IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/intemj/v17y2021i4d10.1007_s11365-021-00771-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Grand challenges and entrepreneurship: Emerging issues, research streams, and theoretical landscape

Author

Listed:
  • Francesca Ricciardi

    (University of Turin)

  • Cecilia Rossignoli

    (University of Verona)

  • Alessandro Zardini

    (University of Verona)

Abstract

This study discusses how the role of entrepreneurship in addressing the so-called “grand challenges” (e.g., poverty, inequality, pollution, climate change) is evolving and could further evolve, based on the ongoing conversation in the scholarly community. To develop the discussion, we conducted the following steps: (1) a computer-aided semantic analysis; (2) an analysis of the evolution of literature streams; and (3) a network analysis of advocated theories and approaches. All three analyses were based on a selection of 358 publications retrieved via a keyword search and 27 further publications retrieved via an analysis of five recent and relevant special issues published by important scientific journals. Our results show that the call to address grand challenges, particularly after the publication of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), is radically transforming entrepreneurship research, with new issues emerging and replacing traditional issues as core to the discipline, marking a rapid and complex dynamics of research stream divergence and convergence. Similarly, the network of theories and approaches advocated by recent agenda-setting articles depicts an emerging theoretical landscape that is highly innovative. This new theoretical landscape revolves around systems thinking and Ostrom’s theory of the commons as the two key poles, with the embeddedness, stakeholder, institutional, effectuation, processual, and design-oriented approaches being the cross-fertilizing forces linking these two poles. In the final section, we present the nine articles included in the special issue titled “Grand Challenges and Entrepreneurship: Emerging Issues and Research Streams” and briefly synthesize these in the light of the ongoing evolution of the literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Francesca Ricciardi & Cecilia Rossignoli & Alessandro Zardini, 2021. "Grand challenges and entrepreneurship: Emerging issues, research streams, and theoretical landscape," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 1673-1705, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:intemj:v:17:y:2021:i:4:d:10.1007_s11365-021-00771-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s11365-021-00771-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11365-021-00771-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11365-021-00771-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frank Martin Belz & Julia Katharina Binder, 2017. "Sustainable Entrepreneurship: A Convergent Process Model," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 1-17, January.
    2. Michael Mintrom & Madeline Thomas, 2018. "Policy entrepreneurs and collaborative action: pursuit of the sustainable development goals," International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 10(2), pages 153-171.
    3. Anand, Amitabh & Argade, Padmaja & Barkemeyer, Ralf & Salignac, Fanny, 2021. "Trends and patterns in sustainable entrepreneurship research: A bibliometric review and research agenda," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 36(3).
    4. Ana Venâncio & Inês Pinto, 2020. "Type of Entrepreneurial Activity and Sustainable Development Goals," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(22), pages 1-25, November.
    5. Brett M. Frischmann & Alain Marciano & Giovanni Battista Ramello, 2019. "Retrospectives: Tragedy of the Commons after 50 Years," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(4), pages 211-228, Fall.
    6. Gupta, Parul & Chauhan, Sumedha & Paul, Justin & Jaiswal, M.P., 2020. "Social entrepreneurship research: A review and future research agenda," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 209-229.
    7. Elinor Ostrom, 2010. "Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 641-672, June.
    8. Gideon D. Markman & Michael Russo & G. T. Lumpkin & P. Devereaux (Dev) Jennings & Johanna Mair, 2016. "Entrepreneurship as a Platform for Pursuing Multiple Goals: A Special Issue on Sustainability, Ethics, and Entrepreneurship," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(5), pages 673-694, July.
    9. Rita G. Klapper & Paul Upham & Richard K. Blundel, 2021. "Insider perspectives on growth: Implications for a nondichotomous understanding of ‘sustainable’ and conventional entrepreneurship," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(3), pages 1481-1496, March.
    10. Christine Volkmann & Klaus Fichter & Magnus Klofsten & David B. Audretsch, 2021. "Sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems: an emerging field of research," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 56(3), pages 1047-1055, February.
    11. Sutter, Christopher & Bruton, Garry D. & Chen, Juanyi, 2019. "Entrepreneurship as a solution to extreme poverty: A review and future research directions," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 197-214.
    12. Wendy Stubbs, 2017. "Sustainable Entrepreneurship and B Corps," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(3), pages 331-344, March.
    13. Lachmann, Ludwig M, 1976. "From Mises to Shackle: An Essay on Austrian Economics and the Kaleidic Society," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 54-62, March.
    14. Laura Albareda & Alejo Jose G. Sison, 2020. "Commons Organizing: Embedding Common Good and Institutions for Collective Action. Insights from Ethics and Economics," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 166(4), pages 727-743, November.
    15. Paul Sarango-Lalangui & Jane Lucia S. Santos & Esther Hormiga, 2018. "The Development of Sustainable Entrepreneurship Research Field," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-19, June.
    16. Ricciardi, Francesca & De Bernardi, Paola & Cantino, Valter, 2020. "System dynamics modeling as a circular process: The smart commons approach to impact management," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    17. M. Nyström & J.-B. Jouffray & A. V. Norström & B. Crona & P. Søgaard Jørgensen & S. R. Carpenter & Ö. Bodin & V. Galaz & C. Folke, 2019. "Anatomy and resilience of the global production ecosystem," Nature, Nature, vol. 575(7781), pages 98-108, November.
    18. Maxim Vlasov & Karl Johan Bonnedahl & Zsuzsanna Vincze, 2018. "Entrepreneurship for resilience: embeddedness in place and in trans-local grassroots networks," Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 12(3), pages 374-394, August.
    19. Tamsin Foucrier & Arnim Wiek, 2019. "A Process-Oriented Framework of Competencies for Sustainability Entrepreneurship," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-18, December.
    20. Øystein D. Fjeldstad & Charles C. Snow & Raymond E. Miles & Christopher Lettl, 2012. "The architecture of collaboration," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(6), pages 734-750, June.
    21. Ana María Peredo & Helen M. Haugh & Marek Hudon & Camille Meyer, 2020. "Mapping Concepts and Issues in the Ethics of the Commons: Introduction to the Special Issue," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 166(4), pages 659-672, November.
    22. Rory Ridley‐Duff & Mike Bull, 2021. "Common pool resource institutions: The rise of internet platforms in the social solidarity economy," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(3), pages 1436-1453, March.
    23. Kathrin Bischoff & Christine K. Volkmann, 2018. "Stakeholder support for sustainable entrepreneurship - a framework of sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems," International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 10(2), pages 172-201.
    24. Günzel-Jensen, Franziska & Siebold, Nicole & Kroeger, Arne & Korsgaard, Steffen, 2020. "Do the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals matter for social entrepreneurial ventures? A bottom-up perspective," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 13(C).
    25. Cecilia Rossignoli & Francesca Ricciardi & Sabrina Bonomi, 2018. "Organizing for Commons-Enabling Decision-Making Under Conflicting Institutional Logics in Social Entrepreneurship," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 27(3), pages 417-443, June.
    26. Gregory O’Shea & Steffen Farny & Henri Hakala, 2021. "The buzz before business: a design science study of a sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystem," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 56(3), pages 1097-1120, February.
    27. Fernando Crecente & María Sarabia & María Teresa del Val, 2021. "Sustainable Entrepreneurship in the 2030 Horizon," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-11, January.
    28. Gerard Masdeu Yélamos & Catherine Carty & Úna Moynihan & Breda ODwyer, 2019. "The Universal Transformational Management Framework (UTMF)," Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 8(1), pages 122-146, July.
    29. Pablo Muñoz & Boyd Cohen, 2018. "Sustainable Entrepreneurship Research: Taking Stock and looking ahead," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 300-322, March.
    30. Ana Margarida Esteves & Audley Genus & Thomas Henfrey & Gil Penha‐Lopes & May East, 2021. "Sustainable entrepreneurship and the Sustainable Development Goals: Community‐led initiatives, the social solidarity economy and commons ecologies," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(3), pages 1423-1435, March.
    31. 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.
    32. 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.
    33. Karl Sigmund & Hannelore De Silva & Arne Traulsen & Christoph Hauert, 2010. "Social learning promotes institutions for governing the commons," Nature, Nature, vol. 466(7308), pages 861-863, August.
    34. Brett Frischmann & Alain Marciano & Giovanni Battista Ramello, 2019. "Retrospectives: Tragedy of the Commons after 50 Years," Post-Print hal-02550362, HAL.
    35. Audley Genus, 2021. "Sustainable entrepreneurship research in the 2020s: An introduction," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(3), pages 1419-1422, March.
    36. Pacheco, Desirée F. & Dean, Thomas J. & Payne, David S., 2010. "Escaping the green prison: Entrepreneurship and the creation of opportunities for sustainable development," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 464-480, September.
    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. Rabiaa Romdhane & Islem Khefacha & Haykel Haj, 2021. "Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Contribution to Entrepreneurial Intention: The Need for Innovative Reflexions," Post-Print hal-03502437, HAL.
    2. Brij B. Gupta & Akshat Gaurav & Aiiad A. Albeshri & Dheyaaldin Alsalman, 2023. "New paradigms of sustainable entrepreneurship in metaverse: a micro-level perspective," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 1449-1465, September.
    3. Harrison, Richard T., 2022. "“Pennies from heaven”? Market failure, circuits of capital and policy support for business angels: The case of cross-border angel investment," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 17(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. 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.
    2. Sebastian Hinderer & Andreas Kuckertz, 2022. "The bioeconomy transformation as an external enabler of sustainable entrepreneurship," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(7), pages 2947-2963, November.
    3. 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.
    4. Matthias Filser & Sascha Kraus & Norat Roig-Tierno & Norbert Kailer & Ulrike Fischer, 2019. "Entrepreneurship as Catalyst for Sustainable Development: Opening the Black Box," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-18, August.
    5. Bertello, Alberto & Battisti, Enrico & De Bernardi, Paola & Bresciani, Stefano, 2022. "An integrative framework of knowledge-intensive and sustainable entrepreneurship in entrepreneurial ecosystems," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 683-693.
    6. Matthew P. Johnson & Jacob Hörisch, 2022. "Reinforcing or counterproductive behaviors for sustainable entrepreneurship? The influence of causation and effectuation on sustainability orientation," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(3), pages 908-920, March.
    7. Sanjay Chaudhary & Puneet Kaur & Hind Alofaysan & Jantje Halberstadt & Amandeep Dhir, 2023. "Connecting the dots? Entrepreneurial ecosystems and sustainable entrepreneurship as pathways to sustainability," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(8), pages 5935-5951, December.
    8. Hellen Lillian Atieno Dawo & Thomas B. Long & Gjalt de Jong, 2023. "Sustainable entrepreneurship and legitimacy building in protected areas: Overcoming distinctive barriers through activism," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 72-95, January.
    9. Christine Volkmann & Klaus Fichter & Magnus Klofsten & David B. Audretsch, 2021. "Sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems: an emerging field of research," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 56(3), pages 1047-1055, February.
    10. Paul Sarango-Lalangui & Jane Lucia S. Santos & Esther Hormiga, 2018. "The Development of Sustainable Entrepreneurship Research Field," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-19, June.
    11. Sara Moggi & Paul Pierce & Nicole Bernardi, 2022. "From sustainability to thrivability: A novel framework for entrepreneurial ecosystems," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 829-853, June.
    12. Albérico Travassos Rosário & Ricardo Jorge Raimundo & Sandra P. Cruz, 2022. "Sustainable Entrepreneurship: A Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-25, May.
    13. Trin Thananusak, 2019. "Science Mapping of the Knowledge Base on Sustainable Entrepreneurship, 1996–2019," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(13), pages 1-20, June.
    14. Pablo Muñoz & Boyd Cohen, 2018. "Sustainable Entrepreneurship Research: Taking Stock and looking ahead," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 300-322, March.
    15. Maria Urbaniec & Mariusz Sołtysik & Anna Prusak & Konrad Kułakowski & Magdalena Wojnarowska, 2022. "Fostering sustainable entrepreneurship by business strategies: An explorative approach in the bioeconomy," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 251-267, January.
    16. Denise Fischer & Malte Brettel & René Mauer, 2020. "The Three Dimensions of Sustainability: A Delicate Balancing Act for Entrepreneurs Made More Complex by Stakeholder Expectations," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 163(1), pages 87-106, April.
    17. Alberto Ruozzi & Jose Antonio Vicente, 2021. "Entrepreneurial Framework Conditions and Impact Scores of Small-Size Certified Benefit Corporations (CBCs). A Configurational Analysis of 17 Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-17, June.
    18. 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.
    19. Chen Zhou & Huatao Peng & Bingbing Li, 2022. "How Risk Prevention Mechanisms Regulate Serial Entrepreneurs to Achieve Sustainable Entrepreneurship—A Policy Text Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-23, October.
    20. 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).

    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:spr:intemj:v:17:y:2021:i:4:d:10.1007_s11365-021-00771-5. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.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.