Environmental Sensitivity to Form a Sustainable Entrepreneurial Intention

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Colleagues

I would like to start by saying that you submitted an interesting research, under an important topic: sustainability.

Considering your paper there are some comments/suggestions that I would like to share with you:

Abstract and Introduction: Ok

Materials and Methods:

You start by mentioning that a quantitative methodology was adopted and immediately after that you start to present the adopted measures for the study variables.

I think that you should start by presenting the study universe and sample, describing your research target group. With that, it would also be interesting a brief note on the reasons that led you to a quantitative approach. 

Getting to the explanation: I would like to suggest to clarify that. I guess, that in your mind is perfectly clear the adopted methodology, but for the reader is not so clear. I would suggest to start this section by presenting a description of your questionnaire and after that to present the sources for your questions. 

Since all the questions were measured by a 7 point likert scale, you don't need to mention it at each one of them. A previous explanation of the questionnaire will clarify this option.

Hypothesis:

How did you get to the hypothesis formulated? You are simply presenting the hypothesis to be tested, but the paper should include a justification (even brief) for the hypothesis to be tested.

Considering the hypothesis and figure one it would be nice to have the hypothesis identified in the figure. 

H4: analysis the relation between SEA and SEI:  What is the difference between "Attitude" and "Intention"? Is an attitude that influence the Intention, or is the other way around? In the previous discussion these topics are not clear. By "Attitude" you mean "way of thinking" or "way of behaving"? 

Results:

This section starts with the sample presentation. As previously mentioned, it should be in an earlier chapter.

Considering that 97% of the respondents are Spanish, and 3% are from other nationalities, in my opinion, the analysis should consider just the Spanish questionnaires. In order to get a general view, it would be necessary to increase the answers from other countries. 

How was the minimum sample size defined? This is another issue that must be addressed in the Materials and Methods section. 

 

Conclusion:

The conclusion is general, mentioning the current problems such as the war in Europe, or the Stakeholder Theory, supported by some references. Honestly, I think this is a minus for this paper. The conclusion should summarize the results achieved, and present some conclusions from the hypothesis tested. In general, we can conclude that most of the hypotheses were not rejected, only hypothesis 4b was rejected. So, in practical terms, and considering the sample that was studied, what is the meaning and what can we conclude from the fact that that subjective norms of the social environment do not have a positive influence on SEI? What can we conclude from all the other hypotheses that were not rejected?

Summing up: what are the practical results of this research? If you are able to include this in the conclusion, the paper will add some more value to the current state of art. However, I reinforce the idea of focusing this analysis on Spanish students. Proving that the minimum sample size was respected, the results can be generalized for Spain.

 

After reading your paper, I would like to suggest visiting the website of the project below. Even with a "social" designation, I think that this project is mostly focused on sustainable development issues. One is the aims of this project is the development of a curriculum to get students aware of the issues addressed in your paper. For that reason, it seems that your research is aligned with this project.

http://csembrace.eu/

 

Minor remarks:

Please check carefully the word document looking for double spaces and repeated words (e.g. line 127)

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Manuscript ID: Sustainability-1237640

Thank you for your important suggestions, we would like to make some clarifications about your corrections. We have highlighted on green all suggested modifications on text.

 

The authors have revised all reference text, inserting new lines specifications. At the paragraph “Materials and methods there is at line 138-140 a modification “All of these variables are going to influence attitudes among the subjects that are conducive to a mindset oriented towards a social and ecological sustainable approach that aims to respects both the environmental and social needs of communities.”

 

At lines 171-176 there is a specification as you requested for a distinction between SEA and SEI “In this case, an approach oriented towards sustainability has to distinguish between different areas and differentiate “attitude” from “intention” The first considers deep considerations for acting pro-environmentally, with a positive approach that respects the interdependence of social and ecological factors, while intention is “simply” a conscious and explicit declaration of the participant to act according to positive principles of socio-ecological sustainability.”

 

At the paragraph “Results” there are some specification about the participants sample at line 208-210 “recruited by random sampling, and a response rate of 94% was achieved; the most of the participating universities were Spanish (88%).”

 

At “Conclusion” paragraph there are 2 modifications at line 377-381 “For this paper, all of the hypotheses were non-falsified, with the exception of 4b, which was about sustainable entrepreneurial intentions. The authors consider this result as indicating that entrepreneurial intention is not as deep or genuine as sustainable entrepreneurial attitude, and that it is formal, superficial, and not fundamental” and 385-390 “This work is important because of its capability to set a future projection of a population of students who describe themselves as future ecopreneurs and considers their intentions, attitudes, and perceived self-control regarding managerial activities as well as how supported they feel by significant people in their lives. Support makes an important psychosocial contribution, as personal attitudes and skills are influenced by inter-personal and cultural context, informing people to act with more responsibility.”

 

Once again, we appreciate your comments and suggestions, correcting the double space as you specified and read your final consideration and advice to go on http://csembrace.eu/ .

We sincerely hope you agree that our manuscript can make a sufficient contribution to the literature.

 

Best regards.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript entitled "Environmental sensitivity to form a sustainable entrepreneurial intention" address a relevant research theme for Sustainability by studying "how much personal attitudes and perceived support influence the possibility to form a sensitivity about sustainable entrepreneurship”. Nevertheless, the manuscript should be considerably improved from the reviewer's perspective. Please see the detailed comments below.

C1. This manuscript would benefit from a more robust theoretical and scientific dimension, supported by relevant references. Please see below some possible suggestions:

C1.1. The relevance of sustainable development (SD) is recurrently emphasized at the highest levels. For example, the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs indicate and measure the progress towards SD and represent a shared expression of global stakeholder needs, balancing economic, social, and environmental development (Fonseca et al., 2020). Moreover, companies are critical to promoting SD (Diez-Busto et al., 2021). Theoretically, SD is supported by Stakeholder Theory (Freeman, 1984; Freeman & Dmytriyev, 2017) which emphasizes the relevance of a firm's relationships with its critical stakeholders. This will lead to better performance, as integrating business and societal considerations create stakeholder value. References:

• Diez-Busto, E., Sanchez-Ruiz, L., & Fernandez-Laviada, A. (2021). The B Corp movement: A systematic literature review. Sustainability, 13, 2508.
• Fonseca, L. M., Domingues, J. P., & Dima, A. M. (2020). Mapping the sustainable development goals relationships. Sustainability, 12, 3359.
• Freeman, R. E. (1984). Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach. Pitman.
• Freeman, R. E., & Dmytriyev, S. (2017). Corporate social responsibility and stakeholder theory: Learning from each other. Symphony: Emerging Issues in Management, 1, 7–15.

C1.2. "The results of research based on experts' feedback indicate that the most critical drivers of sustainable entrepreneurship are behavioural and business factors (Tur-Porcar, A., Roig-Tierno, N., Mestre, A.L., Factors Affecting Entrepreneurship and Business Sustainability. Sustainability. 2018, 10, 452).

C1.3. "According to Vallaster ate al. (2019), individual socio-cultural background, organizational and societal context shape entrepreneurial, and ethical judgment (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.02.050).

C 1.4. "The organizational sizes or the activity sector of the start-ups could influence the research outcomes regarding the business sustainability, as shown by Fonseca and Domingues in the context of environmental management system transition (Fonseca, L.M.; Domingues, J.P. Exploratory research of ISO 14001:2015 transition among Portuguese organizations. Sustainability. 2018, 10, 781).

C2. In the Introduction section, the authors should present and justify the research aim and outline the manuscript's overall structure.

C3. Please justify (supported by literature) the conceptual model, the choice of independent variables (personal values, personal norms, pro-environmental attitude) that predict an entrepreneurial intention oriented to a sustainable approach (dependent variable) and other (Social Norms, Entrepreneurial attitude, and Perceived Self-Efficacy) that mediate the relationships between the former variables.

C4. The Materials and Methods section should present the survey question and scales and how they relate to the research questions and the literature; How was the survey content validated? How respondent and non-respondent bias was assessed?

C5. Please explain and support the choice of the partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

C6. The results section states that "We invited to participate to the Research 743 people, 342 males (46%) and 401 females 162 (54%) from different Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Latin American Universities and 163 from different University Courses". How was the survey administered? What was the response rate?

C7. The Conclusion section needs to be considerable developed by highlighting novel contributions of this research (namely, in comparison to previous studies) and the policy, academic, and business implications. Moreover, please present the suggestions for future research and the research limitations (e.g., due to the survey methodology and the nature of the sample).  

C8. In the conclusions section, the author(s) state that "New entrepreneurs have to use wisdom in management strategies, despite the fear of failure and of losing profits [111, 112]". However, reference 112 ) does not seem to encompass entrepreneurship. (Skoulikidis, N.T.; Karaouzas, I.; Amaxidis, Y.; Lazaridou, M. Impact of EU Environmental Policy Implementation on the Quality 566 and Status of Greek Rivers. Water, 2021, 13 (13), 1858).

C9. Moreover, the following paragraph claims that "Stakeholder Theory is an important contribution to define how important an ethical approach is for management, this aspect is considered in this work, considering how much interdependent the socio-economic network, especially during world crises such as pandemics [113, 114] and war times [115, 116] ". Please also clarify how these works relate and support the previous paragraph. Furthermore, the author(s) could provide references relating to the stakeholder theory to support their study theoretically. See the above possible references for stakeholder theory.

C10. Please perform an editorial review of the manuscript to improve grammar and correct.

The reviewer hopes this feedback can be valuable to the authors and wish them the most success. 

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

Manuscript ID: Sustainability-1237640

Thanks for your help and valuable comment and suggestions to enhance the overall quality of this manuscript. In the revision, we have tried our best to address all the issues raised by you. Your contribution will be highlighted in yellow while our answer on red.

 

This manuscript would benefit from a more robust theoretical and scientific dimension, supported by relevant references. Please see below some possible suggestions:

C1.1. The relevance of sustainable development (SD) is recurrently emphasized at the highest levels. For example, the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs indicate and measure the progress towards SD and represent a shared expression of global stakeholder needs, balancing economic, social, and environmental development (Fonseca et al., 2020). Moreover, companies are critical to promoting SD (Diez-Busto et al., 2021). Theoretically, SD is supported by Stakeholder Theory (Freeman, 1984; Freeman & Dmytriyev, 2017) which emphasizes the relevance of a firm's relationships with its critical stakeholders. This will lead to better performance, as integrating business and societal considerations create stakeholder value. References:

• Diez-Busto, E., Sanchez-Ruiz, L., & Fernandez-Laviada, A. (2021). The B Corp movement: A systematic literature review. Sustainability, 13, 2508.
• Fonseca, L. M., Domingues, J. P., & Dima, A. M. (2020). Mapping the sustainable development goals relationships. Sustainability, 12, 3359.
• Freeman, R. E. (1984). Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach. Pitman.
• Freeman, R. E., & Dmytriyev, S. (2017). Corporate social responsibility and stakeholder theory: Learning from each other. Symphony: Emerging Issues in Management, 1, 7–15.

 

As you requested, we modify the reference paragraph with your suggested contribution and insert a paragraph at lines 41-48 “The United Nations has adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs indicate and measure the progress towards SD and represent a shared expression of global stakeholder needs, balancing economic, social, and environmental development [3]. Moreover, it is critical that companies promote SD [4]. Theoretically, SD is supported by Stakeholder Theory [5, 6], which emphasizes the relevance of a firm's relationships with its critical stakeholders and leads to better performance, as integrating business and societal considerations create stakeholder value.”

 

 

1. 1.2. The results of research based on experts' feedback indicate that the most critical drivers of sustainable entrepreneurship are behavioural and business factors (Tur-Porcar, A., Roig-Tierno, N., Mestre, A.L., Factors Affecting Entrepreneurship and Business Sustainability. Sustainability. 2018, 10, 452).

 

The Authors modify the text and reference text at lines 54-56

 

1. 1.3. "According to Vallaster ate al. (2019), individual socio-cultural background, organizational and societal context shape entrepreneurial, and ethical judgment (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.02.050).

The Authors modify the text and reference text at lines 61-64.

1. 1. 4. "The organizational sizes or the activity sector of the start-ups could influence the research outcomes regarding the business sustainability, as shown by Fonseca and Domingues in the context of environmental management system transition (Fonseca, L.M.; Domingues, J.P. Exploratory research of ISO 14001:2015 transition among Portuguese organizations. Sustainability. 2018, 10, 781).

The Authors modify the text and reference text at lines 71-77

C2. In the Introduction section, the authors should present and justify the research aim and outline the manuscript's overall structure.

The Authors modify the text at the end of Introduction Section at lines 125-129.

C3. Please justify (supported by literature) the conceptual model, the choice of independent variables (personal values, personal norms, pro-environmental attitude) that predict an entrepreneurial intention oriented to a sustainable approach (dependent variable) and other (Social Norms, Entrepreneurial attitude, and Perceived Self-Efficacy) that mediate the relationships between the former variables.

Authors distinguished at lines 171-176 a difference between sustainable entrepreneurial attitude and intention and specify at lines 140-142 to have verified questionnaires reliability with Alpha Cronbach Scale.

 

C4. The Materials and Methods section should present the survey question and scales and how they relate to the research questions and the literature; How was the survey content validated? How respondent and non-respondent bias was assessed?

There is a description of participants’ sampe at line 208 and 209.

 

C5. Please explain and support the choice of the partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

There is a statistical justification at lines 202-204

 

C6. The results section states that "We invited to participate to the Research 743 people, 342 males (46%) and 401 females 162 (54%) from different Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Latin American Universities and 163 from different University Courses". How was the survey administered? What was the response rate?

There is a description of participants’ sample at line 208 and 209.

C7. The Conclusion section needs to be considerale developed by highlighting novel contributions of this research (namely, in comparison to previous studies) and the policy, academic, and business implications. Moreover, please present the suggestions for future research and the research limitations (e.g., due to the survey methodology and the nature of the sample).  

C8. In the conclusions section, the author(s) state that "New entrepreneurs have to use wisdom in management strategies, despite the fear of failure and of losing profits [111, 112]". However, reference 112 ) does not seem to encompass entrepreneurship. (Skoulikidis, N.T.; Karaouzas, I.; Amaxidis, Y.; Lazaridou, M. Impact of EU Environmental Policy Implementation on the Quality 566 and Status of Greek Rivers. Water, 2021, 13 (13), 1858).

C9. Moreover, the following paragraph claims that "Stakeholder Theory is an important contribution to define how important an ethical approach is for management, this aspect is considered in this work, considering how much interdependent the socio-economic network, especially during world crises such as pandemics [113, 114] and war times [115, 116] ". Please also clarify how these works relate and support the previous paragraph. Furthermore, the author(s) could provide references relating to the stakeholder theory to support their study theoretically. See the above possible references for stakeholder theory.

There are specifications about requested modification and consequent reference change at lines 374-377 and 391-393.

 

C10. Please perform an editorial review of the manuscript to improve grammar and correct.

The paper has been revised and corrected by the English Editing Service

 

 

 

Once again, Authors your precise, insightful and constructive comments and suggestions, which have helped us significantly to reframe and improve our manuscript. We sincerely hope that our revision has adequately addressed your concerns and you would agree that our revised manuscript has been improved and can make sufficient contributions to the literature.

 

Best regards.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank the authors for this interesting paper. The topic is really great, but I think the revisions are required:

- abstract - it is necessary to highlight the findings

- theoretical background is needed, the introduction is all right, but the theoretical summary is very low (literature review)

- you should change "we" to "the authors" or passive forms (in the whole paper)

- the presentation of the results is very low, the deeper analysis are desirable

- discussion is not a discussion, but results, I miss a comparison with another studies

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 3 Comments

Manuscript ID: Sustainability-1237640

We sincerely thanks for your valuable comment and suggestions to enhance the overall quality our the manuscript. In this revision, we have tried our best to address all the issues raised by you. Your contribution will be written in light blue and our answer on red.

 

Abstract - it is necessary to highlight the findings

We modified the abstract in terms of form and content at line 13, 26 and at lines 28-30

 

Theoretical background is needed, the introduction is all right, but the theoretical summary is very low (literature review)

There is a modification and consequent reference change at lines 77-79

You should change "we" to "the authors" or passive forms (in the whole paper)

There is the requested and highlighted modification on the entire paper

 

The presentation of the results is very low, the deeper analysis are desirable

There are modifications and consequent reference change in “Results” Section at lines 254-258

 

Discussion is not a discussion, but results, I miss a comparison with another studies

 

There are modifications and consequent reference change in Discussion” Section at lines 339-342

 

Once again, we thank for your time and appreciate your insightful and constructive comments and suggestions, which have helped us significantly reframe and improve our manuscript. We sincerely hope that with your contribution our revision has adequately addressed your concerns and you would agree that our revised manuscript has been improved and can make sufficient contributions to the literature.

 

Best regards.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Considering the second version:

Materials and Methods: There is a slight change but does not meet the first shared suggestions.

The hypotheses are still not justified.

Considering H4 - There is an explanation about the meaning of attitude and intention (ok).

The 97% of Spanish universities is kept, and other is no explanation about the minimum sample size.

The conclusion was upgraded but is still a general conclusion not focusing in the results. What does it mean "all the hypothesis were non-falsified"? Do you mean not rejected? Normally, rejected is the term used. There is in fact this new paragraph, but I still can't find a relation between this conclusion and the rest of the text in the conclusion. 

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Manuscript ID: Sustainability-1237640

Thank you for your stimulating suggestions, we would like to make clarifications about your corrections. We have highlighted on green all suggested modifications on text.

 

Materials and Methods: There is a slight change but does not meet the first shared suggestions.

The hypotheses are still not justified.

Considering H4 - There is an explanation about the meaning of attitude and intention (ok).

[…] There is in fact this new paragraph, but I still can't find a relation between this conclusion and the rest of the text in the conclusion. 

We activated some modification on the paper to add some important specifications and to reinforce the relation between conclusion and the rest of the text. For example at lines 383-385 we add “and in this case there is an important contribution from social support by family, friends and colleagues, reinforcing also the perceived control in manage these activities”, at the end of the paper, at lines 398-400 we add “It will be also necessary to consider facets regarding intention and attitude for their different influence on entrepreneurial intention as noted in this paper and as cited in previous works [133-135]”, inserting also cited papers at next references:

1. Vuorio, A.M.; Puumalainen, K.; Fellnhofer, K. Drivers of entrepreneurial intentions in sustainable entrepreneurship. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research 2018, 24, 359-381.
2. Peng, H.; Li, B.; Zhou, C.; Sadowski, B.M. How Does the Appeal of Environmental Values Influence Sustainable Entrepreneurial Intention? International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 2021, 
3. Tehseen, S.; Haider, S.A. Impact of Universities' Partnerships on Students' Sustainable Entrepreneurship Intentions: A Comparative Study. Sustainability 2021, 

 

 

The 97% of Spanish universities is kept, and other is no explanation about the minimum sample size.

We activated some modification at lines 130-134 with “To reach number of participant which could be considered statistically significant the Authors invite to participate to this Research as many subjects as possible, considering just the major age and an adequate linguistic ability to answer the questions in which the questionnaires were proposed, in this case in Spanish”

 

The conclusion was upgraded but is still a general conclusion not focusing in the results. What does it mean "all the hypothesis were non-falsified"? Do you mean not rejected? Normally, rejected is the term used.

We modified term as you requested at line 378 and 379 with “For this paper, all of the hypotheses were non-rejected”

 

 

We thank for your interesting intervention and sincerely hope you agree that our manuscript can make a proper contribution to the literature.

 

Best regards.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The author(s) provided a detailed and comprehensive reply to the reviewers(s) feedback improving the manuscript accordingly, which is appreciated. From the reviewer's perspective, there are no relevant objections regarding this manuscript. Hence, the manuscript is recommended for publication.

Author Response

Thank you for your contribution and publication recommendation.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper is much better after revisions, it can be accepted in this form.

Author Response

Thank you for your contribution and your publication recommendation.

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Colleagues

I would like to thank your effort, but, the changes are minor as you can confirm below. 

Materials and Methods: Did not change from the last version and still does not consider the initial review weaknesses.

It was added the following sentence: "To reach the number of participants which could be considered statistically significant the Authors invite to participate to this Research as many subjects as possible, considering just the major age and an adequate linguistic ability to answer the questions in which the questionnaires were proposed, in this case in Spanish".

But what is the minimum sample? How was it calculated? There is no information about it. 

Hypotheses: It would be interesting to understand how they were formulated from the literature review. What led to those hypotheses? This is not explained in the paper. I am not criticizing the hypothesis, I am just arguing that the hypotheses are formulated, but one cannot understand where they came from. 

There is a variable "consideration for future consequences". however,  besides a reference from 1994, there is no information about the potential relation that consideration for future consequences might have on a sustainable entrepreneurial attitude. So, how did you reach H1? What are the fundamentals to formulate this hypothesis? The same question is valid for the following hypothesis. 

The green words are just to finalize some spelling mistakes. 

The conclusion is still a general conclusion not focusing on the results.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Manuscript ID: Sustainability-1237640

Thank you for your sincere stimulating suggestions, Authors like to make clarifications about your corrections. We have highlighted on green all suggested modifications on next lines

 

Beyond the paper correction on requested paragraph there is a reference text modification to insert new citations

Materials and Methods: Did not change from the last version and still does not consider the initial review weaknesses.

It was added the following sentence: "To reach the number of participants which could be considered statistically significant the Authors invite to participate to this Research as many subjects as possible, considering just the major age and an adequate linguistic ability to answer the questions in which the questionnaires were proposed, in this case in Spanish".

But what is the minimum sample? How was it calculated? There is no information about it. 

There is a modification at line 130 and on lines 134-137 with “We consider for the study the population of students within Spanish Universities, which is 1.500.000 people and considering a Confidence level of 95% and a confidence interval of 5% we find a minimum group size of 384 participants for a statistically significant sample, which this Research group exceeds.”

 

 

Hypotheses: It would be interesting to understand how they were formulated from the literature review. What led to those hypotheses? This is not explained in the paper. I am not criticizing the hypothesis, I am just arguing that the hypotheses are formulated, but one cannot understand where they came from. 

There is a variable "consideration for future consequences". however,  besides a reference from 1994, there is no information about the potential relation that consideration for future consequences might have on a sustainable entrepreneurial attitude. So, how did you reach H1? What are the fundamentals to formulate this hypothesis? The same question is valid for the following hypothesis. 

There is a modification at lines 203-209 with following paragraph: “The consideration for future consequences is demonstrated as an important predictor for a future entrepreneur in consider consequences for its actions [79, 80 76, 77]. Environmental Awareness is important to form a consciousness about natural and social elements to preserve around the world [81, 82 78, 79], forming also personal social norms and a perceived sense of control to manage proper a business activity respecting a delicate equilibrium [83 80], while there are some papers which consider the mediating role between these constructs [82, 84-86 79, 81-83]. “

 

The conclusion is still a general conclusion not focusing on the results.

There is a modification at lines 408-412 with following text: “Future ecopreneurs are going to form an individual mind-set based on typical characteristics of all entrepreneurs as innovativeness, pro-activeness, risk-propension and critical thinking, feeling free to decide their actions, but also considering the world which surround them, respecting the others and pursuing also a common good [127], without an a-critic and ideological approach [128, 129].

 

We thank for your useful intervention and sincerely hope you agree that our manuscript can make a proper contribution to the Literature.

 

Best regards.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx