman & Sten, 2005), but these linkages are seldom made. Overall, this finding indicates that tourism entrepreneurship is disconnected from the more mainstream entrepreneurship literature and differs from other areas of tourism research that are more clearly embedded within the discipline-oriented literature, for example within consumer behaviour where studies on tourism is covered also in the mainstream journals (e.g.…”

Probabilistic Cash Flow-Based Optimal Investment Timing Using Two-Color Rainbow Options Valuation for Economic Sustainability Appraisement

“…For the development of the enterprise, investors need to focus on long-term growth rather than short-term vision [44][45][46]. This study suggests the two-color rainbow option, which is a more robust model of real options valuation, to respond to the long-term unstable market for investors.…”

Validating a measurement scale for entrepreneurial actions for sustainable corporate entrepreneurship using confirmatory factor analysis

“…Some researchers' perspectives are those of sustainable entrepreneurship in relation to environmental stewardship (e.g. Miles, Munilla & Darroch 2009;Schaltegger & Wagner 2011;Shepherd & Patzelt 2011). However, other researchers use the term 'sustainability' in relation to corporate entrepreneurial behaviour, implying ongoing improvements or enduring entrepreneurial capabilities within established organisations, resulting in a sustainable competitive advantage and sustained performance, and employ terms such as 'sustainable' CE (Kelly 2011:74), 'sustaining CE' (Kuratko, Hornsby & Goldsby 2004:79), 'sustainable competitive advantage' (Urban & Nikolov 2013:384), 'strategic entrepreneurship' (Hitt et al 2011:57) and 'continued entrepreneurship' (Davidsson 1991:405) to define the phenomenon.…”