Do individuals who are concerned by issues of sustainability also exhibit stronger entrepreneurial intentions? Given that existing imperfections in the market create numerous opportunities for entrepreneurship connected with sustainable development, adding individual sustainability orientation to models of entrepreneurial intention could increase their explanatory power. Based on survey data collected from engineering and business students and alumni of three universities, we provide evidence that entering sustainability orientation into the equation is actually meaningful. However, our findings suggest that the positive impact of sustainability orientation vanishes with business experience. Consequently, we suggest measures to nourish an evidently existing potential for sustainable entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship is usually associated with numerous promises. From a policy makers' vantage point, entrepreneurial behavior of economic actors within an economy is supposed to increase the competitiveness of that economy in global markets and potentially creates new employment opportunities. From the perspective of an individual entrepreneur, exploiting entrepreneurial opportunities can be attractive because such opportunities bring with them the promise of a meaningful career and the potential of harvesting superior entrepreneurial rents.
The emerging stream of academic literature on sustainable entrepreneurship2 adds a new dimension to this promise. Entrepreneurship for sustainable development is supposed to result in more than economic success. Sustainable entrepreneurs manage to the “triple bottom line” (Elkington, 1997), in other words they balance economic health, social equity and environmental resilience through their entrepreneurial behavior. Sustainable entrepreneurship is thus associated with the promise of more traditional concepts of entrepreneurship, but also has additional potential both for society and the environment. Against this background, the recent upsurge of writing in this field is far from surprising. The topic of entrepreneurship for sustainable development lies at the nexus of innovation, sustainability concerns and entrepreneurship and has emerged as an intensively debated subject moving increasingly from journals focused on environmental management (e.g., Schaltegger, 2002) to mainstream business and entrepreneurship journals (e.g., Cohen and Winn, 2007 and Dean and McMullen, 2007). The phenomenon itself, however, is far from being a new one; history provides numerous examples of entrepreneurs pursuing sustainable business models as early as the 19th century (Anderson and Leal, 1997). Yet, due to its emergent character, to date most contributions have naturally remained conceptual or have reported results of case study research (e.g., Schaltegger, 2002). In light of the topic's importance and potential, we believe that it is time to move to the application of more rigorous research designs and that the discussion of sustainable entrepreneurship will benefit from the development of large-scale empirical research projects.
It is this gap in the literature that our paper addresses in one important aspect. In particular, we are interested in individuals who are concerned with environmental and societal issues, those who are sustainably oriented and thus could be interested in pursuing initiatives and forming businesses that support the idea of sustainability. In other words, we aim to answer the question of how sustainability orientation and entrepreneurial intentions are related in practice. Could it be that sustainability orientation adds to our understanding of entrepreneurial intentions and if so, what would be the consequences for entrepreneurship policy and entrepreneurial education? Therefore, we analyze the linkages between sustainability orientation amongst university students and their respective entrepreneurial intentions, since with this particular group goes considerable potential for educators to produce future entrepreneurs in environmentally and socially more sustainable fields of enterprise.
To do so, the paper proceeds along the following lines. First, we review the extant literature on sustainable entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial intentions with a specific focus on entrepreneurial education. Based on this literature review we derive two hypotheses that will be tested with empirical data collected from 712 students and alumni from three different universities. We essentially use statistical methods and econometric models well established in the entrepreneurship field to put our hypotheses to a rigorous test. After reporting our results, the findings are discussed together with their implications for entrepreneurship policy and entrepreneurship education.
With this study we aimed to contribute to the growing empirical literature on sustainable entrepreneurship by synthesizing results from the literature of entrepreneurial intentions, sustainable entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurship education. In this respect we were able to provide evidence that knowing the sustainability orientation of individuals can indeed add to our understanding of entrepreneurial intentions; moreover, we were able to highlight an important aspect of this relationship, namely its declining impact under the influence of business experience.
