Search Results (772)

The aim of this study is to analyse the factors associated with sustainable entrepreneurship in Spain from a systemic perspective, highlighting the interaction between economic, cognitive, occupational and axiological factors that shape innovation and sustainability in digital environments. Using microdata from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Spain 2021, a Probit model is estimated to identify which variables are associated with TEA environmental consideration (TEA-EC), defined as the probability that early-stage entrepreneurs report considering environmental implications when making decisions about the future of their business. The results show that age, certain occupations (particularly part-time work, unemployment and self-employment), self-perceived entrepreneurial skills and values associated with social impact are the main factors associated with environmentally oriented entrepreneurship. Conversely, education, income, innovation, internationalisation and technological intensity are not significant, while gender is statistically associated with TEA environmental consideration (TEA-EC) in a context-dependent manner, particularly through its interactions with sectoral affiliation and social-impact orientation. Significant sectoral differences are also observed. The variables most strongly associated with TEA-EC are concern with social impact and the prioritisation of socio-environmental outcomes over profitability, each of which is associated with a higher likelihood of environmentally oriented decision-making among early-stage entrepreneurs by more than 23 percentage points. The study concludes that sustainable entrepreneurship in Spain is primarily associated with internal capabilities and pro-environmental values, rather than with structural incentives, offering key implications for the design of policies aimed at sustainable entrepreneurial systems. Full article

Venture novelty enables startups to overcome entry barriers and establish differentiated competitive advantages. However, research examining its antecedents from an epistemic control perspective remains limited. Drawing on survey data from 230 entrepreneurs and employing structural equation modeling (SEM) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), this study investigates how entrepreneurs’ critical thinking influences venture novelty. The findings reveal a dual effect. On the one hand, critical thinking promotes venture novelty by fostering interactive learning, which facilitates the integration of heterogeneous information and the refinement of entrepreneurial opportunity insights. On the other hand, critical thinking increases cognitive depletion, thereby constraining the cognitive resources available for innovative activities. Furthermore, imagination moderates these relationships by strengthening the positive effect of interactive learning while attenuating the negative impact of cognitive depletion. FsQCA results further identify four configurational pathways to high venture novelty. This study contributes to the literature by stating both the enabling and constraining mechanisms of entrepreneurs’ critical thinking, clarifying its dual role in epistemic control, and providing configurational evidence regarding the role of imagination in fostering entrepreneurial innovation. Full article

Industry 5.0, deploying artificial intelligence (AI) at its core, reframes industrial evolution from a predominantly technology- and efficiency-driven innovation model toward a virtuously human-centric, sustainable, and resilient model of value creation by organizations. This review paper, based on an interdisciplinary literature review, explores how AI, within the Industry 5.0 paradigm, reshapes economic logics, the understanding of information asymmetry, and sustainability trajectories, and the implications for entrepreneurial strategy and business model innovation, which demand the development of a new form of organizational intelligence. While the literature suggests that AI, when deployed within a mature Industry 5.0 framework, could generate synergistic economic and sustainability values through circular, human-centered, and digitally augmented systems, human–AI co-intelligence gains are contingent on insights that address systems quality, reskilling, ethics, and reorienting resources from overly short-term profit maximization toward wisdom for long-term socio-ecological, climate resilience, and ESG performance. This study introduces a framework for tackling organizational sustainability dynamics, anticipating the emergence of new industries and the retransformation of enduring ones amid creative destruction in the AI era. Future studies to fill knowledge gaps and implications for human competencies that will enhance organizational intelligence are articulated. Full article

Using panel data from Chinese cities spanning 2010–2023 and leveraging the natural experiment provided by the establishment of the National Big Data Comprehensive Pilot Zone (NBDPZ), we employed the difference-in-differences (DID) method alongside double machine learning (DML) to systematically examine how these policies influence urban economic resilience efficiency. The empirical results demonstrate that the NBDPZ significantly enhances urban economic resilience efficiency. This finding is robust under parallel trend and placebo tests, confirming that the improvement is a policy-driven causal effect. Mechanism analysis reveals that the policy enhances urban economic resilience efficiency primarily by promoting the upgrading and rationalization of industrial structure to consolidate the micro-foundation of sustainable economic transformation; increasing innovation output to facilitate the sustainable accumulation of knowledge capital; and enhancing urban entrepreneurial activity to inject sustainable endogenous vitality into the economic system. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the positive effects are more pronounced in eastern and western regions, second-tier cities, and cities with lower industrial agglomeration, better digital infrastructure, and stronger legal and regulatory environments. The study’s findings offer both theoretical support and practical guidance for refining the policy framework of the NBDPZ policy and promoting sustainable urban economic development. Full article

This paper investigates the impact of a regional innovation-driven platform (Qinchuangyuan Innovation-driven Platform) on entrepreneurial confidence, particularly in technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises (TSMEs) during their start-up period. By analyzing data collected from 132 TSMEs, this study explores how regional innovation-driven platforms influence entrepreneurial confidence. The main findings are as follows: First, the results of ordinary least squares (OLS) regression reveal that the innovation-driven platform significantly improves entrepreneurial confidence, and the results of propensity score matching (PSM) remain still positive. Second, we conduct instrumental variable (IV) estimation as supplementary robustness evidence for potential endogeneity concerns, using whether an enterprise participates in market expansion activities and whether an enterprise uses government support services as two instrumental variables. Third, the innovation-driven platform is mediated by entrepreneurial satisfaction with the business environment and entrepreneurial satisfaction with the government, thereby enhancing entrepreneurial confidence. This paper provides a new perspective for assessing business development through entrepreneurial confidence rather than traditional performance metrics and provides a valuable reference for the development and optimization of innovation-driven platforms in similar regional contexts, especially in supporting sustained entrepreneurial activity, technology transformation, and regional economic resilience. Full article

The promotion of rapidly scaling technology startups has become a major policy priority. Sustainable startups are increasingly viewed as potential contributors to resilient and environmentally responsible economies, as they may combine economic growth with environmental and social objectives. Based on entrepreneurial ecosystem theory, the resource-based view, and Schumpeterian creative destruction, this study identifies innovation ecosystem conditions associated with sustainable startup growth. Turnover growth is used as a proxy for the economic pillar of the Triple Bottom Line framework and as a measure of startup scaling capacity. K-means clustering is applied to identify distinct growth profiles. To analyse relationships between startup growth and innovation ecosystem variables, the study employs a multi-method semiparametric framework. The results show multifaceted associations between ecosystem factors and startup growth. Market access and human capital are positively associated with global business models and innovation, while sectoral relatedness and knowledge spillovers may show negative associations, potentially through stronger competition and higher talent acquisition costs. Venture capital is positively associated with startup growth, whereas public R&D investment and direct government funding show no consistent positive relationship. The study is limited by using financial growth as a proxy for economic sustainability and by focusing on four European innovation ecosystems. Full article

This study examines how configurations of innovation ecosystem functions are associated with dual performance outcomes in global science cities. Moving beyond dominant variable-centered approaches, the study adopts a configurational perspective to explore how interdependent ecosystem conditions jointly shape (1) innovation capacity and (2) innovation-driven entrepreneurial dynamism. Drawing on an original dataset of 200 global science cities in 2023, the study employs fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to identify ecosystem configurations associated with these outcomes. The findings reveal pronounced equifinality and configurational asymmetry. High innovation capacity is associated with two distinct ecosystem arrangements: an endogenous knowledge-production configuration characterized by the alignment of human capital, research institutions, and industrial actors, and an openness-enabled configuration in which talent mobility co-occurs with institutional and industrial support. By contrast, high innovation-driven entrepreneurial dynamism is more consistently associated with configurations combining endogenous knowledge capacity with conditions related to commercialization and scaling, including talent circulation or advanced computing infrastructure. Configurations associated with non-high outcomes further suggest that underperformance is linked not only to resource deficiencies but also to misalignment across ecosystem domains. The study contributes to innovation ecosystem research by demonstrating that performance differences among global science cities are associated with internally coherent combinations of ecosystem functions rather than the independent effects of isolated factors. More broadly, the findings suggest that innovation capacity and entrepreneurial scaling follow partially different configurational logics, highlighting the importance of complementarity and context-specific ecosystem arrangements in global science cities. Full article

Sustainability-oriented entrepreneurship is becoming more widely acknowledged as a mean of addressing social and environmental issues while promoting economic development, though little research has looked at the cognitive processes by which innovation-related thinking translates into sustainability entrepreneurial intention. The relationships between innovative mindset, entrepreneurial mindset, and sustainability entrepreneurial intention among university students are examined in this study. A mediation model is proposed in which innovative mindset positively influences entrepreneurial mindset (H1), entrepreneurial mindset positively influences sustainability entrepreneurial intention (H2), and entrepreneurial mindset mediates the relationship between innovative mindset and sustainability entrepreneurial intention (H3). In total, 163 university students in the United Arab Emirates provided the data, which was then analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). All of the proposed hypotheses are supported by the results. These findings offer preliminary and partial support for a theoretically defined cognitive pathway connecting sustainability entrepreneurial intention, innovative mindset, and entrepreneurial mindset. In particular, the findings indicate a positive correlation between innovation-oriented cognitive abilities and entrepreneurial cognition, which is linked to sustainability-oriented intentions. The low explained variance in sustainability entrepreneurial intention, however, suggests that the model only partially explains the variables influencing SEI. As a result, this study advances a more complex, mechanism-based understanding of one potential cognitive pathway in sustainability entrepreneurship and emphasizes the need for more thorough models that include contextual, motivational, and sustainability-related predictors. Additionally, it provides cautious practical implications for entrepreneurship education, especially when it comes to combining learning that is focused on sustainability with the development of an innovative and entrepreneurial mindset. Full article

This article examines how smart cities can act as catalysts for enterprise development by integrating technological, infrastructural, governance and human capital dimensions into a coherent urban innovation ecosystem. Drawing on an extensive literature review, the study first conceptualizes smart cities as adaptive systems that combine physical infrastructure, digital data layers, and institutional frameworks, creating conditions for knowledge spillovers, entrepreneurial opportunities, and business model innovation. Empirically, the research is based on an expert survey conducted among 54 specialists from academia, business, and public administration, who assessed the importance of technological, infrastructural, governance, innovation ecosystem, and human capital factors for enterprise development in the context of smart cities. The results suggest that advanced digital technologies, smart infrastructure, open data, R&D support, startup programs and talent development are perceived by experts as key, mutually complementary drivers of firms’ innovation, efficiency, sustainable growth, and competitiveness, with notable differences between expert groups. On this basis, the study proposes a synthetic model of relationships and impact pathways linking smart city components with enterprise outcomes. The paper concludes with a discussion of the study’s limitations, related to the expert-based, country-specific, and perceptional character of the data, and outlines directions for further quantitative and qualitative research on the firm-level effects of smart city development. Full article

With an exploratory survey administered to 101 alumni who voluntarily and anonymously participated, since its inception in 1999, in the social service program at the Yunus Center, at the Mexican public Autonomous University of Baja California (UABC), five core dimensions of entrepreneurship were assessed: learning, entrepreneurial intention, skill development, inspiration and confidence, and opportunity recognition. The findings indicate that engagement with social microentrepreneurs (marginalized and impoverished) during social service served as a facility for developing entrepreneurial skills and intentions. Over 87% reported increased inspiration, motivation, and confidence, and more than 88% identified entrepreneurial opportunities through their participation. That suggests that interaction with necessity-driven microentrepreneurs as role models can create an innovative, inclusive learning environment among university students, and a possible low-cost method approach for fostering social and economic entrepreneurship, according to the UN’s sustainable development goals SDG 4 (Quality Education) and SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth). Full article

The shifting business landscape globally and within Saudi Arabia toward environmental sustainability requires a significant transformation in the business models of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to achieve long-term sustainable performance. This study investigates the factors that enhance firms’ sustainable business model innovation (SBMI), particularly in achieving sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) within the context of MSMEs in Saudi Arabia. Data were collected from more than 440 MSMEs using structured, web-based, closed-ended questionnaires and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. Drawing on the dynamic capabilities view and network theory, the findings indicate that entrepreneurial networks (ENs) are positively associated with dynamic capabilities, providing firms with the information and knowledge required to transform their capabilities toward greater sustainability. ENs are also positively associated with opportunity recognition, suggesting that MSMEs with favorable network positions are better able to identify and seize sustainable innovation-oriented opportunities. This, in turn, enables SBMI, which serves as a critical conduit between ENs, dynamic capabilities, opportunity recognition, and SCA. The findings suggest that managers should prioritize strengthening internal capabilities alongside ENs to better identify and capitalize on opportunities. Full article

The accelerating energy transition and digital transformation have increased the importance of understanding the drivers of energy-related entrepreneurship and investment across countries. This study aims to investigate how digitalisation and entrepreneurial ecosystem development influence the number and funding of energy-related start-ups, with particular attention to stage-specific effects, lagged dynamics, and non-linear relationships in a cross-country panel setting. The analysis is based on panel data from the European Commission (DESI), the International Energy Agency, and StartupBlink, covering 25 countries (2017–2022) and a global sample (2019–2023), and is estimated using Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood models with fixed effects, lagged variables, and non-linear specifications in R. The findings show that digitalisation has a limited, selective relationship with energy-related entrepreneurship, whereas entrepreneurial ecosystem development plays a more consistent role. Digital connectivity is associated mainly with improved early-stage funding conditions, whereas broader digitalisation indicators do not systematically explain start-up formation. Stronger entrepreneurial ecosystems are linked to both higher green start-up activity and a shift in investment from early-stage ventures to more mature digital energy firms. The non-linear results further suggest diminishing returns to ecosystem development in later-stage green funding, indicating potential saturation effects in highly developed ecosystems. These findings suggest that policies aimed at accelerating sustainable energy entrepreneurship should go beyond general digitalisation strategies and focus more directly on strengthening inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystems, improving access to finance across the start-up lifecycle, and preventing excessive investment concentration in already mature ventures. Full article

This study examines the determinants of entrepreneurial intention among students from a Romanian economics faculty. Based on the empirical findings, the paper proposes a Filtered Entrepreneurial Intent Model. Although the traditional literature supports a linear relationship between creativity and intention, the regression analysis in this research identifies a series of psychological paradoxes and barriers. The methodology combines exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to build psychological dimensions with binomial logistic regression to test hypotheses on a sample of 237 students. The empirical results directly demonstrate that self-efficacy and resilience are positive predictors, while counterintuitive negative correlations are found for proactivity and innovation. A key statistical finding is that financial risk-taking acts as a significant moderator: innovation acts as a catalyst for intent only when a student’s risk tolerance threshold is exceeded. Data also show a significant impact of inherited windfall capital, which serves as a structural factor surpassing personality traits. Conceptually, the study interprets these findings by proposing that the intention-behaviour gap is governed by a filtration process. The study concludes by offering practical recommendations for academic decision-makers to recalibrate programmes beyond merely stimulating creativity, addressing the psychological and structural filters identified. Full article

Studentpreneurship has gained prominence in South Africa as universities are increasingly expected to foster innovation, job creation, and youth participation in the economy. However, despite the establishment of incubators, entrepreneurship centres, mentorship programmes, and EDHE-aligned initiatives, support for studentpreneurs remains unevenly implemented, poorly integrated, and inconsistently accessible, particularly within a historically disadvantaged university. This study examines how university support mechanisms shape the experiences, challenges, and business development trajectories of studentpreneurs in a South African university. Guided by Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Theory, the study adopts a qualitative research design involving in-depth interviews with 15 studentpreneurs. Thematic analysis reveals significant gaps in awareness, accessibility, and continuity of institutional support. While students valued motivational workshops, pitching opportunities, and limited mentorship, these interventions lacked sustained follow-up, sector-specific guidance, and financial or infrastructural resources necessary for business growth. The study contributes to South African entrepreneurship scholarship by highlighting the lived realities of studentpreneurs at a historically disadvantaged university and by proposing institutional reforms to build more coherent, equitable, and sustainable studentpreneurship ecosystems. Full article

This study investigates the Business Model Canvas (BMC) as a visual education tool within a training pathway aimed at enhancing human capital in inner areas. Using a qualitative case study involving 22 participants, data were collected through observations, analysis of four canvases, trainers’ reflections, and jury evaluations. Findings show that the BMC reduces cognitive load, supports distributed cognition, and fosters reflexivity, creativity, and collaborative learning. Moreover, it enables the development of entrepreneurial and strategic skills, contributing to social innovation and sustainable territorial development. Full article