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Under the context that entrepreneurial risk in clean energy industry has become increasingly complex, government subsidies are helpful to guide and promote the entrepreneurial companies' survival and development. This paper explored the roles of government subsidies, more specifically, in forms of government subsidies beforehand and government subsidies afterwards on the relationship between R&D and entrepreneurial companies' growth, particularly in the clean energy industry. To delve deeper into the roles, this paper analysed data from the 2013 and 2014 annual reports of 58 listed companies in clean energy industries in China. By using a moderating effect model, this paper derived following conclusions: (1) R&D investment does not have a lag effect on entrepreneurial companies' growth; (2) Government subsidies beforehand have negative moderating effects on the relationship between R&D investment and entrepreneurial companies' growth; (3) Government subsidies afterwards have positive moderating effects on the relationship between R&D investment and entrepreneurial companies' growth. This paper helped to understand the difference between the functions of government subsidies beforehand and government subsidies afterwards. To some extent, the results can revise prior studies about the function of government subsidies to influence the relationship between R&D and entrepreneurial companies’ growth. The results will also be helpful for the government to evaluate the performance of government subsidies and design appropriate subsidies strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst low or zero carbon buildings (L/ZCBs) are espoused in many policy instruments, with many examples constructed to demonstrate their technical feasibility, there is a scarcity of effort examining the role of business models (BMs) in the delivery of L/ZCBs. BM innovation plays a decisive role in improving a company's competitiveness because it could quickly convert emerging technologies into commercial values by reorganising company's internal structure and offers. This paper aims to identify the factors influencing construction firms' BM innovation in the context of L/ZCBs, and measure the relationships between BM innovation for L/ZCBs and its influencing factors. This paper first identifies the influencing factors of BM innovation for L/ZCBs at both external and internal organisation levels and conceptualizes the constituting elements of BM innovation through a critical literature review. The paper then conducts a questionnaire survey with 132 building professionals in Hong Kong, and analyses the collected data using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Results from the survey show that favorable external environment towards L/ZCBs has a positive impact on BM innovation. Entrepreneurship of top managers and organisational learning capability of a firm are positively correlated with BM innovation for L/ZCB. Entrepreneurship and organisational learning capability mediate the relationships between external environment and BM innovation. The paper provides novel insights for building developers, contractors, and designers that wish to develop alternative business strategies and BMs. Research findings provide practical guidances on the process and elements of BM innovation for industry practitioners, and support the accelerated diffusion of L/ZCBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the transition to a more sustainable world, the development of sustainable technologies needs to be accompanied by promoting the legitimacy of the technologies. Consumers that perceive a technology as desirable and appropriate are more likely to adopt it. Organizations can collaborate to enhance the legitimacy of new technologies. While previous research has emphasized the importance of collaboration in the field of sustainability, it has not studied collaborative efforts of organizations aimed at achieving legitimacy of sustainable technologies. The contribution of this paper is therefore to analyze the role of inter-organizational alliances in creating legitimacy for a sustainable technology. The paper contributes to the literature by analyzing how alliances create three types of legitimacy: technology-sourced market legitimacy, technology-sourced social legitimacy and technology legitimacy. It focuses on the case of bio-plastics, which is emerging as a sustainable technology in the chemical industry. The analysis is based on a database containing information on 105 alliances in the field of bio-plastics over the period 1990–2013. The results show that alliances aim to promote technology-sourced market and social legitimacy by providing access to the sustainable technology of a partner, by collaboratively developing a sustainable technology, or by providing the technology of a partner with access to customers and production capacity. Alliances promote technology legitimacy by relying on positive externalities, by exercising their signaling role, and by acting as institutional entrepreneurs. The paper concludes that there are differences between alliances that create technology-sourced market and social legitimacy on the one hand, and technology legitimacy on the other hand. The first type of alliances are often bilateral alliances between for-profit companies that produce and market sustainable technologies. In contrast, alliances that stimulate technology legitimacy are multilateral alliances that operate in the pre-competitive stage of the value chain and involve not-for-profit organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the contemporary scholarly conversation on sustainable entrepreneurship (SE) by empirically evaluating its antecedents and outcomes. It examines whether there is any relation between a nation's SE levels and its progress on sustainable development. In addition, the composition of a sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystem (SEE) is proposed, and its efficacy at macro- and micro-levels is assessed. Extant research suggests a positive relationship between SE and sustainable development, but empirical evidence appears incoherent. Panel regressions were used to test (a) the influence of SE density (share of total firms in the nation) on the nation's sustainable development and (b) the influence of SEE vis-à-vis traditional entrepreneurial ecosystems on the abundance and performance of SE firms. For this purpose, a dataset comprising 5621 SE firms from 76 nations was curated for five years (2018–2022). The results show that a higher density of SE firms is positively related to sustainable development, and a favorable SEE fosters the copiousness and performance of SE firms. Additional analyses demonstrate the robustness of results for alternate methods, different variable measurements, and the moderating role of nations' income levels. The established relevance of SE provides implications for policymakers and practitioners to devise a favorable SEE that engenders sustainable entrepreneurship. • This study examines whether there is any relation between a nation's share of Sustainable Entrepreneurship (SE) and its sustainable development. • The density of SE firms in the nation is found to be positively related with its progress on sustainable development. • To understand what leads to higher density of SE firms in a nation, efficacy of conventional entrepreneurial ecosystems (EE) is tested. National EEs are found to be poor explainers of copiousness of SE firms. • Considering the requirements of SE which may differ from those of conventional entrepreneurship, this study proposes three sustainability elements to be integrated with the EE to develop 'Sustainable Entrepreneurial Ecosystem' (SEE). • Through the assessment of a panel dataset comprising 5621 SE firms from 76 countries over 5 years, it is found that the SEE significantly influences the density and performance of SE firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Since the Brundtland report appeared in 1987 various approaches to realising sustainable consumption and production have come into practice. While more traditional approaches like Ecodesign and Design for Sustainability often emphasize optimizing existing products, processes and businesses; more radical approaches like Product-Service Systems and System Innovation for Sustainability emphasize developing new innovative products and services with higher environmental gains. Although these studies increased our understanding of sustainability in relation to product design, they are criticized for failing to draw on existing theoretical frameworks in the organizational innovation literature (Berchicci, 2005). This paper seeks to explore the innovation process within new ventures driven by sustainability since 1) conventional wisdom suggests that young and new firms have advantages in innovation (Acs and Audretsch, 1990) and as such they are the potential candidates of offering radical solutions to the challenges of sustainability; and 2) there are few studies that address exploiting sustainable product ideas through new organizations. The paper reports on the results of an explorative study involving the use of generative techniques during 19 individual semi-structured interviews with eight entrepreneurs and seven innovation support organizations. The results suggest that the relative impact of internal and external factors on the innovation process change over time as the new organization forms. In addition, creating new businesses from sustainability ideals is influenced by the firms'' ability in understanding and managing the differences between intended and created value and in finding an overlap between customer benefits and clearly defined (prioritized) sustainability goals. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The semi-annual European Environment Sustainable Conference in Aalborg, Denmark brought together from primarily Europe, but also other parts of the world. The Conference focused on sustainability but one panel focused on practical applications for public policy and private industry. The papers from this panel are presented in this special issue of the journal. They cover topics ranging from corporate sustainable programs to government plans including "feed in laws". Some papers are more academic oriented but clearly derived from practical political experiences such as those of the California energy crisis. These theories argue the need for "agile energy systems" whereby regions, cities and communities must have combinations of on-site or distributed energy generation like combined heat and power (CPH) along with central grid power generation. Finally, there is a clear message in all the papers that "market forces" alone do not develop, monitor or even provide "level playing fields" for communities. In short, there needs to be continuous "government" or public involvement in the sustainable communities. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Entrepreneurial activities are considered a commitment to economic growth with the motivation of deriving ecological sustainability. The main objective of this paper is to capture the environmental effects of entrepreneurship development on the ecological footprint of croplands and grazing lands in 14 developing, emerging, and developed countries of different sizes during 2002–2018. Empirical analyses are anchored on a set of estimation procedures; 45 different models were estimated to assess the independent effects of the entrepreneurship indices. Then, the panel data estimator of Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS) is applied. It was found that (1) a 1% increase in energy intensity has a positive, significant effect on the ecological footprint of the agriculture sector. This arises from a decreased efficiency in the production sector. (2) A 1% increase in governmental support and policies, governmental programs, and internal market dynamics had a positive, significant effect on croplands. Moreover, the commercial and professional infrastructure and the physical and services infrastructure also had positive, significant effects on grazing lands. Meanwhile, such positive effects are not stable in all entrepreneurship indicators, and an increase in the physical and services infrastructure and internal market dynamics had significant, negative effects on croplands and grazing lands, respectively. Therefore, improvement of most of the entrepreneurship indicators can facilitate alleviation of environmental degradation through improvement of technological conditions. However, entrepreneurial indicators contribute to an increase in the negative environmental consequences of increased energy intensity. (3) Finally, an increase in most of the entrepreneurship indicators significantly steepens the Kuznets curve. Hence, it can be concluded that an increase in entrepreneurship indicators reduces the effects of economic growth on the ecological footprint in low-income countries and increase it in high-income countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of small entrepreneurial companies and their partnerships with large corporations to advance the circular economy (CE). The authors provide insights from a U.S.-based empirical study that involved 12 companies and examined the emerging drivers, current challenges and future opportunities for advancing waste repurposing and product reuse. Many large companies fail to incorporate CE principles into their business strategy due to lack of mandates, costs, logistical hurdles and inertia. This presents an opportunity for entrepreneurial companies with innovative business models to fill the gap and provide critical links for corporations in reverse supply chains while creating new business opportunities with social benefits. The study found that despite the lack of federal regulations in the U.S. a growing number of corporations are partnering with entrepreneurs to reduce waste and advance product reuse. Key drivers for such trends include sustainability commitments and zero waste goals by companies and municipalities, European Union and U.S. state mandates, reputation and the growing focus on local sourcing. Technology, knowledge, and strategic partnerships between entrepreneurs and corporations play a critical role in reducing financial costs, time, energy, environmental impacts and resources, thus helping establish viable business models. The authors propose a new framework for corporate-entrepreneur collaborations to advance a CE. The study contributes to the research on the relationship between entrepreneurial innovation and the development of CE principles within corporate supply chains, a field that is still in its infant stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many of the existing tools for design in a sustainable fashion context are too complex, overly conceptual, require experts to apply, have a high cost, were created for large corporations, or fall short in holistically supporting sustainable fashion design entrepreneurial practices. Micro-sized enterprises represent a significant portion of the fashion industry and can meaningfully contribute to the transition to a more sustainable apparel and textile industry. This paper addresses this gap through the development of an original design tool, the reDesign canvas, to support design entrepreneurs in developing sustainable fashion enterprises. Informed by design thinking and systems thinking, the canvas was developed based on an in-depth review of the academic literature and the collection of qualitative data. Qualitative data were gathered through both participatory action research (PAR) and interviews with 38 sustainable fashion design entrepreneurs and experts in sustainable fashion. Both the PAR and the interviews were used to test and refine the reDesign canvas in order to ensure it meets the needs of sustainable design entrepreneurs operating micro-sized companies. The final version of the canvas is based on 12 building blocks that a design entrepreneur would encounter in building a sustainable fashion brand. The reDesign canvas can help advance both the theory and practice of sustainable fashion design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the public debate on the environmental orientation of firms has intensified, there is a lack of understanding about the consequences of that orientation, especially in terms of its impact on firms' networking behavior. In order to fill this gap, this paper analyzes the impact of external and internal environmental orientation on start-ups’ network characteristics, because networks are both vital for the success of start-ups and resource demanding. More specifically, the effects of environmental orientation on networking frequency and network size among start-ups are analyzed. Empirical data from 248 technology-based start-ups shows that those firms with a strong external environmental orientation have significantly higher networking frequencies and build larger networks. Conversely, a strong internal environmental orientation is linked to smaller networks. Thus, the results highlight the relevance of differentiating between the external and internal environmental orientation of start-ups because both concepts can have very different effects. From a practitioner perspective, the results have important implications with regard to the resources required for networking and the opportunities and barriers that tend to accompany internal and external environmental orientations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Incorporating entrepreneurship and sustainability as complementary entities is challenging. Within a multi-disciplinary academic context and using a case-study research approach, this paper outlines the design and delivery of an entrepreneurship course to encourage participants' lateral thinking and incorporated intelligence when developing sustainable business models. Results underline the fact that teams, which include participants with a greater diversity of academic backgrounds, tend to think and act more creatively in the conceptualization of new business models compared to less diverse teams in a similar academic context. Participants’ ideas in diverse teams proved to incorporate a wider problem context in their problem-solution proposition. This underlines some conclusive evidence for a positive relationship between social learning and business development in fostering first and foremost intangible learning but also enable concrete tangible outcomes in creating new sustainability business models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the subprime crisis era, China's economy needs sustainable development. Sustainable entrepreneurship is regarded as the main power for sustainability while shortage of funds extremely restricts the development of sustainable entrepreneurship. Crowdfunding, as a financing platform on the Internet, provides a new solution for sustainable entrepreneurship project to raise money. This paper focuses on the sustainable entrepreneurship projects rely on technology in crowdfunding. We choose totally 63 cases from U.S. and China to carry out the bench analysis in order to find out the critical success factors of sustainable entrepreneurship projects pledging as well as figure out the relationships among each indicator. The statistics analysis of the cases indicates that public opinion and brand effect significant influence the sustainable crowdfunding. The amount of money raised in Chinese sustainable crowdfunding only relies on the number of backers. Furthermore, in order to investigate the social and economic effect on sustainable crowdfunding in China, we build a system dynamic model to simulate the development of sustainable crowdfunding and the influence of government policies. The simulation results show that policy combinations can effectively promote the crowdfunding, which attract more sustainable entrepreneurs to provide sustainable products/services. This in turn promotes the sustainable development and social-economic benefits in China. According to the findings, managerial suggestions and future works are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizing practices at the collective level of firms and entrepreneurs, i.e. ‘meta-organizing’, is a necessity for the development and diffusion of sustainable innovations. This paper seeks to build a meta-organization approach of sustainable innovation's governance. To do so, we conducted a three-stage literature review and analysis to 1) identify organizational capabilities that businesses need to acquire to develop sustainable innovations, 2) uncover attributes of meta-organizations as devices for governance, 3) relate these attributes to the capabilities for sustainable innovations. Our contributions are twofold: first we build a more comprehensive understanding of organizational capabilities, insisting on the overlooked importance of accountability, in addition to existing literature on anticipation, resilience, reflexivity, responsiveness and inclusion. Second, we highlight the key role of meta-organizations in facilitating the meta-governance of these capabilities. We propose a research agenda to further investigate these issues in several families of meta-organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental entrepreneurship has tremendous potential to deliver radical and disruptive technology innovation that can safeguard our biosphere. However, we lack insights into how green ventures can cultivate dynamic capabilities that allow these ventures to thrive. The existing dynamic capability framework does not adequately capture the unique challenges and opportunities facing early-stage green ventures. Consequently, in this study we ask: what are the micro-foundations underpinning dynamic capabilities in early-stage green ventures? How are these dynamic capabilities cultivated? How do these dynamic capabilities correspond to and co-develop with external factors in flux when disruptive green innovation is commercialized? This paper is based on an exploratory case study of 14 ventures developing green innovations in the biofuel, bioenergy, biochemistry, and biomaterial sectors. Our study conceptualizes the micro-foundations of dynamic capabilities related to sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring capabilities. Moreover, it develops a detailed and comprehensive framework of dynamic capability building for early-stage green ventures, which links internal dynamic capability building processes with influential external factors in flux. • Shows the micro-foundations of dynamic capabilities for environmental entrepreneurship. • Develop a framework on how dynamic capabilities co-develop with external factors. • Orchestrating dynamic capabilities is crucial for successful green innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently there is an attention in research and practise on entrepreneurial ecosystems, and how these, often using incubators, could support sustainable development through new firm start-ups. Despite the popularity of incubators in the literature and practise, few studies have focused on sustainable incubators in general or, more specifically, on processes that ensure a steady flow of tenants. Thus, this paper investigates how sustainable incubators ensures their inflow of tenants, how they organize their activities and whether the incubator environment affect tenant recruitment. A case study approach analysing the sustainability oriented incubator Green Garage Berlin have been used to generate an understanding of selection and recruitment processes as well the influence of external environments. The results show that regional and inter-regional co-operation, together with a well-planned, structured pre-incubation process, are requirements for securing an inflow of tenants to sustainable incubators. Incubator reputation and sufficient long term funding is also a key to success. A good practice case as Green Garage cannot simply be replicated, but require openness to continue the learning process and adapting the knowledge to be transferred to local conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An outstanding question in the entrepreneurship literature reigns, given recent emphases on sustainable business practices and corporate social responsibility. If small start-ups are generally stretched for time and resources, does it enhance their chances for survival and success to be sustainable and socially responsible? New firms can aid in rectifying pressing environmental and social issues by being more sustainable. While many entrepreneurs like a sustainable business model and/or mission, investment may not follow so willingly. This paper examines a sample of 300 start-ups across thirty cities around the world to consider whether sustainability is rewarded by investors. Investors signal confidence in start-ups when they infuse life extending investments into them. This analysis also considers whether a more sustainable national context affects investor confidence and whether a sustainable firm within a sustainable national context gains more investor attention and investment. Results show that investors avoid sustainable firms, particularly those that are environmentally sustainable. Moreover, investors enjoy national contexts that are socially responsible, but pay no attention to those that are environmentally conscious. In addition, firms that are sustainable in a sustainable national context are not better off for attracting investment. Insights for policy are that mainstream investors are attracted by national social policies, but these investors are unlikely to be the main force behind sustainable venture growth under today’s conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present work assesses the case of ‘Principi Attivi’ (‘Active Ingredients’). This is a policy initiative of the Apulia Region in southern Italy to support new start-ups of young entrepreneurs. Since 2010, the year of green revolution 2.0, entrepreneurship remains active and competitive in the globalised world through sustainable innovation initiatives. If innovation is the successful implementation of new ideas, then creativity can be seen as the seed of innovation. Inspired by these arguments and the case of Principi Attivi (‘Active Ingredients’), the present work adds new insights to the current debate and investigates the relationships between creativity and sustainability from supply and demand side perspectives. In particular, this paper addresses the following aims: i) On the demand side, we question how creativity relates to sustainability through entrepreneurship. To reach this aim we employ a cluster analysis and a network meta-analysis (NMA) approach to determine the existence of latent relationships between creativity and sustainability within the project proposals submitted to ‘Principi Attivi’ (‘Active Ingredients’). ii) To understand, on the demand side, what are the main factors affecting the allocation of regional funding for young entrepreneurs; and iii) To determine, on the supply side, to what extent creativity and sustainability proposals influence the outcome of the selection process. To reach aims ii) and iii) we use a probabilistic model to infer data on the probability of project proposals to be admitted to regional funding. Main results suggests: (i) the existence of latent relationships between creativity and sustainability in business initiatives; (ii) the potential propensity of the decision maker to support ‘green’ entrepreneurship and larger groups of young entrepreneurs; (iii) the limited influence (almost non-existent) on the decision maker of creativity and sustainability proposals during the evaluation process. The present work point us to assert the persistence of asymmetric information between the young entrepreneur and the policy maker. Adequate initiatives are needed to close this gap to help foster creativity and sustainability-driven entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the recent stream of econometric entrepreneurship research by introducing the environmental orientation of new ventures as a key factor for sustainable development. It empirically assesses whether relationships exist between national shares of green entrepreneurial activity (GEA) and economic, social, and environmental development. Theory and first empirical evidence suggest that – compared to conventional new ventures – new green ventures have a more positive economic and social impact and are less harmful or even beneficial to environmental quality. OLS regressions were estimated to empirically test the impact of GEA rates (share of total entrepreneurial activity) on GDP, the modified HDI, and CO 2 emissions. For this purpose, Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data for 11,909 early-stage entrepreneurs was aggregated to the macro-level of 53 countries and merged with further international datasets. The results confirmed that higher shares of GEA are positively related to economic and social development but not to environmental development. Additional tests proved the robustness of the results for different economic development levels, time-lag variations, and different measurements of dependent and independent variables. The identified economic and social importance of GEA warrants intensified policy efforts to support the discovery, creation, and exploitation of green business opportunities. Potential explanations for the counterintuitive non-significant environmental impact are discussed, leading to new research avenues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study combines the resource-based view (RBV) and institutional context to examine the relationship between opportunity-based entrepreneurship and the environmental quality of sustainable development, as well as the moderating role of institutional context (regulative, normative and cognitive factors), using Global Entrepreneurship Monitor database (GEM) and World Development Indicator (WDI) data. The results of this study show that opportunity-based entrepreneurship has a positive relationship with environmental quality of sustainable development. An analysis of moderating effects demonstrates that regulative, normative and cognitive factors have positive moderating effects on the relationship between opportunity-based entrepreneurship and the environmental quality of sustainable development. An important implication is the need to focus on sustainable development, especially environmental quality, and to promote opportunity-based entrepreneurship to solve environmental issues. This paper contributes to the literature on entrepreneurship and sustainable development by establishing a relationship model between entrepreneurship (especially opportunity-based entrepreneurship) and environmental quality. This research also opens the "black box" mechanism from a resource perspective. Last, this paper emphasizes the institutional contingency approach by empirically testing the role of institutional factors. Image 108258 • We can conclude that opportunity-based entrepreneurship contributes to environmental quality of sustainable development. • Institutional factors moderate the relationship between opportunity-based entrepreneurship and environmental quality. • RBV and institutional perspective provide a perspective for the study on entrepreneurship and environmental quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The countries with transition economies are under pressure to increase entrepreneurial activities that will enable fast growth with minimum impact on natural resources. Despite specific challenges the economies in transition face, development of (sustainable) entrepreneurship has not been in focus of the academic research. This leaves some open questions such as those concerning the role and mode of operation of public policies, level of risk and its influence on entrepreneurship creativity, role of knowledge in diffusing entrepreneurial values and fostering aspirations, externalities created for the society and the connection between sustainability and entrepreneurship. This paper aims to introduce a discussion on sustainable entrepreneurship in countries with economies in transition. The research carried out included (i) review of literature and statistical data on entrepreneurial environment, (ii) structured interviews with representatives of government, civil society, business sector and academia to understand the society's perception of green entrepreneurship and (iii) analysis of case studies on green entrepreneurs. It can be concluded that entrepreneurs in economies in transition do not seem to be ready to respond to the challenges or to take any risks by investing in green business, but also that the government and educational institutions do not recognize their own role and fail to support the development of green entrepreneurship. For those “green oriented” businesses, the key sociological constructs are personal motivation and mission, locality, and a forward-thinking orientation in terms of sustainability. All businesses managed to achieve the economic, environmental and social value creation without any support from the government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interest in environmental entrepreneurship (EE) is growing. Notably, environmental entrepreneurs are hybrid individuals, who meet commercial and ecological identities. Their entrepreneurial identity (EI) plays a key role in successfully starting and continuing entrepreneurial activities. Given that scholars have recognized the pivotal concept of EI for understanding EE, and that they have called for research on EI in hybrid contexts – such as EE –, we believe a deeper understanding of EI may provide insights to better comprehend environmental entrepreneurial behaviors. In particular, the research is aimed to catch how EI of environmental entrepreneurs evolves. Identities are, in fact, fluid and emergent. EI is not stable, but rather, is 'achieved'. To understand its evolution, we adopt the theoretical perspective of identity work, which conceives identity as a process. According to this conceptualization, entrepreneurs are engaged in forming, repairing, strengthening or revising their identity to achieve coherence. Drawing on information obtained from semi-structured interviews with and additional data on 36 entrepreneurs working in the Italian wine industry, we show that EI develops according to an initial emergence of EI to an acquired self-consciousness as an environmental entrepreneur. This identity work includes moments of EI contestation and/or elaboration, triggered by the interplay between environmental and place identity. Our paper contributes to identity work research in environmental entrepreneurship. • Environmental consciousness increases during entrepreneurial identity work. • Entrepreneurial identity work includes moments of identity contestation/elaboration. • Environmental identity and place identity foster entrepreneurial identity evolution. • Environmental entrepreneurs are related to, but also influenced by, places. • Environmental entrepreneurial behavior is progressively reinforced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The challenge how to assist enterprises more effectively within industrial hot spots of the Danube River Basin in order to meet environmental standards while enhancing their competitiveness was addressed by the project Transfer of Environmentally Sound Technology (TEST). New, integrated approaches were developed and found to be effective in fostering organizational learning and helping to ensure implementation of the desired changes at all levels of the corporate management pyramid. This paper describes the TEST approach and results by presenting: –Theoretical framework for an effective and efficient integration of the tools of preventive environmental management. –Approach, methodology and toolbox to address all levels of the enterprises. –Empirical results obtained through the implementation of the TEST in 17 enterprises of the Danube Region. The TEST approach has proved to be an effective learning process for addressing complex challenges that the companies had been facing. It helped them to improve their economic and environmental performance by integrating the bottom-up and top-down learning perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although entrepreneurial activities are of key importance in a properly functioning innovation system, the micro level of actors is often neglected in the innovation systems' literature. The goal of this paper is to show how the configuration of innovation systems shapes entrepreneurs' perceptions and behaviors. The originality of the present article rests upon a novel framework that distinguishes between the willingness, capability, and perceived opportunities of entrepreneurs embedded in specific innovation systems. We explore the perceptions of 30 entrepreneurs from two European bioeconomy cluster regions who are engaged in R&D and collaborative experimentation in the chemical, plastics, and construction materials industries. Our findings show that with documented innovation willingness, entrepreneurs' innovation capacity is not the decisive bottleneck. Rather, bioeconomy actors perceive that innovation opportunities are blocked by institutions at the national and international levels. The configuration of relevant sectoral innovation systems and value-chains is crucial. We conclude that bioeconomy promotion should emphasis the demand side and systemic multi-level policies that address innovation barriers with due consideration for industry-specific innovation systems and value-chain configurations. • Bottom-up perspective on bioeconomy innovation systems for integrated analysis. • Entrepreneurs' opportunity orientation reveals (inter)national innovation hurdles. • Chemical, plastic and construction industries require different support measures. • Policy shall act on bioeconomy market-making and value chain reconfigurations. • Innovation opportunities in the bioeconomy presuppose societal deliberation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrepreneurship is considered a central force of economic development, as it generates growth and serves as a vehicle for innovation and change. Tourism is one of the economic sectors in which a great degree of involvement is needed by the entrepreneurial sector: diversification of tourism products and services is needed to cope with increased demand for new types of tourism needs. These include opportunities for more sustainable tourism. The Söderslätt region of Sweden, which is used as a case study, is a newborn tourist destination with lots of natural and cultural characteristics. It is also one of the most agriculture intensive areas in Sweden where a potential for rural entrepreneurship development can be identified. However, the entrepreneurial culture and climate was poor in the region. This is due to the social pressure that is characteristic for this rural community. This paper shows the results of a SWOT analysis of Söderslätt tourism entrepreneurship development, which gives an overview of their current entrepreneurial situation. The case of a family-based enterprise, “Healthy Pig Farm” is presented as an example of a successful, innovative entrepreneur in farm tourism. Moreover, based on the findings and analyses, several recommendations are proposed to overcome obstacles for sustainable entrepreneurship development in rural tourist areas. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Circular economy supposes a transformational and radical process of change from a linear to a circular economic model, where every production phase represents a systemic shift at all levels. Nevertheless, CE philosophy is easy to understand but very complex to put into practice. For that reason, using institutional entrepreneurship theory, institutional enablers to push the transition to a more CE in the European Union will be analysed. In particular, the impacts achieved by CE strategies are oriented to priority CE goals. Thus, this empirical study based on a public consultation survey uses structural equation modelling to analyse links between institutional entrepreneurship enablers and impacts on CE strategies oriented to main CE goals. The findings support the effectiveness of acting like an institutional entrepreneur to force transformational and radical changes, although differences are found between enablers and the impacts of CE. The paper concludes with some useful reflections for institutions and policymakers in order to maximise the efforts taken to effect changes at all levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theory of bricolage in the entrepreneurial realm requires further refinement and development in unexplored entrepreneurial contexts. The analysis strives to elaborate on this theory, putting bricolage into the hands of environmental entrepreneurs which deal with distinctive natural resource constraints. This paper is aimed at understanding how entrepreneurs acquire and combine resources in a natural resource-scarce and exploited environment. Through a qualitative inductive study of 20 entrepreneurs belonging to the Italian wine industry, the authors shed light not only on basic constructs of bricolage literature, but also on three further unique processes associated with environmental entrepreneurship – environmental gain, sensibilisation and network establishment –, thus arguing the existence of a specific bricolage framework: environmental bricolage. The findings highlight that bricolage not only relates to young ventures but also occurs in later phases of the entrepreneurial process. The research conducted also offers practical implication for helping environmental entrepreneurs understand the importance of bricolage as a mean to create new resources, achieving greater environmental and social impacts. • Natural resource constraints imply peculiar acquisition and combination processes. • Environmental entrepreneurship as a mean to positively impact on nature. • Environmental entrepreneurship as the unique way to let the environment gain. • A unique framework of environmental bricolage is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest management has been recognized as a significant challenge for various scientific fields, namely because the difficulties in creating employment and economic dynamics in the forestry sector. Actually, it is not easy to generate more returns, in this sector, for the land owners, in addition to the production of wood after several years, depending on the produced species. In general, these difficulties lead to the land abandonment and a large set of associated problems like the forest fires. The main objective of this research is therefore to highlight the main insights from the literature related with the forest entrepreneurship, as supports for the several stakeholders, namely the policymakers, stressing the main gaps in the current scientific literature. In this paper, we have developed a bibliometric analysis through the VOSviewer software, complemented with a literature review, considering 83 articles obtained from the Web of Science (core collection) and Scopus related with the topic of 'forest' and 'entrepreneurship'. We detailed the networks of Journals, Countries, Terms and Authors that have been researching and publishing in the scientific domains of 'forest entrepreneurship'. Additionally, we studied measures of social networks analysis for each case. This kind of analysis for these topics has a particular novelty, because there is still a significant scarcity of studies addressing these approaches. In fact, searching, for example, in WOS (all databases) for the topics 'forest', 'entrepreneurship' and 'bibliometric' we found zero documents (the same for Scopus platform, considering the article title, abstract and keywords). We concluded that the recent field of 'forest entrepreneurship' has allowed a higher level of co-authorships and a lower level of centrality in the citations' network. We identified, also, that there are some gaps in the scientific literature, namely related with the few multidisciplinary networks outside the forest sciences in these topics. Finally, we observed that these topics are related with authors who, on average, published with 9 co-authors along their career and that authors working on the most generic topic of 'forest' tend to have 17 different co-authors, reinforcing the characteristics of 'forestry entrepreneurship' as a relevant but emerging scientific field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]