Pursuing sustainable development through green entrepreneurship: An institutional perspective

Pursuing sustainable development through green entrepreneurship has been advocated, conceptualized, and empirically examined in the recent environmental management and entrepreneurship literature. However, green entrepreneurs are embedded in institutional environments that may discourage them from embracing sustainable development because of the “paradox of embedded agency.” How can a firm overcome the liability of such an agency issue and escape what has become known as a “green prison”? This study proposes that, because international venturing exposes firms to foreign institutions, it provides them with opportunities for institutional learning. Thus, we examine how international venturing influences green entrepreneurship which, in turn, impacts firm performance. Specifically, based on institutional theory, this study develops a firm-level green entrepreneurship framework with three dimensions: green initiatives (a firm's active adoption of green practices), received government green support (benefits that a firm gains from the government by adapting to governmental incentives, programs, and policies related to green practices), and green political influence (a firm's attempts to influence legislation that enacts laws, rules, and regulations related to green practices). The results obtained by analyzing 152 firms that engage in international venturing activities and 151 firms that do not show that international venturing is positively associated with green initiatives and government green support while these two factors further directly enhance firm performance and mediate the effects of international venturing on performance.     

How to Green the red Dragon: A Start‐ups' Little Helper for Sustainable Development in China

This article qualitatively identifies and explains the barriers that foreign cleantech start‐ups can encounter when attempting to enter the Chinese market, as well as the possible strategies that can help overcome these barriers. We base our analysis on interviews with Chinese and foreign entrepreneurs and facilitators. To structure the analysis of such barriers, we use the components of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. We then explain the barriers using institutional theory. We demonstrate that they are caused either by the regulations in China or by the difference between Chinese and Western logics. We further recommend that cleantech entrepreneurs come prepared to China, remain flexible, associate themselves with reputable partners and take advice from those familiar with business in China. Cultural–cognitive barriers might be overcome by integrating the communities of foreign and Chinese start‐ups. Regulative barriers can be removed by the Chinese Government, but this conflicts with the logic of state control. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Sustainable Corporate Entrepreneurship: Performance and Strategies Toward Innovation

The field of sustainable corporate entrepreneurship is in a nascent stage. By developing a position matrix of companies with respect to their corporate entrepreneurship and sustainability performance, we make conceptual contributions to an integrated perspective on elements supporting a sustainable corporate entrepreneurship process. We propose that such a process without evolving corporate sustainability is misleading. Methodologically, we investigate publicly available index ratings to assess strategies for and qualitative measurement of the sustainable development and innovation performance of eight top‐ranked international companies. Findings show that the strategies of the identified companies correspond well to our typology and allow suggestions of where efforts for corporate sustainability and/or entrepreneurship could be reinforced to gain or maintain a benchmark position. The article will clarify underlying elements of, and help to advance strategies for the implementation of, a sustainable corporate entrepreneurship process. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Sustainable entrepreneurship and the Sustainable Development Goals: Community-led initiatives,the social solidarity economy and commons ecologies

The social solidarity economy is an approach to the production and consumption of goods, services and knowledge that promises to address contemporary economic, social and environmental crises more effectively than business as usual. The paper employs the concept of commons ecologies to examine the practices, relationships and interactions among actors and organisations in the social solidarity economy, as well as between them and the mainstream economy, which shape the field and its degree of autonomy in relation to capitalism, through a process defined as boundary commoning. Such process shapes both local and regional commons ecologies, as well as the participation of local and regional actors in wider networks at national, international and global levels. The paper takes a case study-based approach to identify practices, relationships and interactions of commons ecologies in relation to selected community-led initiatives in the UK, Portugal, Brazil and Senegal. Each case study illuminates different qualities of local/regional commons ecologies and their forms of engagement with wider networks. Further, the paper shows that these cases demonstrate how the social solidarity economy may facilitate delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals in a distinctive way. In each case, SSE acts as a vehicle for expressing participants' values and principles consistent with those underlying the SDGs. Local implementation of SDGs is thus an in-built feature of these commons ecologies. The participation of community-led initiatives in international and global networks offers opportunities to learn from local level experiences and successes, potentially strengthening SDG implementation more generally.     

湖南农产品如何跨越绿色壁垒

湖南省作为农业大省,农产品的出口受到日益兴起的绿色壁垒的挑战。文章论述了湖南省农产品出口遭遇绿色壁垒的状况及原因,提出了湖南省农产品跨越绿色壁垒的对策。     

Sustainable development and intangibles: building sustainable intellectual capital

Sustainable intellectual capital is a promising starting‐point for the incorporation of environmental aspects into the general management system of a firm. This paper examines how sustainable intellectual capital helps to overcome the shortcomings of conventional approaches to environmental management systems. It does this by extending the concept of sustainability from relational capital to the three pillars of intellectual capital: human, structural and relational intellectual capital. A multiple case study was carried out with Spanish firms characterized by their high level of environmental leadership. The findings indicated that sustainable human intellectual capital, environmental training, information and awareness sessions help in the accumulation and utilization of knowledge. As for sustainable structural intellectual capital, the environmental technology portfolio is improved and new environmental departments are created. Regarding sustainable relational intellectual capital, the firm–environment link is very important. In the primary and secondary sectors suppliers become involved to a greater extent in the environmental management process, whereas in the service sector it is the customer who becomes more involved. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Quantifying entrepreneurship and its impact on local economic performance: A spatial assessment in rural Switzerland

Regional and rural development policies in Europe increasingly emphasize entrepreneurship to mobilize the endogenous economic potential of rural territories. This study develops a concept to quantify entrepreneurship as place-dependent local potential to examine its impact on the local economic performance of rural territories in Switzerland. The short-to-medium-term impact of entrepreneurship on the economic performance of 1706 rural municipalities in Switzerland is assessed by applying three spatial random effects models. Results suggest a generally positive relationship between entrepreneurship and local development: rural municipalities with higher entrepreneurial potential generally show higher business tax revenues per capita and a lower share of social welfare cases among the population, although the impact on local employment is less clear. The explanatory power of entrepreneurship in all three models, however, was only moderate. This finding suggests that political expectations of fostering entrepreneurship to boost endogenous rural development in the short-to-medium term should be damped.     

Sustainable entrepreneurship,innovation, and business models: Integrative framework and propositions for future research

This article introduces the business models for sustainability innovation (BMfSI) framework to study how business models mediate between sustainability innovations and business cases for sustainability. The BMfSI framework integrates two major perspectives (implicitly) found in the sustainable business model literature. The first is the agency perspective. It takes into consideration that some form of agency is needed, that is, “someone” who takes decisions and acts. Sustainable entrepreneurs are discussed as those agents who align their new or existing business models with sustainability innovations in order to be successful in business and to create value with and for stakeholders. The second perspective is the systems perspective, which acknowledges that business models are always embedded within sociotechnical contexts through which, for example, public policies, private financing, or stakeholder interests influence whether and how business models can be developed. The agency and systems perspectives are integrated in the so‐called business model mediation space. This theoretical notion embraces the decisions and activities pursued by sustainable entrepreneurs as they align their business models with sustainability innovations on the one hand and the influence of environmental contingencies, barriers, and stakeholders from the sociotechnical context on the other hand. The paper concludes with propositions for future research derived from the BMfSI framework.     

Sustainable Entrepreneurship Research: Taking Stock and looking ahead

The recognition of entrepreneurship as a solution to, rather than a cause of, environmental degradation and social inequality moved the field to identify a new type of entrepreneurial activity, namely sustainable entrepreneurship. Scholarly interest has spiked in recent years; however, aside from its aspirational appeal, there remains a lack of understanding of the nature of the phenomenon and the future of sustainable entrepreneurship in theory and practice. This review seeks to provide a conceptual basis for stimulating scholarly thought and improving our collective understanding of sustainable entrepreneurship as a distinct subdomain within entrepreneurship research. Based on boundary definition and delineation of main features, this review critically discusses the main challenges ahead and elaborates on the research implications and future research directions beyond current, dominant approaches to entrepreneurial action. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Vietnam in transition: SMEs and the necessitating environment for entrepreneurship development

A transitional economy has been characterized as experiencing a large amount of economic and social change. SMEs can be considered as the vehicle for entrepreneurship development in such a context. The purpose of this paper is to further the investigation of the favourability of the transitional environment on SMEs and entrepreneurship in Vietnam. Using a new approach, we analyse the transitional economy discourse via examining government policies, international organization reports and academic articles on Vietnam. Our findings suggest that, in Vietnam, compared to an overall normative framework developed from a wide literature review, the settings generally support a vibrant transitional entrepreneurship development and SMEs. However, more needs to be done to build up favourable sociocultural setting and effective business support systems in the country. Implications for the relevant stakeholders and suggestions for future research in the East Asian and Central and Eastern Europe regions are also provided.     

The interplay of corporate entrepreneurship,environmental orientation,and performance in clean‐tech firms—A double‐edged sword

Clean‐tech innovations are an important driver in solving global issues such as climate change and for the sustainable development of economies around the world. Whereas a large part of the literature focuses on clean‐tech ventures, less is known on corporate entrepreneurship, that is, entrepreneurial behavior in established firms and its relation to sustainability. This paper extends the sustainable entrepreneurship debate to corporate entrepreneurship, which represents a fruitful avenue to further developing clean technologies. We focus particularly on clean‐tech firms' organizational preparedness for corporate entrepreneurship (OPCE), that is, how well a firm's structures and processes are set for entrepreneurial activities. On the basis of contingency theory, this study investigates how the level of OPCE influences the environmental and financial performance of clean‐tech firms and whether their environmental orientation affects these relationships. Building on data from 103 firms, we find support for a positive effect of OPCE on both environmental and financial performance. Both effects are stronger the higher the external environmental orientation. In contrast, the leverage of internal environmental orientation is not equally positive. Our study reveals that the effect of OPCE on financial performance diminishes for firms that are more strongly driven by an internal than an external environmental orientation.     

Influences on Sustainable Innovation Adoption: Evidence from Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design

The adoption of innovations associated with environmental sustainability has been a topic of growing interest among scholars. The research presented in this paper draws on Abrahamson's theoretical framework of fads and fashions to argue that dimensions of uncertainty and degree of external versus internal influence provide significant insights into firms' decisions to adopt sustainable building innovations. We develop three hypotheses, reflecting three views of adoption influence: fad, fashion, and efficient‐choice. We find that adoption of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building certification in the United States was more likely among firms similarly oriented toward end‐consumers and among firms strategically positioned as environmental leaders. These results provide support for the fad and efficient‐choice views of adoption, respectively. Contrary to expectations suggested by the fashion perspective, adoption was not more likely among firms located in states whose political leaders are more committed to environmental protection. Our findings offer important implications for practitioners and policy makers seeking to encourage sustainable building design. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Policies to enhance social development through the promotion of SME and social entrepreneurship: a study in the Colombian construction industry

Abstract

The intent of this research is to propose and analyse a set of policies in the construction industry to enhance social development. First, the paper shows the connections between the development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and social entrepreneurship (SE), the reduction of the leakage, and then the generation of social value (SV) for sustainable regional development. For that, the article analyses briefly the literatures on SE and leakage, and focuses on the relevance of SME and social entrepreneurs as promoters of SV creation and development. Second, the paper proposes a framework and proposes a set of 20 policies aimed to reduce leakage, reinforce SMEs and entrepreneurship and also to promote SE behaviour by the diverse economic agents in the construction industry, in order to increase the generation of SV and sustainable development. Then, the paper analyses the acceptability, feasibility and viability of these proposed polices, which can be useful for academics and practitioners. For that, the study uses the Delphi methodology, applied to an expert-group of 23 professionals (representatives of the private and public sector) belonging to the Colombian construction industry. The results emphasize the relevance of the development of local incumbents and the social focus of firms to increase the generation of SV. Oppositely, policies interfering economic freedom and free trade receive the lowest rates in the three criteria considered.     

Unleashing the Power of Networks: Shareholder Activism,Sustainable Development and Corporate Environmental Policy

In recent years, a new trend has emerged in which shareholder activists have formed networks to empower shareholders and magnify shareholder voices. This study explores the structural patterns and effectiveness of shareholder activism networks and shows how those networks affect corporate sustainability policies. We draw upon stakeholder influence theory, stakeholder network management theory and recent studies on activism networks to examine a shareholder activism network formed around environmental issues. The study found that (1) the structure of shareholder activist networks is largely driven by organizational attributes such as organization type, organizations’ human resources, media visibility and history; and (2) activist organizations with high centralities and eigenvector centralities enjoy more efficient results. This study contributes to our understanding of the business responses to shareholder demands on improving environmental performance and paves the way for future research on sustainable development through partnerships with shareholder networks. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

资源依托区可持续发展的路径探索——以陕西省神木县为例

分析了神木县资源型经济的优势和劣势,提出了资源型经济转型的必要性和迫切性,进一步探讨了以优势产业为依托,统筹兼顾,协调区域经济社会发展思路和对策。     

我国对外贸易与环境保护的可持续发展对策

当今世界已进入环保时代,国际贸易中的环境问题越来越受到国际社会的普遍关注。如何协调好我国对外贸易与环境保护之间的关系,已经成为摆在我们面前的重大课题。文章主要讨论我国对外贸易发展中的环境问题,并重点探析我国促进可持续贸易发展的战略对策。     

海岛旅游可持续发展研究——以上下川岛为例

海岛旅游已经成为当今研究的热点问题。海岛以其独特的地理位置和海滨资源吸引了广大游客前去旅游。由于海岛旅游资源具有较强的脆弱性,因此如何实现海岛的可持续发展便成为一个不可避免的话题。本文以广东上下川岛为例,针对在旅游可持续开发过程中存在的问题,提出了相应的对策。     

Developing an effective project: Planning and team building combined

In this article, the process of developing the project plan and the project planning and control (PP&C) is analyzed and compared to the process of developing the project team to identify opportunities for integrating these actions to produce more successful projects. Results of structured research across some 137 different organizations and representing a wide range of approaches to establishing projects are reported. The results of this cross‐organizational research strongly support the proposed integration of project planning, PP&C development, and project team building. A recommended process for accomplishing this integration is proposed.     

Sustainable development and research and development intensity in U.S. manufacturing firms

Across manufacturing sectors, mounting regulatory pressures motivate the adoption of innovative sustainable practices to help address and improve environmental performance. Sustainable practices, however, face many challenges to minimize negative environmental impacts while conserving energy and natural resources. This study seeks to understand the effect of research and development intensity on dimensions of environmental performance in manufacturing firms. Using data from U.S. corporations over the period from 1991 through 2015, we find that sustainable practices are associated with a higher level of negative environmental ratings. In addition, the level of environmental concerns tends to decrease with firm investments in research and development intensity over time. These findings suggest that bigger firms are likely to report a higher level of environmental concerns due to their experimentation with sustainable practices. These firms are also likely to reduce negative environmental ratings over time and realize economies of scale with sustainable manufacturing.     

Environmentally Sustainable Development through Stakeholder Engagement in Developed and Emerging Countries

This cross‐country study investigates the antecedents and outcomes of corporate environmental responsibility (CER) practices in developed and emerging countries. Based on stakeholder and institutional theory, we conducted an empirical study among firms in Germany, USA, India and China. We found support for a significant positive relationship between regulatory, market and social stakeholder influences, CER practices and business outcomes in the total and individual country samples. Regarding country differences, our data reveal significant similarities and differences between developed and emerging countries. Market stakeholder influences are stronger in developed countries, whereas regulatory and social stakeholder influences do not differ significantly between the two country groups. The relationship between CER practices and positive business outcomes is stronger in emerging than in developed countries. Implications for institutional theory and organizations are outlined. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment