Sustainable Entrepreneurship: A Literature Review
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Research Unit on Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policies (GOVCOPP), Universidade Europeia, 1500-210 Lisboa, Portugal
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ISEC Lisboa, Instituto Superior de Educação e Ciências, 1750-142 Lisboa, Portugal
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ESCAD IPLUSO, Escola Superior de Ciências da Administração and CEFAGE-Centro de Estudos e Formação Avançada em Gestão e Economia, Universidade do Algarve, 1200-427 Lisboa, Portugal
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Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2022, 14(9), 5556; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14095556
Submission received: 5 March 2022
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Revised: 18 April 2022
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Accepted: 27 April 2022
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Published: 5 May 2022
Abstract
:These days, issues such as environmental degradation, the wealth gap, and unequal access to opportunities and resources are increasing. These concerns have increased the need for sustainable entrepreneurship, defined as sustainable business practices. Entrepreneurship is central in transitioning towards a more sustainable future, whereas aligning the social, economic, and ecological objectives and ecological entrepreneurs plays a role. This scoping literature review analyzes the field of sustainable entrepreneurship and the extent of the holistic integration in the global business arena, therefore filling a gap in the existing literature. It aims to analyze the depth of existing pieces of literature on sustainable entrepreneurship, its definitions, and its applications in business practices. The analysis relies upon a literature search on the SCOPUS database around the keywords ‘Sustainability’ and ‘Sustainable Entrepreneurship’. The scientific software VOSviewer is used to better illustrate the linkage of major categories and correspondent trends, related with both business growth and maintenance of ecological systems. It concludes that the desired levels of sustainability require collaborations between all stakeholders, while the transition towards service-oriented business models has contributed to the growth of sustainable entrepreneurship. Nevertheless, existing institutional structures favor current unsustainable businesses and systems over the newer sustainable ones, demanding ecopreneurs to initiate institutional changes.
1. Introduction
Despite the economic development occurring worldwide, there has been an increase in economic, societal, and environmental threats. Natural resources’ depletion and the adverse consequences of environmental degradation, including a lack of sufficient freshwater, loss of biodiversity, and draught, have become critical problems [1].
In addition, climate change is threatening the survival and stability of modern societies. More people are dying of hunger and living in poverty. The wealth gap is increasing, and gender inequalities and unequal access to opportunities and resources are persistent [2].
These issues, among others, of different intensity according to context, have increased the need for sustainable entrepreneurship. Schaltegger and Wagner [3] define sustainable entrepreneurship as a business approach in which businesses engage in sustainable business practices to achieve efficiency and competitiveness by balancing the impacts of their environmental, business, and social activities. It involves discovering, creating, and exploiting entrepreneurial opportunities that generate social and environmental benefits to the communities to promote sustainability [4].
Sustainable entrepreneurs eliminate traditional business practices, systems, and processes and replace them with superior social and environmental products and services [5]. In this case, conventional market structures, production techniques, products, and consumption patterns associated with unsustainability are destroyed in favor of more sustainable ones.
Given the significant role of businesses in society and the impacts of their practices, entrepreneurship plays a critical role in transitioning towards a more sustainable future. It is associated with economic and non-economic activities that trigger the creation of jobs and enhanced products and services demanded by global societies [6]. Thus, entrepreneurship’s influence is enormous and can be optimized to facilitate a transformation towards sustainability.
While traditional entrepreneurship promotes economic development, sustainable entrepreneurship focuses on aligning the social, economic, and ecological objectives [7]. Rodgers [8] found that there is a development of a typology of ecopreneurs, whom he defines as “a new breed of eco-conscious change agents who may be called ecological entrepreneurs” [8] (p. 126). They include organizations and individuals who popularize eco-friendly ideas and innovations through the market or non-market strategies.
Sustainable development and the future depend on such entrepreneurs and their influence on other investors and the general public to adopt sustainable practices. This scoping literature review analyzes the concepts that constitute the field of sustainable entrepreneurship and the extent of their integration in the global business landscape.
It is noteworthy that the role of sustainable entrepreneurship cannot be appreciated outside of the contextual characteristics of the operational environments—in which it innovates—including the markets and other institutional/regulatory factors. Faced with different environmental constraints, entrepreneurs tend to demonstrate distinct sustainability concerns, due to likewise distinct levels of interaction with different external actors to acquire tangible and intangible assets from the external environment in order to keep up with the competition.
Unfortunately, with respect to the aforementioned discussion, limited evidence is presented by previous authors and obtaining a comprehensive review in a holistic manner is rare. Thus, the present scoping literature review is opportune in this context as it aims to holistically map and integrate traditional entrepreneurship literature with further sustainability issues, while it identifies gaps in the topic. The flow of the work is shown in Figure 1.
2. Materials and Methods
Scoping literature review methodology facilitates knowledge advancement by analyzing prior work on a study topic of interest, making it a critical aspect of academic research. Xiao and Watson [9] explain that by summarizing, analyzing, and synthesizing existing works, researchers can understand the depth and breadth of existing literature, test hypotheses and develop new theories, and assess the quality and validity of existing research.
This research aims to analyze the depth of existing works on sustainable entrepreneurship, its definitions, different concepts, and applications in business practices. The motivations behind the choice of this methodology are based on Okoli’s [10] notion that scoping literature reviews can be conducted to “describe available knowledge for professional practice, to identify effective research projects and techniques, to identify experts within a given field” [10] (p. 882). In this case, the researcher hopes to provide information to help eco-entrepreneurs push for eco-friendly ideas and innovations and attract other entrepreneurs and consumers to promote sustainability.
According to the literature review protocol, a step-by-step methodological approach was adopted to ensure that the data gathered and analyzed are accurate, reliable, and applicable in practice. In this sense, the review of bibliometric literature (LRSB) involves the screening and selection of information sources to ensure the validity and accuracy of the interpreted and presented data, and the process was divided into three phases and six steps [11,12,13] (Table 1).
The methodology approach began with a literature search on the SCOPUS indexing online database of scientific articles, the most important peer-reviewed platform in the academic world. Nevertheless, we consider that the study has the limitation of being based only on the SCOPUS database, excluding other academic databases, which reflects a methodological choice.
The keyword “Sustainability” was used to identify potential sources during the initial search, and 287,113 documents were identified, given the need to restrict references to the most relevant. The keyword “Sustainable Entrepreneurship” was identified in 329 documents. Other inclusion criteria for the thematic area: Business, Management, and Accounting, included documents up to February 2022. This step reduced the number of documents summarized in the final report to 80 (Table 2 and Figure 2).
From the 80 scientific and/or academic documents, 64 were Articles, 7 were Conference Papers, 6 were Reviews, 2 were Book Chapters, and 1 was an Editorial.
3. Literature Analysis: Themes and Trends
Peer-reviewed documents on the topic until February 2022 were analyzed. The year 2021 was the year with the highest number of peer-reviewed documents on the subject, with 21 publications. Figure 3 analyzes peer-reviewed publications published throughout February 2022.
The publications were sorted out as follows: Business Strategy and the Environment (12), Journal of Cleaner Production (9), International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing (5), Organization and Environment (4), Journal of Business Ethics (3), with 2 publications each for: Annals of Tourism Research, Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies, Journal of Business Venturing, Small Business Economics, and Technological Forecasting and Social Change, and with 1 each for the remaining publications.
We can say that between 2006 and 2021, there has been an interest in research on sustainable entrepreneurship.
In Table 3, we analyze the Scimago journal and country rank (SJR), the best quartile, and the H index by publication. The Journal of Business Venturing was the highest, with 7110 (SJR), Q1, and H index 182.
There was a total of 19 publications in Q1, 8 publications in Q2, 8 publications in Q3, and no publications in Q4. Publications with the best quartile Q1 represent 43% of the 45 publication titles, best quartile Q2 represents 17%, best quartile Q3 represents 17%, no publications were in Q4, and data from 10 publications were not available.
As evident from Table 3, the significant majority of articles on sustainable entrepreneurship ranked in the Q1 best quartile index.
The subject areas covered by the 80 scientific articles were: Business, Management, and Accounting (80), Social Sciences (32), Environmental Science (28), Economics, Econometrics, and Finance (20), Energy (10), Engineering (10), Arts and Humanities (3), Decision Sciences (2), Psychology (2), and Computer Science (1).
The most quoted article was “Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Innovation: Categories and Interactions” from Schaltegger and Wagner, with 673 quotes published in the Business Strategy and the Environment, with 2120 (SJR), the best quartile Q1, and with an H index of 105. The study takes an approach to the new wave of computing based on smart sustainable cities.
In Figure 4, we can analyze the evolution of citations of articles published between ≤2012 and February 2022. The number of citations shows a net-positive growth with an R2 of 34% for the ≤2012–February 2022 period, with 2021 peaking at 1093 citations.
The H index was used to ascertain the productivity and impact of the published work, based on the largest number of articles included that had at least the same number of citations. Of the documents considered for the H index, 22 have been cited at least 22 times.
In Appendix A, Table A1, the citations of all scientific and/or academic documents up to February 2022 are analyzed: 38 documents were not cited during this period, with a total of 4330 citations. Appendix B, Table A2, examines the self-quotation of documents until February 2022: of the 29 articles, there were a total of 138 self-quotations, and “Business Models for Sustainability: A Co-Evolutionary Analysis…” was self-citated 17 times.
In Figure 5, the bibliometric study is displayed to investigate and identify indicators on the dynamics and evolution of scientific information. The study of bibliometric results, using the scientific software VOSviewer, aims to identify the main research keywords in studies of sustainability and digital transition.
The research was based on the articles analyzed on sustainability and digital transition. The associated keywords can be examined in Figure 6, making clear the network of keywords that appear together/linked in each scientific article, thus allowing to know the topics studied by the researchers and identify future research trends. In Figure 7, a profusion of bibliographic couplings with a unit of analysis of cited references is presented.
4. Results: Theoretical Perspectives
There has been an influx in sustainable entrepreneurship research in recent academic literature, both in individual and organizational contexts. The concept is being experimented with and applied in multiple contexts, from struggling to developed economies.
Anbarasan and Sushil [14] explain that the last three decades have seen an evolution of sustainability through managerial thinking and scientific discussions involving executives, scholars, and theorists. The concept of sustainable entrepreneurship has moved from being an abstract idea to a pressing and practical need. There have been various critical drivers in this transformation, including climate change, human security, scarcity of resources, environmental degradation, and economic instability [15].
Due to social and ecological impacts, business and economic activities have been associated with ecological disruption. As a result, the role of entrepreneurship in sustainability cannot be ignored. Ali [16] contributes to this notion, indicating that corporations organize economic and social life and determine ecological systems’ capacity. This argument suggests the correlation between social, economic, and environmental aspects in sustainability, often referred to as the triple bottom line. Thus, profit maximization and business growth are all about developing the social structure and the human society by eliminating mechanisms of systematic degradation that undermine ecological and social systems.
In this way, distinct concepts came up from the scoping literature review performed here. The central one was the category of sustainability itself, followed by the issue of sustainability development. Additionally, related with the entrepreneurial activity in general emerges the notion of sustainable business models that, in turn, are closely intertwined with the concepts of corporate social responsibility, sustainable entrepreneurship, and managerial practices in sustainable entrepreneurship. Finally, the driving intentions for sustainable entrepreneurship, mainly through a cultural perspective, and the ensuing challenges to sustainable entrepreneurs, altogether constitute the main categories extracted from the aforementioned analysis.
5. Discussion: Theoretical Perspectives
5.1. Definition of Key Terms and Concepts
5.1.1. Sustainability
From a broader perspective, sustainability can be defined as the capacity of something to sustain or maintain itself for a long time. In business, sustainability is determined by various factors, such as social, physical, and natural resources, climate change, and environmental degradation [17]. These factors affect the current and future economic, environmental, and social stability. For example, the dwindling natural resources threaten the current and future generations’ capability to produce products and maintain necessary growth [18].
As a result, the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) defined sustainability as the capability to “meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” [19] (p. 34). In this case, sustainability involves balancing environmental resilience, economic health, and social equity to provide long-term opportunities for growth and development.
Achieving sustainability involves the interplay of activities in the markets, governments, and corporations. For example, the government is critical in environmental sustainability by providing regulatory frameworks and environmental standards [20]. These provisions help conserve the quality of life and productive inputs in a business environment, leading to innovations that promote competitiveness, value creation, and reduce production costs. For example, environmental regulations impact corporate decisions on energy use, waste disposal, and raw materials, thus improving ecological impacts [21].
However, the success of these environmental policies and regulations depends on support from the economic environment [22]. For instance, the dominant market model focuses on generating short-term profits without considering the resultant long-term problems on the environment and the wider system [23]. Thus, despite government efforts to promote sustainability through regulations, companies must be willing to change their operations models and embrace more sustainable business models.
Under the current dominant market model (profit-oriented), the ecosystems cannot support the economics due to the failure to consider the relationship between business practices and the environment [24]. Besides, the market’s contribution can be seen in the increased competition in environmentally sensitive markets. Nowadays, more companies are producing “green products” to meet and respond to market demands.
5.1.2. Sustainable Development
Sustainable development illustrates the relationship between human activities and the environment. It identifies the various means of maintaining development over time. Sachs [25] defines it as the optimal growth rate that determines the acceptable economic growth rate in per capita real incomes without exhausting the natural environmental or national capital asset stocks.
The primary goal of sustainable development is to promote peace and prosperity by protecting the environment and ending poverty [26]. In this case, the policy and practical interventions adopted must integrate various considerations, such as who bears the costs and losses in multiple activities and whose interests and values are prioritized in each decision implemented [27].
From a literal perspective, sustainable development indicates that current development should not be at the expense of future generations. Investors and the general population must evaluate how their production and consumption patterns will affect future generations [28]. However, this description is associated with multiple challenges of ambiguity. For example, WCED recommended analyzing the “needs” of future generations when setting limits on biophysical processes, technological advancements, and other cultural aspects [19].
However, the term “needs” can mean different things to different people. For instance, the needs of some communities in the developed world might be clean air and open space, while developing worlds need material wealth. In these cases, sustainable development will be interpreted differently, meaning that the approaches implemented will be different.
Researchers have proposed various frameworks to address the complexity of defining sustainable development. These frameworks consist of three pillars of sustainability: social, environmental, and economic [29]. The depictions in Figure 8 indicate that creating a win-win solution requires creating mutually supportive goals across all three pillars. These concepts are often classified as sustainability’s “triple bottom line” (TBL). The TBL provides a framework for evaluating business performance and organizational success under three aspects: environmental, economic, and social.
Economic Line—The economic aspect of the TBL framework illustrates the impact of business activities on the economic system. It evaluates the economy’s capability to evolve and survive as a subsystem of sustainability amidst the global changes and challenges to support future generations [31]. This aspect ensures that the economic growth rate matches populations’ current and future financial needs [32]. Various factors used to measure economic progress include job growth, personal incomes, employment distribution, company sizes, and revenue by sector.
Social Line—This aspect involves identifying and managing the positive and negative business impacts on people. The success of sustainable development initiatives is strongly dependent on company relationships and engagement with employees, partners in the supply chain, customers, and local communities [33]. According to Barnardo et al. [34], the social aspect involves engaging in beneficial and fair business practices that offer value to society and “give back” to the community. Embracing social responsibilities can lead to long-term, sustainable achievements.
Environmental Line—Businesses activities are directly linked to increased ecological problems, such as environmental degradation and climate change. The environmental aspect of TBL involves engaging in business activities that do not compromise future generations’ access to environmental resources [35]. It involves taking responsibility for protecting global ecosystems and conserving natural resources to better the current and future populations’ health and wealth [36]. For example, businesses should strategize to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, ensure efficient use of energy resources, and lower ecological footprints [37]. Following environmental regulations and developing in-house environmental goals can help align its profits to the people it serves and the ecosystems. Thus, when done right, sustainability aligns with profits, people, and the planet.
Sustainable Entrepreneurship—Entrepreneurship is the process of setting up a business to create and extract value. Bischoff and Volkmann [23] describe it as seeking to understand how opportunities are identified, generated, and exploited to develop current and future goods and services. According to Cohen and Winn [19], there are three distinct perspectives of understanding entrepreneurial opportunities: opportunity recognition, opportunity discovery, and opportunity creation.
Opportunity recognition involves entrepreneurs’ perceptions of an existing potential to redistribute resources to improve some people’s lives without worsening others [38].
Opportunity discovery occurs when the entrepreneur has access to factual and sufficient information on the resources’ actual value and the resulting value after combining them [39].
Opportunity creation further explains that entrepreneurs “seek to maximize the utility functions of multiple stakeholders and that opportunities can only truly be identified ex-post” [19] (p. 32). In a sustainability context, entrepreneurship can be defined as the process of discovering, creating, and exploiting opportunities to produce goods and services while considering the potential environmental, social, economic, and psychological consequences.
Sustainable entrepreneurship requires a firm to achieve desired competitiveness and profitability by becoming part of the society, the environment, and economic activities. Atiq and Karatas-Ozkan [40] define sustainable entrepreneurship as the procedure of immersing sustainability into an organization’s operational strategy by adopting an opportunity-centered entrepreneurial approach. In this case, the entrepreneur proactively embraces innovation and risk-taking to generate shared value.
Bischoff and Volkmann [23] define sustainable entrepreneurship as venturing into business with a sustainability purpose by embedding sustainability into the firm’s core business strategy and model to align ecological, social, and economic goals. The entrepreneur takes an entrepreneurial stance to address the triple bottom line, indicating that these ecopreneurs understand the interconnection between environmental, economic, and social sustainability.
5.1.3. Sustainable Business Models
The business model represents the interaction between value elements and value flow within an organization. A business model is an organization’s core strategy to ensure profitability by clearly defining products and services, target markets, and anticipated expenses [41].
The primary value elements are value proposition, creation, delivery, and capture. According to Davies and Chambers [42], the value proposition is related to a firm’s product-service system, target customers, and current relationships.
Value creation and delivery are associated with critical business practices in developing market offerings, acquiring resources, managing channels and partners, and using technologies [43]. Value capture refers to cost structures and revenue streams. In sustainable business models, the ecopreneurs simultaneously focus on generating, delivering, and capturing environmental, social, and economic value.
A major change brought about by sustainable entrepreneurship has been the transition towards service-oriented business models, which involves creating economic value to generate value for society. These sustainable business models require entrepreneurs to go beyond economic value and integrate environmental and social value into a more holistic meaning of value [44].
This aspect differentiates sustainable entrepreneurship from social and environmental entrepreneurship [3]. For example, social entrepreneurship is concerned with creating social and economic value, while environmental entrepreneurship is concerned with creating economic value while solving environmental problems [45]. On the contrary, sustainable entrepreneurship combines all these aspects by encouraging entrepreneurs to generate economic, social, and environmental value simultaneously. In this case, society benefits from business activities, companies maximize financial gains, and ecological problems are reduced.
Various business strategies are used in sustainable entrepreneurship, including product stewardship, clean technology, pollution prevention, and sustainability vision. These strategies are driven by multiple factors, such as alleviating poverty, facilitating fair distribution of resources, increasing transparency, and reducing waste and footprint [46]. These factors and strategies have prompted the development of business models that meet the interests of all stakeholders instead of prioritizing the shareholders’ expectations [47].
This holistic view of integrating social, environmental, and economic value is represented in Figure 9. Johnsen [48] contributes to these perspectives by explaining that sustainable business models aim to create superior customer value by contributing to sustainable development for society and the organization. Thus, there is more stakeholder satisfaction under sustainable entrepreneurship.
Research shows that sustainable business models are not necessarily achieved through technologies or green products and services. For instance, Evans et al. [46] indicate that they can be achieved by innovating the business models. In this case, the entrepreneurs conceptualize the business models based on relations and exchanges with stakeholders [49]. In the current business environment, consumers have the power to influence business operations by sharing their opinions and feedback through multiple channels, including social media [46].
The internet facilitates two-way communication, transforming customers’ positions from passive consumers to active co-creators [50]. Consequently, firms continuously use data gained from customers and other stakeholders to innovate their business models to meet expectations and demands. Therefore, under sustainable entrepreneurship, customers are more involved in value creation and business processes, reinforcing organization–customer relationships.
5.2. Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Entrepreneurship
In the past two decades, the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has gained considerable attention due to the massive environmental, social, and economic impacts associated with businesses. Traditionally, CSR was interpreted from a stakeholder theory perspective, where enterprises adopt environmentally or socially responsible behaviors in response to stakeholders’ demands [51].
The theory indicates that entrepreneurs and organizational managements take a reactive stance to stakeholders’ pressure to guide corporate practices [52]. However, in recent years, CSR is becoming a more proactive approach, where companies are increasing their competitiveness by generating value for themselves and society. In these cases, entrepreneurial behavior development spreads throughout the organization from top to bottom [53].
Taking a proactive stance allows firms to analyze the competitive environment they are operating in to make appropriate investments [54]. For example, the demand for green products should prompt companies to innovate, take the risk, and market these products before their competitors discover this opportunity, creating a competitive advantage [55].
From a sustainable entrepreneurship point of view, CSR requires companies to maintain a strategic and entrepreneurial focus on their social responsibility by adopting a proactive approach instead of a reactive one [56]. Therefore, CSR is embedded in the modern-day sustainability context as a mechanism of addressing societal, economic, and environmental demands to improve organizational financial performance and society’s wellbeing and health.
The adoption of CSR in sustainable entrepreneurship can be associated with the concept of strategic CSR (SCSR). According to Atiq and Karatas-Ozkan [40], SCSR recognizes the need for businesses to respond to social problems through programs, policies, and processes to create win-win situations beneficial to firms and society.
However, Hörisch [57] argues that the success of the SCSR initiative is based on the companies’ capabilities to align them with core business activities and missions. By doing so, the SCSR becomes central to the firms’ objectives and goals. One major problem undermining sustainability efforts is that most organizations are yet to immerse sustainability in core strategies and business models [58]. Thus, the concept of SCSR solves this challenge by encouraging sustainable entrepreneurs to acknowledge and integrate social responsibility in core business strategies and practices.
When the SCSR is central to the organization’s mission, it becomes specific to the firm [59]. The management and employees will be proactive in achieving the CSR goals and accomplishing related projects voluntarily and visibly. Such commitment can increase the willingness and attitudes towards sustainability, leading to sustainable entrepreneurship and development.
Additionally, SCSR encourages firms to create shared value instead of engaging in generic and defensive CSR activities. In most cases, companies adopt CSR initiatives to respond to the expectations of their stakeholders [8]. In this case, the outcomes of these programs often do not create win-win situations due to the tradeoff between business complexities and realities [60]. However, under SCSR, the social responsibility programs and policies are aligned with the company’s core mission and strategy; that is, they equally prioritize organizational profitability, environmental conservation and protection, and societal wellbeing and health [61].
Rather than defending themselves against external pressures, the corporation aims to achieve specific sustainability goals by embedding them into business practices and strategies. This proactive approach creates a win-win situation by promoting all three pillars of sustainability: environmental, social, and economical.
SCSR in sustainable entrepreneurship involves investing in the social aspects of the business’ competitive features and transforming the value chain to create innovative products that simultaneously benefit the company and society. Atiq and Karatas-Ozkan [40] support this argument by indicating that CSR activities should be connected to value chain activities. To achieve sustainability and optimize its associated benefits, corporations need to address environmental, social, and economic concerns across the entire supply chain [62]. A sustainable supply chain engages in socially and environmentally responsible practices that protect the planet and people and contribute to business growth [63].
By taking such a holistic approach, companies can reduce waste and environmental footprint, improve labor conditions, eliminate employees’ exploitation, and enhance the health and safety of all stakeholders [64]. These activities can improve the company’s competitiveness, image, and reputation, attracting highly qualified employees and loyal customers. Thus, integrating SCSR into value chain activities can enhance the companies’ capacities to maximize the benefits of sustainability by generating shared value for the business and society.
5.3. Managerial Practices in Sustainable Entrepreneurship
Organizational leadership and management provide and integrate resources and capabilities needed to produce goods and services sustainably. Sustainability responsibilities should be distributed across all levels within the organization to ensure the efficiency and success of the initiatives implemented [65]. For example, middle-level managers can report to senior managers who report to the CEO on sustainability performance, while together, they make sustainability decisions by considering tradeoffs on social and environmental impacts versus financial ones [66]. In addition, the top leadership should ensure that senior and middle-level managers have access to support and guidance on making decisions and tradeoffs [67].
The support from the leaders reduces potential conflicts that may occur from varying interests and approaches. The employees and department managers are willing to innovate products and services and share innovative ideas since they know the supportive leaders. Thus, the success of sustainability is significantly dependent on leadership support.
Leaders and managers are responsible for building an organizational culture that supports sustainability. Corporate culture refers to the shared norms, beliefs, values, and assumptions that influence employees’ and management’s daily operations [68] (Figure 10). It informs corporate practices by influencing behaviors that determine interactions, practices, and collaboration. Some managerial practices, such as fostering environmental values and beliefs, can create an organizational culture that prioritizes sustainability [69].
Leaders and managers can create and communicate to their subordinates a vision of corporate sustainability that is embedded in the company’s vision and mission to establish a shared corporate identity. These leaders should promote sustainability principles to influence employees’ perceptions and attitudes towards sustainable entrepreneurship [70]. For example, they can provide employees with training and guidelines to achieve corporate sustainability and enhance their capacity to understand and embrace changes [71].
Due to the complexities and ambiguity of the sustainability concept, most people are hesitant to integrate social, environmental, and economic aspects into their core business processes and strategies [72]. Therefore, training programs can alleviate this problem by offering sufficient information on sustainability, related issues, and consequences. Consequently, the knowledge and skills gained will help employees to understand the need for change and innovation to improve business performance and profitability while promoting environmental and social wellness.
The lack of a unilateral understanding of corporate sustainability and the different cultural practices within organizations has led to the adoption of multiple types of organizational cultures. Organizational culture is unique to each firm due to varying shared beliefs and values, leadership approaches, and business practices. However, Fietz and Günther [68] identify four types of cultures that enable corporate sustainability: adhocracy, bureaucracy, clan, and market cultures.
These organizational cultures have different approaches to sustainability due to varying values, norms, organizational philosophies, managerial styles, and strategies [73]. Although it is possible to combine these cultures, one culture tends to be more dominant in each firm, but may include characteristics of another.
Adhocracy Cultures. These cultures achieve corporate sustainability by focusing on experimentation, innovation, and risk-taking. Adhocracy employs a participative worker culture, where employees work together to make decisions and solve problems. It uses an integrated, comprehensive corporate sustainability strategy to promote organizational change and learning [68]. Since the managers and employees have shared responsibility in achieving desired goals and everyone participates in decision-making, it is easier to improve corporate organizational performance and competitive advantage as long as they understand the significance of attaining sustainability [74]. Adhocracy cultures are more likely to contribute to corporate sustainability since they promote flexible processes and innovative working environments, necessary in breaking through existing norms and pioneering programs.
Bureaucracy Cultures. The focus in bureaucracy cultures is efficiency. For example, companies using this organizational culture can emphasize achieving corporate sustainability by reducing waste and redundancies that undermine efficiency efforts. In addition, they may simplify production processes, products, and services to reduce costs. Fietz and Günther [68] explain that bureaucracy cultures are efficiency-driven and emphasize compliance, where all duties and responsibilities are clearly defined and delegated across all organizational levels. However, the competitive advantage accrued from this type of culture may be limited due to the narrow focus. For example, focusing on efficiency and compliance with existing processes and systems may limit innovation and employee creativity [2]. As a result, companies employing this culture are more likely to progress slowly than others using adhocracy cultures.
Clan Cultures. A clan culture focuses on creating a family-like organizational environment that emphasizes the commonality of goals, objectives, and consensus. Among the four types of cultures, these are the least competitive and may affect the progress of sustainability initiatives or programs. They collaborate to create sustainability through capacity building, social interactions, and interpersonal relationships [68]. The primary hindrance in this type of culture is that consensus is valued over the uniqueness of ideas. For example, an employee can propose an innovative idea to promote sustainability. However, the failure to get other staff on board to support the idea will block its implementation. Thus, group thinking can hinder innovation and lead to slow sustainability accomplishments.
Market Cultures. A market organizational culture emphasizes competition between the organization and its competitors in the industry and among employees. They adopt a competition-oriented corporate sustainability strategy that maximizes outputs and minimizes inputs. It takes a capitalistic approach that encourages employees to create goals and strive to achieve them [75]. They may either be punished or rewarded for their performance following an evaluation and close monitoring. The management relates individual performance to organizational success. While this strategy leads to higher profits and expanded market share, it favors short-term goals over long-term goals [76]. Since employees are rewarded based on individual performance, they may opt for short-term, achievable goals.
However, sustainability is a long-term goal that involves considering the organization’s current and future performance and its impact on current and future generations [77]. For example, pursuing cost reduction to increase profit margins can be at the expense of other sustainability driving factors, such as alleviating poverty and improving labor conditions.
5.4. Driving Intentions for Sustainable Entrepreneurship
Ecopreneurs have varying values that drive their entrepreneurship intentions. Personal values are vital drivers determining an individual’s priorities and behaviors and are reflected in the entrepreneurial opportunity they pursue [78]. When creating a firm, an entrepreneur must first undergo an internal process that leads to venture into a particular industry. Jaén et al. [79] explained that although obvious, starting a business is an individual decision that is often overlooked in research. In the case of sustainable entrepreneurship, the entrepreneur has to consider various personal values and beliefs that define their personalities, such as goals and a sense of moral responsibility [80]. In addition, they may consider priorities such as personal gains, contribution to society, employment choices, prestige, power, and status [81].
In most cases, the factors are driven by an individual’s personality. For example, a compassionate person is more likely to embrace sustainable entrepreneurship due to inner concerns for the sufferings or misfortunes of others. On the contrary, a greedy person will prioritize monetary gains, and thus may opt for the conventional entrepreneurship, which is profit-oriented.
The role of personal values in driving entrepreneurial intentions can also be illustrated using concepts of Schwartz’s theory in entrepreneurship. According to this framework, people make different decisions and take other actions when faced with a similar situation due to varying value priorities [80]. For example, people who prefer self-direction are more likely to open a business since it gives them autonomy and control.
However, those who prefer security and supervision are more likely to seek employment [81]. Besides, openness to change is potentially a personal value among sustainable entrepreneurs since it allows independent thinking and action-taking. Sustainability is a continuously evolving concept based on the needs of the people [82]. With globalization and immigration, sustainability challenges are increasingly becoming diverse due to the changes in demographics and people’s needs [83]. Thus, openness to change is a critical entrepreneurial value in sustainable entrepreneurship needed to help investors adjust to these populations’ rapidly evolving needs and expectations.
Positive attitudes towards sustainability and entrepreneurship are key driving intentions for sustainable entrepreneurship. Attitude determines the business approach implemented when venturing into business. For example, Vuorio et al. [81] indicate that entrepreneurs who view sustainability as an opportunity to help others and the surrounding communities are more likely to positively promote sustainable entrepreneurship.
Various factors can influence an individual’s attitudes, including the desirability of sustainable business ventures, innovation, the need for accomplishments, personal control, and self-esteem [4]. There must be a correlation between personal goals and the projected outcomes of the target sustainable sector. Knowledge and skill can further reinforce an entrepreneur’s perception of sustainable investments [84]. Therefore, numerous factors influence an individual’s attitude towards sustainable entrepreneurship and their willingness to risk their finances and innovate products and services.
5.5. Challenges to Sustainable Entrepreneurs
Perceived barriers and risks are major hindrances in achieving sustainability. Entrepreneurs often face ethical dilemmas associated with pursuing economic interests while addressing social and environmental interests. In this case, they struggle to balance between serving self-interests and catering to the needs of others [85]. Besides, sustainable entrepreneurs often exploit opportunities arising from neglected ecological and social concerns, which are more complex to address than conventional entrepreneurship [86].
The profit-oriented or market-oriented business models in traditional entrepreneurship overlook environmental and social problems since they are more likely to reduce profit margins [87]. Given that sustainability is still evolving, companies, especially SMEs, have limited access to advanced technologies and resources. Thus, social entrepreneurship is feared to be associated with fear, discouraging sustainable entrepreneurs from investing.
The traditional systems and products are a major hindrance to realizing the benefits of sustainable entrepreneurship. The ecopreneurs are required to initiate institutional changes targeting legislation, rules, policies, and norms [88]. For example, in most countries, non-renewable sources of energy are subsidized and priced in a way that makes it hard to market renewable energy to the general public [89]. The insufficient infrastructure and price variations undermine efforts to popularize green energy. Similarly, the current public policies and traditions favor traditional entrepreneurship, making it difficult for ecopreneurs to break into specific sectors.
6. Conclusions
In summary, sustainable entrepreneurship has been primarily driven by the demand to achieve sustainability and embrace sustainable business practices to protect people, the planet, and profits. Depletion of natural resources, lack of sufficiently clean water, drought, and biodiversity loss have become critical issues that, as discussed, require sustainable, innovative solutions.
Sustainable entrepreneurship intends to solve these problems by implementing strategies and solutions that address current and future generations’ economic, social, and environmental needs and concerns. According to the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), meeting the current needs should not compromise the future of coming generations. Thus, sustainable entrepreneurship prioritizes balancing economic health, environmental resilience, and social equity to establish long-term growth and development opportunities.
Nevertheless, research indicates that achieving the desired levels of sustainability requires collaborations between markets, governments, and corporations. The government should establish and implement policies and standards that regulate business practices to reduce gas emissions, conserve natural resources, and protect the environment, just to mention a few. However, corporations must comply with these regulations by integrating sustainability goals in their core strategies and business models. Markets, including customers, can contribute to sustainability by demanding corporate social and environmental responsibility and embracing ethical consumption.
However, to inform understanding of the sustainable entrepreneurial process, there is a need for an understanding of context in terms of economic, institutional, industry, and market characteristics and their spatial embeddedness across local, regional, national, and supranational scales. In particular, less developing contexts experience the consequences of global economic troubles more acutely, such as the current COVID-19 crisis, followed by the present war scenario in Europe, which tend to worsen the long-standing structural problems and limitations in terms of policy support for entrepreneurial business and innovation.
Accordingly, government policymakers and other key actors in industry, such as sector associations, should recognize the current panorama and carry out ensuing reforms that must involve both public and private actors (e.g., through financing schemes), of distinct interests and values, in affording the costs and losses in multiple activities aiming at sustainability.
It is noteworthy that the transition towards service-oriented business models has significantly contributed to the growth of sustainable entrepreneurship. These models encourage value co-creation by engaging all stakeholders throughout the production process, including supply chains, customers, and employees. Unlike conventional entrepreneurship that prioritizes shareholders, sustainable entrepreneurship is concerned with meeting the needs of all stakeholders. This transition facilitates the integration of customers’ environmental, social, and economic conditions and surrounding communities.
Nonetheless, despite the benefits achieved or promised by these sustainable models, various perceived challenges and risks hinder the maximum exploitation of sustainable opportunities. The existing institutional structures favor current unsustainable businesses and systems over the newer sustainable ones, which makes it difficult to move forward towards sustainable entrepreneurship policies for all the stakeholders involved, to maximize their operations and benefits.
Author Contributions
Conceptualization, A.T.R. and R.J.R.; methodology, A.T.R. and R.J.R.; software, A.T.R. and R.J.R.; validation, A.T.R. and R.J.R.; formal analysis, A.T.R. and R.J.R.; investigation, A.T.R. and R.J.R.; resources, A.T.R. and R.J.R.; data curation, A.T.R. and R.J.R.; writing—original draft preparation, A.T.R. and R.J.R.; writing—review and editing, A.T.R., S.P.C. and R.J.R.; visualization, A.T.R. and R.J.R.; supervision, A.T.R. and R.J.R.; project administration, A.T.R. and R.J.R.; funding acquisition, A.T.R. and R.J.R. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding
This research received no external funding.
Institutional Review Board Statement
Not applicable.
Informed Consent Statement
Not applicable.
Data Availability Statement
Not applicable.
Acknowledgments
We would like to express our gratitude to the Editor and the Referees. They offered valuable suggestions or improvements. The authors were supported by the GOVCOPP Research Center of the University of Aveiro, and ISEC Lisboa, Higher Institute of Education and Sciences.
Conflicts of Interest
The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.
Appendix A
Table A1.
Overview of document citations in the period ≤2012 to 2022.
| Documents | ≤2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sustainability approaches and nature tourism development | 2021 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 1 |
| Chief executive officers’ sustainability orientation and fir … | 2021 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| Behavioral entrepreneurship for achieving the sustainable de … | 2021 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 3 | 1 | 4 |
| A systematic literature review of crowdfunding and sustainab … | 2021 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 7 | - | 7 |
| Crowdfunding sustainable entrepreneurship: What are the char … | 2021 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 5 | 1 | 6 |
| ldentifying sustainable rural entrepreneurship indicators in … | 2021 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 5 | - | 5 |
| lnsider perspectives on growth: lmplications for a nondichot… | 2021 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 4 | - | 4 |
| The sustainable start-up paradox: Predicting the business an … | 2021 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 3 | 1 | 4 |
| University-linked programmes for sustainable entrepreneurshi … | 2021 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2 | 9 | 2 | 13 |
| Sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems: an emerging field of… | 2021 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2 | 9 | 4 | 15 |
| Social Entrepreneurship and the Sustainability of Small Businesses At a South African Township … | 2020 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | - | 1 |
| National systems of entrepreneurship: geais of sustainabilit … | 2020 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| The Three Dimensions of Sustainability: A Delicate Balancing … | 2020 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 14 | - | 14 |
| ldentifying business opportunities for sustainable developme … | 2020 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 3 | 10 | 2 | 15 |
| Sustainable entrepreneurship, innovation, and business model … | 2020 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 8 | 30 | 3 | 42 |
| Can environmentally oriented CEOs and environmentally friend … | 2020 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 3 | 13 | 2 | 18 |
| KITRO: technology solutions to reduce food waste in Asia-Pac … | 2020 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| The interplay of corporate entrepreneurship, environmental o … | 2020 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 3 | 8 | 2 | 13 |
| Crowdfunding for sustainability ventures | 2019 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 7 | 14 | 3 | 24 |
| Towards a conceptual understanding of sustainability-driven … | 2019 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 5 | 13 | - | 18 |
| University–Firm cooperation as a way to promote sustainabili … | 2019 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 4 | 8 | - | 13 |
| Responsible entrepreneurship: outlining the contingencies | 2019 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 4 | 4 | 13 | - | 21 |
| Social enterprises: Agents of development (a study on how so … | 2019 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | - | 1 |
| The role of the government in enhancing sustainable entrepre … | 2019 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2 | 2 | - | 4 |
| Sustainable leadership and entrepreneurship for corp … | 2019 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 3 | - | 4 |
| The influence of gender, self-identity and organizational … | 2018 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 4 | - | 4 |
| Toward a Validated Competence Framework for Sustainable Entr … | 2018 | - | - | - | - | - | - | 7 | 26 | 13 | 28 | - | 74 |
| lntegrating hybridity and business model theory in sustainab … | 2018 | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 7 | 9 | 23 | - | 40 |
| Put Your Style at Stake: A New Use of Sustainable Entreprene … | 2018 | - | - | - | - | - | - | 3 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 12 |
| Sustainable Entrepreneurship Research: Taking Stock and look … | 2018 | - | - | - | - | - | - | 6 | 8 | 30 | 49 | 4 | 97 |
| Stakeholder Engagement in Sustainable Enterprise: Evol … | 2018 | - | - | - | - | - | - | 5 | 5 | 14 | 12 | 1 | 37 |
| Sustainable Entrepreneurship: Agrarian policy in South Korea | 2018 | - | - | - | - | - | - | 6 | 2 | 3 | 2 | - | 13 |
| Stakeholder support for sustainable entrepreneurship … | 2018 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 1 | 8 | 4 | 14 |
| Exploring the role of entrepreneurial orientation in cl … | 2018 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2 | 3 | 6 | - | 11 |
| lt’s getting better all the time (can’t get no worse): The w … | 2018 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 3 | - | 3 |
| Ecopreneurs’ creation of user business models for green tech … | 2018 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2 | 5 | 1 | 8 |
| ‘Think big’ or ‘small is beautiful’? An empirical analysis o … | 2018 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 4 | 8 | 9 | 1 | 22 |
| Grazing, exploring and networking for sustainab … | 2017 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 6 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 15 |
| Doing business in a green way: A systematic review of the ec. … | 2017 | - | - | - | - | - | 4 | 17 | 20 | 41 | 71 | 3 | 156 |
| Entrepreneurship and Well-Being: Towards Developing a Novel … | 2017 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 3 | 4 | - | 8 |
| Developing entrepreneurial leadership: The challenge for sus … | 2017 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 3 | 5 | - | 9 |
| The impact of protectability and proactiveness on the enviro … | 2017 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 2 | 2 | - | 5 |
| A theoretical framework for sustaining culture: Culturally s … | 2017 | - | - | - | - | - | - | 4 | 11 | 10 | 9 | - | 34 |
| Aesthetic mediation of creativity, sustainability and the or … | 2017 | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 | - | 8 |
| Business Models for Sustainability: A Co-Evolutionary Analys … | 2017 | - | - | - | - | 3 | 9 | 43 | 48 | 56 | 80 | 4 | 243 |
| Tenant recruitment and support processes in sustainability-p … | 2017 | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 4 | - | 5 | 2 | - | 12 |
| Business Models for Sustainability: Origins, Present Researc … | 2016 | - | - | - | 1 | 9 | 28 | 63 | 62 | 91 | 98 | 6 | 358 |
| Social, Environmental and Sustainable Entrepreneurship … | 2015 | - | - | - | - | 1 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 14 | 22 | 2 | 52 |
| Crowdfunding for environmental ventures: An empirical analys … | 2015 | - | - | - | - | 3 | 4 | 17 | 22 | 15 | 26 | 3 | 90 |
| Green economy and social responsibility in the ltalian agri- … | 2015 | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | 1 |
| The Current state of research on sustainable entrepreneurshi … | 2014 | - | - | - | 2 | - | 6 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 9 | 2 | 32 |
| Encouraging sustainable entrepreneurship in clim … | 2014 | - | - | - | - | 4 | 8 | 9 | 1 | 8 | 5 | - | 35 |
| ‘We are as green as possible’: environmental responsibility … | 2013 | - | - | 1 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 3 | - | 19 |
| Sustainability: A paradigmatic shift in entrepreneurship edu … | 2013 | - | - | - | - | - | 2 | - | 2 | 2 | 1 | - | 7 |
| Sustainable corporate entrepreneurship from a str… | 2013 | - | - | 2 | - | - | - | - | - | 3 | 1 | - | 6 |
| Exploring the incorporation of values for sustainable entrep … | 2013 | - | - | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 2 | - | 16 |
| Making Ecopreneurs: Developing Sustainable Entrepreneurship … | 2012 | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | 1 |
| Explicating Ethical Corporate Marketing: lnsights from the B … | 2011 | 6 | 9 | 8 | 10 | 7 | 11 | 10 | 5 | 9 | 18 | - | 93 |
| Sustainable entrepreneurship and sustainability innovation: … | 2011 | 13 | 19 | 26 | 36 | 62 | 76 | 95 | 103 | 108 | 123 | 12 | 673 |
| Sustainable Entrepreneurship: Is Entrepreneurial will Enough … | 2011 | - | 2 | 5 | 3 | 6 | 14 | 18 | 10 | 19 | 24 | 3 | 104 |
| Sustainable entrepreneurship in SMEs: A case study analysis | 2010 | 6 | 3 | 9 | 3 | 11 | 12 | 12 | 7 | 11 | 11 | 3 | 88 |
| Toward a sustainable conceptualization of dep … | 2008 | 17 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 11 | 19 | 23 | 16 | 17 | 13 | 3 | 134 |
| Market imperfections, opportunity and sustainable entreprene … | 2007 | 86 | 19 | 29 | 36 | 59 | 68 | 80 | 67 | 97 | 103 | 5 | 649 |
| Toward a theory of sustainable entrepreneurship: Reducing en … | 2007 | 89 | 20 | 33 | 42 | 53 | 67 | 89 | 74 | 91 | 99 | 9 | 666 |
| Can businesses move beyond efficiency? The shift toward effe … | 2006 | 40 | 15 | 11 | 17 | 18 | 26 | 28 | 23 | 27 | 20 | - | 225 |
| Total | 257 | 90 | 130 | 160 | 252 | 366 | 553 | 557 | 778 | 1093 | 94 | 4330 |
Appendix B
Table A2.
Overview of document self-citation in the period ≤2012 to 2022.
| Documents | ≤2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chief executive officers’ sustainability orientation and fir … | 2021 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 1 |
| Behavioral entrepreneurship for achieving the sustainable de … | 2021 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | - | 1 |
| lnsider perspectives on growth: lmplications for a nondichot … | 2021 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | - | 1 |
| University-linked programmes for sustainable entrepreneurshi … | 2021 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 1 | - | 2 |
| Social Entrepreneurship and the Sustainability of Small Businesses At a South African Township… | 2020 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Can environmentally oriented CEOs and environmentally friend … | 2020 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 3 | - | 3 |
| KITRO: technology solutions to reduce food waste in Asia-Pac … | 2020 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | - | 1 |
| The interplay of corporate entrepreneurship, environmental o … | 2020 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Responsible entrepreneurship: outlining the contingencies | 2019 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2 | 1 | - | - | 3 |
| Toward a Validated Competence Framework for Sustainable Entr … | 2018 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 3 | 1 | 1 | - | 5 |
| lntegrating hybridity and business model theory in sustainab … | 2018 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | - | - | 1 |
| Put Your Style at Stake: A New Use of Sustainable Entreprene … | 2018 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2 | - | 2 |
| Sustainable Entrepreneurship Research: Taking Stock and Look … | 2018 | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2 | 3 | - | 1 | - | 6 |
| Stakeholder Engagement in Sustainable Enterprise: Evolving a … | 2018 | - | - | - | - | - | - | 3 | - | - | - | 3 | |
| Stakeholder support for sustainable entrepreneurship: a fra … | 2018 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2 | - | 2 |
| Exploring the role of entrepreneurial orientation in clean t … | 2018 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | - | 1 |
| Ecopreneurs’ creation of user business models for green tech … | 2018 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| ‘Think big’ or ‘small is beautiful’? An empirical analysis o … | 2018 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 1 | 2 | - | 4 |
| Doing business in a green way: A systematic review of the ec. … | 2017 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | - | 1 |
| Entrepreneurship and Well-Being: Towards Developing a Novel … | 2017 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | - | - | 1 |
| Business Models for Sustainability: A Co-Evolutionary Analys … | 2016 | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 17 |
| Tenant recruitment and support processes in sustainability-p … | 2016 | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2 | - | 1 | - | - | 3 |
| Business Models for Sustainability: Origins, Present Researc … | 2016 | - | - | - | - | 2 | 6 | - | - | - | - | - | 8 |
| Exploring the incorporation of values for sustainable entrep … | 2011 | 2 | 3 | 1 | - | 1 | 1 | - | - | - | 2 | - | 10 |
| Making Ecopreneurs: Developing Sustainable Entrepreneurship … | 2011 | 2 | 2 | 3 | - | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | - | 19 |
| Toward a sustainable conceptualization of dep … | 2008 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | 2 | - | - | - | - | 3 |
| Market imperfections, opportunity and sustainable entreprene … | 2007 | 2 | - | - | 2 | 1 | 1 | - | 3 | - | - | - | 9 |
| Toward a theory of sustainable entrepreneurship: Reducing en … | 2007 | 6 | - | - | - | - | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | - | 15 |
| Can businesses move beyond efficiency? The shift toward effe … | 2006 | 3 | - | - | - | 2 | - | - | 2 | 3 | - | - | 10 |
| Total | 16 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 9 | 13 | 18 | 21 | 18 | 26 | 5 | 138 |
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Figure 1.
Research design.
Figure 2.
Inclusion criteria.
Figure 3.
Documents by year. Source: own elaboration.
Figure 4.
Evolution of citations between ≤2012 and February 2022. Source: own elaboration.
Figure 5.
Network of all keywords.
Figure 6.
Network of linked keywords.
Figure 7.
Networks of bibliographic coupling.
Figure 8.
Depictions of pillars of sustainable development [30].
Figure 8.
Depictions of pillars of sustainable development [30].
Figure 9.
Sustainable value integration [46].
Figure 9.
Sustainable value integration [46].
Figure 10.
Types of organizational cultures [68].
Figure 10.
Types of organizational cultures [68].
Table 1.
Process of systematic LRSB.
| Phase | Step | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Exploration | Step 1 | Formulating the research problem |
| Step 2 | Searching for appropriate literature | |
| Step 3 | Critical appraisal of the selected studies | |
| Step 4 | Data synthesis from individual sources | |
| Interpretation | Step 5 | Reporting findings and recommendations |
| Communication | Step 6 | Presentation of the LRSB report |
Table 2.
Screening methodology.
| Database: SCOPUS | Screening | Publications |
|---|---|---|
| Meta-search | keyword: Sustainability | 287,113 |
| Inclusion Criteria | keyword: Sustainability, Sustainable Entrepreneurship | 329 |
| keyword: Sustainability, Exact keyword: Sustainability Subject area: Business, Management, and Accounting | 80 | |
| Screening | Published until February 2022 |
Source: own elaboration.
Table 3.
Scimago journal and country rank impact factor.
| Title | SJR | Best Quartile | H Index |
|---|---|---|---|
| Journal of Business Venturing | 7110 | Q1 | 182 |
| Organization Studies | 4440 | Q1 | 148 |
| Journal of Management Inquiry | 2320 | Q1 | 62 |
| Technological Forecasting and Social Change | 2230 | Q1 | 117 |
| Journal of Business Ethics | 2210 | Q1 | 187 |
| Small Business Economics | 2200 | Q1 | 131 |
| Annals of Tourism Research | 2160 | Q1 | 171 |
| Business Strategy and the Environment | 2120 | Q1 | 105 |
| Entrepreneurship and Regional Development | 1670 | Q1 | 90 |
| Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management | 1520 | Q1 | 73 |
| International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal | 1340 | Q1 | 55 |
| International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour Research | 1240 | Q1 | 67 |
| Organization and Environment | 1230 | Q1 | 60 |
| Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research | 970 | Q1 | 37 |
| Leisure Studies | 730 | Q1 | 64 |
| Management Review Quarterly | 650 | Q1 | 17 |
| Corporate Governance Bingley | 630 | Q1 | 58 |
| International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation | 600 | Q2 | 16 |
| International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management | 570 | Q2 | 44 |
| Journal of Business Strategy | 500 | Q2 | 38 |
| Journal of Business Economics and Management | 490 | Q2 | 37 |
| International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing | 490 | Q2 | 17 |
| Industry and Higher Education | 440 | Q2 | 24 |
| International Journal of Globalisation and Small Business | 290 | Q2 | 17 |
| Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy | 290 | Q2 | 13 |
| Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship | 280 | Q3 | 25 |
| International Journal of Business Environment | 270 | Q3 | 5 |
| World Journal of Entrepreneurship Management and Sustainable Development | 240 | Q1 | 3 |
| Journal of Technology Management and Innovation | 230 | Q3 | 27 |
| World Review of Entrepreneurship Management and Sustainable Development | 230 | Q3 | 16 |
| Academy of Entrepreneurship Journal | 210 | Q3 | 12 |
| Revista Venezolana De Gerencia | 210 | Q3 | 10 |
| Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies | 197 | Q3 | 5 |
| International Journal of Business and Globalisation | 190 | Q3 | 15 |
| Proceedings of The European Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship Ecie | 130 | - * | 6 |
| Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues | 0 | - * | 25 |
| International Journal of Business Research | 0 | - * | 6 |
| International Journal of Scientific and Technology Research | 0 | - * | 18 |
| International Journal of Work Innovation | 0 | - * | 5 |
| Entrepreneurship Education Opportunities, Challenges and Future Directions | - * | - * | - * |
| Innovation The European Journal of Social Science Research | - * | - * | - * |
| Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies | - * | - * | - * |
| New England Journal of Entrepreneurship | - * | - * | - * |
| Studies on Entrepreneurship Structural Change and Industrial Dynamics | - * | - * | - * |
Note: * data not available. Source: own elaboration.
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Rosário, A.T.; Raimundo, R.J.; Cruz, S.P. Sustainable Entrepreneurship: A Literature Review. Sustainability 2022, 14, 5556. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14095556
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Rosário AT, Raimundo RJ, Cruz SP. Sustainable Entrepreneurship: A Literature Review. Sustainability. 2022; 14(9):5556. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14095556
Chicago/Turabian StyleRosário, Albérico Travassos, Ricardo Jorge Raimundo, and Sandra P. Cruz. 2022. "Sustainable Entrepreneurship: A Literature Review" Sustainability 14, no. 9: 5556. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14095556
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