Search Results (8)

This qualitative study focuses on the factors that motivate grassroots ecopreneurship at the base of the pyramid (BoP). Our study is anchored by the research question, “How are grassroots ecopreneurs at the BoP of Kenya motivated?” The participants were mainly drawn from beneficiaries of a multinational Non-Governmental Organization. Using a grounded theory approach, we conducted 12 qualitative case studies, 10 focus groups and 2 interviews, recording 61 participants. We triangulated data sources through data collected from primary and secondary sources, such as archival documents and archival interviews. Extant research suggests that grassroots ecopreneurs (GEs) at the BoP primarily engage in necessity-driven ventures. However, this study demonstrates that GEs’ motives to launch new ventures appear to be multifaceted and simultaneous (not linear or sequential). We also observed an interlinkage of environmental and economic motives in GEs who diversified their investments into related and unrelated areas. Our findings also indicate that GEs at the BoP developed socio-ethical motives-the GEs’ concerns toward other members of the community-and a desire to create social value beyond private value. All these motives contributed to the GEs establishing and sustaining viable businesses. Full article

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. Full article

Businesses are believed to be partly responsible for upsetting the balance of local biodiversity through activities that degrade the environment. Critically, entrepreneurship is increasingly being cited as a key sector that can bring about sustainable transformation in production and distribution. Ghana’s total entrepreneurial activity rate is estimated at 37%, with businesses operating unsustainably. Meanwhile, little has been explored empirically on the factors that influence businesses’ sensitivity to the environment in Ghana. Using the 2013 GEM data in estimating seven different logic regression models coupled with a qualitative analysis, this paper fills the gap by investigating how the demographic and entrepreneurial characteristics of entrepreneurs in Ghana influence their environmental consciousness. The empirical evidence suggests that education fosters environmental consciousness, while owner-manager and female entrepreneurs as well as rural locality entrepreneurs in Ghana tend to be more environmentally sensitive. The qualitative data also revealed general concerns for the environment as motivating factors for entrepreneurs to be more environmentally conscious. The findings therefore draw attention to the inadequate focus on green entrepreneurship in Ghana. Embarking on educational campaigns to promote the adherence to environmental regulations by all businesses, especially those in urban areas, could help build a robust eco-preneurship landscape in Ghana. Full article

This short communication highlights ecopreneurship as a distinct form of entrepreneurship. Excerpts from interviews with ecopreneurs were analyzed using the literature of ecopreneurship and passion. Ecopreneurs want to solve environmental issues that are large scale and often impossible to solve. The passion for the environment helps them through the everyday entrepreneurial struggles and keeps them on their existential odysseys. This empirical research shows a way forward for studies of entrepreneurship-based environmental concerns. Full article

Entrepreneurship and more, particularly ecopreneurship, are essential to drive the sustainable transitions needed in food supply chains. Existing pedagogic frameworks should address these academic disciplines and they should be embedded in the educational curricula. Even when ideas are formed that can drive sustainable change, the process from ideation to commercialization can be difficult: the so-called “valley of death.” This aim of this conceptual paper is to consider pedagogic and program design and the mechanisms required to enaction of a body of practice around entrepreneurship and, more specifically, ecopreneurship, within academic curricula and associated business incubators. This makes this paper of particular interest for academia, policy makers and industry support sectors alike. An existing university that has both a student enterprise and ecopreneurship program and an established agri-technology business incubator and accelerator is used as a case study to provide insight into how progress from ideation to commercialization can be more readily supported in a university setting. From a pedagogical perspective, it is incumbent to develop new conceptual, methodological and theoretically underpinned spiral pedagogies to teach and support future generations of learners at agricultural and land-based colleges and universities as to how to exploit and take advantage of entrepreneurial and ecopreneurial business opportunities. Productization, too, needs to be embedded into the ecopreneurial pedagogy and also consideration of how businesses and their associated ecopreneurs navigate from ideation to successful product/service commercialization. Full article

Given the current trend toward a more sustainable and environmentally-friendly economy, the overlap between entrepreneurship and sustainability has become a key research area. Part of this trend is the emergence of ecopreneurial businesses. These businesses are pioneers in using innovation to achieve sustainable growth by exploiting market opportunities. This article presents an overview of the concepts of ecopreneurship, eco-innovation, and the ecological sector. A rigorous review of the literature in this area is presented. The results of this review show the key values and principles that are central to this new stream of research and shed light on opportunities for further research. The primary conclusion is that there is a need for collective collaboration between ecopreneurs, consumers, and producers to achieve long-term sustainability. Full article

This paper studies features of grassroots ecopreneurs’ leadership in their attempt to ignite transformations in production-consumption systems from the bottom up. It builds on a comprehensive approach of change agency based on institutional work, innovation, and learning intermediation literature. The paper describes grassroots ecopreneurs’ interaction strategies to resource business models for sustainability. Empirical data comes from an action research project that consisted of implementing a sustainability experiment in Sur de Bolívar (Colombia). The experiment shows grassroots ecopreneurs’ arrays of activities around making sense, shaping, securing support, nurturing, expanding, and scaling the value proposition, the business infrastructure, the customer interface and the financial model of their ventures. Our findings suggest that leading businesses transition into a more sustainable field requires grassroots ecopreneurs acting as change agents by performing a diverse array of boundary, practice, and knowledge circulation strategies, aiming at securing the societal and environmental impact of their ventures. Change agency manifests in the ways ecopreneurs maneuver to bring about transformations and strive to sustain it. The study contributes to a better understanding of processes of socio-technical change for sustainability in highly diverse institutional contexts, such as (but not exclusively) the developing world. An agency-based approach is proposed as an alternative to a managerial approach. Full article

The research topic of Ecopreneurship is growing and new questions emerge, whilst others remain unanswered. This paper provides an extensive literature review and aims to highlight research outputs and trends in ecopreneurship. Besides a reflection on the main features, motivations and typologies of ecopreneurs, the paper provides a focus on the relationship between agribusiness and ecopreneurship in order to outline issues that hopefully will be further investigated and extended to other businesses. By following the main trends within the academic debate, the paper provides insights into the defining the distinguishing traits of ecopreneurship when compared to traditional entrepreneurship. The author provides an overview of research issues that could be explored in the future. Full article