IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i7p4056-d530920.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Eco-Innovation: A Methodological Proposal for the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM)

Author

Listed:
  • Muhammad Azam Roomi

    (Mohammed Bin Salman College of Business and Entrepreneurship, King Abdullah Economic City, Saudi Arabia)

  • José Manuel Saiz-Alvarez

    (Business Department, Universidad Católica de Santiago de Guayaquil, Guayaquil 090105, Ecuador
    Social and Business Department, Universidad Autónoma de Manizales, Manizales 170003, Colombia
    Humanities Department, CEIEF-Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Santiago 8320000, Chile)

  • Alicia Coduras

    (Institut Opinometre, 08029 Barcelona, Spain
    GEM Global, London NW1 4SA, UK)

Abstract

After the UN’s adoption of 17 Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, it became clear that the relationship between sustainability and entrepreneurship was an area for re-examination. Traditional measures of entrepreneurial success rested largely on economic indicators; observatories like the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) extended them, including cultural and social indicators. There is now a real need to measure and analyze the relationship between sustainable entrepreneurship and eco-innovation and drive positive economic activity outcomes, sustainable development, and social welfare. For GEM’s consideration, this paper proposes a reimagined tool by which to measure sustainable entrepreneurship and eco-innovation in businesses and assess their level of alignment with UN SDGs. Specifically, it presents a new measurement method, incorporating, but simplifying, a complex range of variables, which can be crystallized into a set of items (questions) to determine businesses’ commitment to entrepreneurship sustainability—social, economic, and environmental. The results can be cross-referenced with other relevant variables, and indicators proposed by the UN, to determine what causal or explanatory relationships might or might not exist. The proposal represents a valuable extension to existing data gathering tools, and will be of use to researchers and practitioners in the field of entrepreneurship—especially as its sustainability credentials and environmental impact are in the spotlight.

Suggested Citation

  • Muhammad Azam Roomi & José Manuel Saiz-Alvarez & Alicia Coduras, 2021. "Measuring Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Eco-Innovation: A Methodological Proposal for the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-15, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:7:p:4056-:d:530920
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/7/4056/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/7/4056/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hockerts, Kai & Wüstenhagen, Rolf, 2010. "Greening Goliaths versus emerging Davids -- Theorizing about the role of incumbents and new entrants in sustainable entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 481-492, September.
    2. Johanna Mair & Ignasi Marti, 2006. "Social Entrepreneurship Research: A Source of Explanation, Prediction, and Delight," Post-Print hal-02311880, HAL.
    3. York, Jeffrey G. & Venkataraman, S., 2010. "The entrepreneur-environment nexus: Uncertainty, innovation, and allocation," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 449-463, September.
    4. Bettina Lynda Bastian & Beverly Dawn Metcalfe & Mohammad Reza Zali, 2019. "Gender Inequality: Entrepreneurship Development in the MENA Region," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(22), pages 1-26, November.
    5. Fernando Crecente & María Sarabia & María Teresa del Val, 2021. "Sustainable Entrepreneurship in the 2030 Horizon," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-11, January.
    6. David Audretsch & Roy Thurik, 2004. "A Model of the Entrepreneurial Economy," Papers on Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy 2004-12, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy Group.
    7. Wu Zhao & Jizhen Li & Xiaohua Li & Thomas Schøtt, 2020. "Implications of Network Diversity for Venture Growth: The Mediation Effect of Entrepreneurial Alertness," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(22), pages 1-15, November.
    8. Rocsana Bucea-Manea-Țoniş & Viktor Prokop & Dragan Ilic & Elena Gurgu & Radu Bucea-Manea-Țoniş & Cezar Braicu & Alina Moanță, 2021. "The Relationship between Eco-Innovation and Smart Working as Support for Sustainable Management," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-16, January.
    9. Alejandro García-Jurado & José Javier Pérez-Barea & Rodrigo J. Nova, 2021. "A New Approach to Social Entrepreneurship: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-16, March.
    10. Štěrbová, Martina & Výbošťok, Jozef & Šálka, Jaroslav, 2021. "A classification of eco-innovators: Insights from the Slovak forestry service sector," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    11. Jackson Musona & Kaisu Puumalainen & Helena Sjögrén & Anna Vuorio, 2021. "Sustainable Entrepreneurship at the Bottom of the Pyramid: An Identity-Based Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-37, January.
    12. John Elkington, 2006. "Governance for Sustainability," Corporate Governance: An International Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(6), pages 522-529, November.
    13. Mair, Johanna & Martí, Ignasi, 2006. "Social entrepreneurship research: A source of explanation, prediction, and delight," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 36-44, February.
    14. Nosheena Yasir & Nasir Mahmood & Hafiz Shakir Mehmood & Muhammad Babar & Muhammad Irfan & An Liren, 2021. "Impact of Environmental, Social Values and the Consideration of Future Consequences for the Development of a Sustainable Entrepreneurial Intention," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-20, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. José Alberto Martínez-González & Carmen Dolores Álvarez-Albelo & Javier Mendoza-Jiménez & Urszula Kobylinska, 2022. "Predicting the Entrepreneurial Behaviour of Starting Up a New Company: A Regional Study Using PLS-SEM and Data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-25, February.
    2. José Alberto Martínez-González & Urszula Kobylinska & Desiderio Gutiérrez-Taño, 2021. "Exploring Personal and Contextual Variables of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor through the Rasch Mathematical Model," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(16), pages 1-23, August.
    3. Allal-Chérif, Oihab & Costa Climent, Juan & Ulrich Berenguer, Klaus Jurgen, 2023. "Born to be sustainable: How to combine strategic disruption, open innovation, and process digitization to create a sustainable business," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nosheena Yasir & Nasir Mahmood & Hafiz Shakir Mehmood & Osama Rashid & An Liren, 2021. "The Integrated Role of Personal Values and Theory of Planned Behavior to Form a Sustainable Entrepreneurial Intention," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-21, August.
    2. Régis Y. Chenavaz & Alexandra Couston & Stéphanie Heichelbech & Isabelle Pignatel & Stanko Dimitrov, 2023. "Corporate Social Responsibility and Entrepreneurial Ventures: A Conceptual Framework and Research Agenda," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-30, May.
    3. Aikaterini Argyrou & Nicolas Chevrollier & Andre Nijhof, 2023. "The versatile role of sustainable market entrepreneurs in market transformation: An intervention framework for institutional change," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 259-273, January.
    4. DiVito, Lori & Bohnsack, René, 2017. "Entrepreneurial orientation and its effect on sustainability decision tradeoffs: The case of sustainable fashion firms," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 569-587.
    5. Geradts, Thijs H.J. & Alt, Elisa, 2022. "Social entrepreneurial action in established organizations: Developing the concept of social intrapreneurship," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 197-206.
    6. Sascha Kraus & Janina Burtscher & Christine Vallaster & Martin Angerer, 2018. "Sustainable Entrepreneurship Orientation: A Reflection on Status-Quo Research on Factors Facilitating Responsible Managerial Practices," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-21, February.
    7. Francoise Contreras & Utz Dornberger, 2022. "Sustainable Entrepreneurship as a Field of Knowledge: Analyzing the Global South," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-28, December.
    8. Lori DiVito & Zita Ingen-Housz, 2021. "From individual sustainability orientations to collective sustainability innovation and sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 56(3), pages 1057-1072, February.
    9. Brigitte Hoogendoorn & Peter Zwan & Roy Thurik, 2019. "Sustainable Entrepreneurship: The Role of Perceived Barriers and Risk," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 157(4), pages 1133-1154, July.
    10. Brigitte Hoogendoorn & Daniela Guerra & Peter Zwan, 2015. "What drives environmental practices of SMEs?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 44(4), pages 759-781, April.
    11. Stefan Schaltegger & Marcus Wagner, 2011. "Sustainable entrepreneurship and sustainability innovation: categories and interactions," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(4), pages 222-237, May.
    12. Matthew P. Johnson & Stefan Schaltegger, 2020. "Entrepreneurship for Sustainable Development: A Review and Multilevel Causal Mechanism Framework," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 44(6), pages 1141-1173, November.
    13. Miguel-Angel Galindo-Martín & María-Soledad Castaño-Martínez & María-Teresa Méndez-Picazo, 2020. "The Relationship between Green Innovation, Social Entrepreneurship, and Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-19, June.
    14. Brandon H. Lee & Panayiotis Panikos Georgallis & Jeroen Struben, 2022. "Sustainable entrepreneurship under market uncertainty," Post-Print hal-04325583, HAL.
    15. Anthony Igwe & Anastasia Ogbo & Emmanuel Agbaeze & James Abugu & Charity Ezenwakwelu & Henry Okwo, 2020. "Self-Efficacy and Subjective Norms as Moderators in the Networking Competence–Social Entrepreneurial Intentions Link," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(3), pages 21582440209, July.
    16. Muzhar Javed & Muhammad Waheed Akhtar & Mudassir Husnain & Rabnawaz Lodhi & Sonia Emaan, 2020. "A stakeholder‐centric paradigm bids well for the “business case” ‐ An investigation through moderated‐mediation model," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(6), pages 2563-2577, November.
    17. Sayem Hossain & M. Abu Saleh & Judy Drennan, 0. "A critical appraisal of the social entrepreneurship paradigm in an international setting: a proposed conceptual framework," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-22.
    18. João J. Ferreira & Cristina I. Fernandes & Marta Peres-Ortiz & Helena Alves, 2017. "Conceptualizing social entrepreneurship: perspectives from the literature," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 14(1), pages 73-93, March.
    19. Elisabete Nogueira & Sofia Gomes & João M. Lopes, 2022. "The Key to Sustainable Economic Development: A Triple Bottom Line Approach," Resources, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-18, May.
    20. Nathalia Suchek & João J. Ferreira & Paula O. Fernandes, 2022. "A review of entrepreneurship and circular economy research: State of the art and future directions," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(5), pages 2256-2283, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:7:p:4056-:d:530920. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.