IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/bstrat/v29y2020i8p3055-3071.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Walking the tightrope and stirring things up: Exploring the institutional work of sustainable entrepreneurs

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Arenas
  • Marta Strumińska‐Kutra
  • Paolo Landoni

Abstract

Sustainable entrepreneurs (SEs) operate under different institutional pressures, but they also aim to provoke changes in their institutional environment in order to advance the goals of sustainability. These changes are not always large‐scale, successful transformations. This article adopts the concept of institutional work to explore how SEs engage in purposive, mundane activities to both fit in and influence the prevailing institutional environment. In particular, our findings allow us to introduce and discuss four specific types of work: making sustainability convenient, politicizing economic action, maneuvering around regulation, and relational work. At the end, we suggest that SEs may find themselves in a situation where they aim to transform the prevailing commercial institutional logic in order to promote sustainability goals while also trying to adapt to, and hence reproducing, this same logic they would like to transform.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Arenas & Marta Strumińska‐Kutra & Paolo Landoni, 2020. "Walking the tightrope and stirring things up: Exploring the institutional work of sustainable entrepreneurs," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(8), pages 3055-3071, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:29:y:2020:i:8:p:3055-3071
    DOI: 10.1002/bse.2557
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.2557
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/bse.2557?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
    ---><---

    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. Raghu Garud & Michael A. Rappa, 1994. "A Socio-Cognitive Model of Technology Evolution: The Case of Cochlear Implants," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 5(3), pages 344-362, August.
    3. Cohen, Boyd & Winn, Monika I., 2007. "Market imperfections, opportunity and sustainable entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 29-49, January.
    4. Bacq, Sophie & Alt, Elisa, 2018. "Feeling capable and valued: A prosocial perspective on the link between empathy and social entrepreneurial intentions," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 333-350.
    5. Steffen Farny & Ewald Kibler & Solange Hai & Paolo Landoni, 2019. "Volunteer Retention in Prosocial Venturing: The Role of Emotional Connectivity," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 43(6), pages 1094-1123, November.
    6. R. Scott Marshall & Mark Cordano & Murray Silverman, 2005. "Exploring individual and institutional drivers of proactive environmentalism in the US Wine industry," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(2), pages 92-109, March.
    7. Rodolphe Durand & Hayagreeva Rao & Philippe Monin, 2003. "Institutional Change in Toque Ville: Nouvelle Cuisine as an Identity Movement in French Gastronomy," Post-Print hal-00480858, HAL.
    8. Anica Zeyen & Markus Beckmann & Stella Wolters, 2016. "Actor and Institutional Dynamics in the Development of Multi-stakeholder Initiatives," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 135(2), pages 341-360, May.
    9. Christopher Marquis & András Tilcsik, 2016. "Institutional Equivalence: How Industry and Community Peers Influence Corporate Philanthropy," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(5), pages 1325-1341, October.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. Shanyong Wang & Jun Li & Dingtao Zhao, 2018. "Institutional Pressures and Environmental Management Practices: The Moderating Effects of Environmental Commitment and Resource Availability," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 52-69, January.
    13. Julie Battilana & Bernard Leca & Eva Boxenbaum, 2009. "How actors change institutions : Towards a theory of institutional entrepreneurship," Post-Print hal-00576509, HAL.
    14. Van De Ven, H., 1993. "The development of an infrastructure for entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 211-230, May.
    15. Kenneth Amaeshi & Emmanuel Adegbite & Tazeeb Rajwani, 2016. "Corporate Social Responsibility in Challenging and Non-enabling Institutional Contexts: Do Institutional Voids matter?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 134(1), pages 135-153, March.
    16. Jean-Pascal Gond & Eva Boxenbaum, 2013. "The Glocalization of Responsible Investment: Contextualization Work in France and Québec," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 115(4), pages 707-721, July.
    17. T. Lawrence & R. Suddaby & B. Leca, 2011. "Institutional work - Re-focusing institutional studies of organization," Post-Print hal-00802293, HAL.
    18. Martine Spence & Jouhaina Ben Boubaker Gherib & Viviane Ondoua Biwolé, 2011. "Sustainable Entrepreneurship: Is Entrepreneurial will Enough? A North–South Comparison," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 99(3), pages 335-367, March.
    19. 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.
    20. Jonatan Pinkse & Koen Groot, 2015. "Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Corporate Political Activity: Overcoming Market Barriers in the Clean Energy Sector," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 39(3), pages 633-654, May.
    21. Dahlmann, Frederik & Grosvold, Johanne, 2017. "Environmental Managers and Institutional Work: Reconciling Tensions of Competing Institutional Logics," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(2), pages 263-291, April.
    22. Meek, William R. & Pacheco, Desirée F. & York, Jeffrey G., 2010. "The impact of social norms on entrepreneurial action: Evidence from the environmental entrepreneurship context," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 493-509, September.
    23. Geoffrey M. Kistruck & Paul W. Beamish, 2010. "The Interplay of Form, Structure, and Embeddedness in Social Intrapreneurship," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 34(4), pages 735-761, July.
    24. Albert Jolink & Eva Niesten, 2015. "Sustainable Development and Business Models of Entrepreneurs in the Organic Food Industry," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(6), pages 386-401, September.
    25. Magali Delmas & Michael W. Toffel, 2004. "Stakeholders and environmental management practices: an institutional framework," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(4), pages 209-222, July.
    26. Magda M. Smink & Marko P. Hekkert & Simona O. Negro, 2015. "Keeping sustainable innovation on a leash? Exploring incumbents’ institutional strategies," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(2), pages 86-101, February.
    27. Daniel Arenas & Pablo Sanchez & Matthew Murphy, 2013. "Different Paths to Collaboration Between Businesses and Civil Society and the Role of Third Parties," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 115(4), pages 723-739, July.
    28. Hall, Jeremy K. & Daneke, Gregory A. & Lenox, Michael J., 2010. "Sustainable development and entrepreneurship: Past contributions and future directions," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 439-448, September.
    29. Hayagreeva Rao & Philippe Monin & Rodolphe Durand, 2003. "Institutional change in toque ville : Nouvelle cuisine as an identity movement in French gastronomy," Post-Print hal-02311672, HAL.
    30. Rodrigo Canales, 2016. "From Ideals to Institutions: Institutional Entrepreneurship and the Growth of Mexican Small Business Finance," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(6), pages 1548-1573, December.
    31. Jean-Pascal Gond & Eva Boxenbaum, 2013. "The glocalization of responsible investment: Contextualization work in France and Quebec," Post-Print hal-00870436, HAL.
    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. Patrick Gregori & Patrick Holzmann, 2022. "Entrepreneurial practices and the constitution of environmental value for sustainability," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(7), pages 3302-3317, November.
    2. Brandon H. Lee & Panayiotis Panikos Georgallis & Jeroen Struben, 2022. "Sustainable entrepreneurship under market uncertainty," Post-Print hal-04325583, HAL.
    3. Hota, Pradeep Kumar & Bhatt, Babita & Qureshi, Israr, 2023. "Institutional work to navigate ethical dilemmas: Evidence from a social enterprise," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 38(1).
    4. 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.
    5. Camilla Chlebna & Jannika Mattes, 2024. "This paper explores the dynamics that result in the entrenched positions that can be empirically observed in regions in the context of energy transition. We conduct our analysis along the concept of s," GEIST - Geography of Innovation and Sustainability Transitions 2024(01), GEIST Working Paper Series.

    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    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. Neil A. Thompson, 2018. "Biofuels are (Not) the Future! Legitimation Strategies of Sustainable Ventures in Complex Institutional Environments," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-14, April.
    5. Torbjörn Ljungkvist & Jim Andersén, 2021. "A taxonomy of ecopreneurship in small manufacturing firms: A multidimensional cluster analysis," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(2), pages 1374-1388, February.
    6. 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.
    7. Linda Westman & Christopher Luederitz & Aravind Kundurpi & Alexander Julian Mercado & Sarah Lynn Burch, 2023. "Market transformations as collaborative change: Institutional co‐evolution through small business entrepreneurship," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 936-957, February.
    8. 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.
    9. Diego Matricano, 2017. "The influence of sustainable entrepreneurship culture on start-up expectations: A comparative analysis," RIVISTA DI STUDI SULLA SOSTENIBILITA', FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 0(1), pages 71-89.
    10. Janis Balodis, 2017. "The European Territorial Cooperation as the Tool for Europe's Integration: Example of Latvia - Belarus Cross - Border Cooperation," European Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies Articles, Revistia Research and Publishing, vol. 2, January A.
    11. Eduard-Gabriel Ceptureanu & Sebastian-Ion Ceptureanu & Mihai Cristian Orzan & Ovidiu Niculae Bordean & Violeta Radulescu, 2017. "Empirical Study on Sustainable Opportunities Recognition. A Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) Joinery Industry Analysis Using Augmented Sustainable Development Process Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-36, September.
    12. Ana Criado-Gomis & Amparo Cervera-Taulet & Maria-Angeles Iniesta-Bonillo, 2017. "Sustainable Entrepreneurial Orientation: A Business Strategic Approach for Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-20, September.
    13. 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.
    14. Progress Choongo & Elco Van Burg & Leo J. Paas & Enno Masurel, 2016. "Factors Influencing the Identification of Sustainable Opportunities by SMEs: Empirical Evidence from Zambia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-24, January.
    15. I. E. Nikolaou & K. Tasopoulou & K. Tsagarakis, 2018. "A Typology of Green Entrepreneurs Based on Institutional and Resource-based Views," Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, vol. 27(1), pages 111-132, March.
    16. 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.
    17. 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.
    18. Trin Thananusak, 2019. "Science Mapping of the Knowledge Base on Sustainable Entrepreneurship, 1996–2019," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(13), pages 1-20, June.
    19. Heshmati, Almas, 2015. "A Review of the Circular Economy and its Implementation," IZA Discussion Papers 9611, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Muñoz, Pablo & Dimov, Dimo, 2015. "The call of the whole in understanding the development of sustainable ventures," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 632-654.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:bla:bstrat:v:29:y:2020:i:8:p:3055-3071. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-0836 .

    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.