Sustainable Development: An Integrated Framework Of Sustainable Entrepreneurial Competencies, Practices, And Performance

Sustainable entrepreneurial practices

The sustainable entrepreneurship has emerged as a novel topic at the juncture of entrepreneurship and sustainable management. Diverse academic researchers have made attempt to explore this novel area ( Binder & Belz, 2015; Thompson et al., 2011). Two viewpoints in the context of sustainable entrepreneurship are considered. Scholars of sustainable management journals consider entrepreneurial activities under the umbrella of sustainable developments ( Parrish & Foxon, 2006). Contrary to that, researchers also view that opportunities and orientation of the sustainability and entrepreneurship go in parallel ( Patzelt & Shepherd, 2011). In congruence to the latter, sustainable entrepreneurship concerns about the identification, development, and exploitation of business opportunities through balancing triple bottom lines ( Belz & Binder, 2017).

Sustainable entrepreneurship focuses on the balancing of there goals i.e. social, economic, and ecological. Such diversity of goals lead to the innovative behaviors and may drive opportunity recognition, development, and exploitation activities among employees. Sustainable entrepreneurship ensures to run smooth business operations without any hazard to future generations resources ( World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). Such entrepreneurial practices takes into account intragenerational equity and intergenerational equity ( Thompson et al., 2011). Such entrepreneurship is applicable to the profit mission and hybrid structure. So far, a few studies have explored sustainable entrepreneurship ( Belz & Binder, 2017). Extant research has suggested exploring this nascent research area ( Belz & Binder, 2017).

Despite the significance of sustainable entrepreneurship, there are so far seven empirical studies in ecological and social context where opportunities recognition, development and exploitations were brought into discussion ( Belz & Binder, 2017; Choi & Majumdar, 2014; Corner & Ho, 2010; Keskin et al., 2013; Perrini et al., 2010; Robinson, 2006; Shaw & Carter, 2007). All studies have employed a qualitative approach to their investigation. Besides Choi and Majumdar ( 2014), all researchers have taken those organization that is only concerned with double bottom line i.e. economic and environmental or social goals.

All studies except Perrini et al. ( 2010) and Belz and Binder ( 2017), have explored the sustainable entrepreneurial process with respect to opportunity recognition, development, and exploitation in parallel with sustainable performance. Perrini et al. ( 2010) have investigated the non-profit organization through balancing two goals i.e. economic and social or environmental. Belz and Binder ( 2017) has contributed to the literature by providing six phases of sustainable entrepreneurial process. According to Belz and Binder ( 2017), ecological, environmental and social goals are accomplished sequentially, not simultaneously.

Sustainable Entrepreneurship involves recognition of certain social and ecological problems in the professional or private domain. According to Cohen and Winn ( 2007), market imperfection actually generates entrepreneurial opportunities. Market imperfections comprise polluted information, flawed pricing mechanisms and inefficient firms ( Cohen & Winn, 2007). Sustainable entrepreneurs deem market imperfections as opportunities. So, sustainable entrepreneurial practices involve opportunity recognition based on economic or social problems. The sustainability ventures highly rely on the sustainability goals i.e. how organizations convert goals into products with attributes valued by clients ( Keskin et al., 2013). Similarly, Dangelico and Pujari ( 2010) have emphasized over the incorporation of the environmental and traditional attributes such as quality and price into sustainable products. Furthermore, social and ecological attributes significantly contribute to sustainable ventures. Sustainable entrepreneurship is highly related to other concepts like social entrepreneurship and ecopreneur ship. Social entrepreneurship considers only economic and social values ( Choi & Majumdar, 2014) whereas, ecopreneur only take into account economic and ecological goals ( Schaltegger & Wagner, 2011). Without the integration of the third attribute, there is no sustainable entrepreneurship because of a triple bottom line characteristic of sustainable development. Entrepreneurs have always limited financial resources ( Jonsson & Lindbergh, 2013). Sustainable entrepreneurs must draw on a variety of financial resources securing funding for their sustainable ventures to obtain seed capital. As compared to sustainable entrepreneurs, hybrid organization are at ease to secure funding. Sustainable Entrepreneurial practices also involve penetrating into a sustainable market by introducing new sustainable product or service ( Belz & Binder, 2017).

Sustainable competencies

Knowledge, skills, and attitudes have vital importance to sustainable development ( Ploum et al., 2018). Competency comprises of skills, attitude, and knowledge ( Mulder, 2014). Competency enables employees to accomplish their job and solve problems relevant to challenges and opportunities ( Barth et al., 2007). Sustainability challenges are meaningful to a specific work environment. Sustainable performance drives the success for change agents in their workplace ( Hesselbarth & Schaltegger, 2014). Therefore, the work environment has substantial importance to sustainable development ( Ploum et al., 2018).

Change agents in the context of the work environment with respect to sustainable development may include sustainable entrepreneur, sustainable intrapreneurs, and corporate social responsible managers. According to Hesselbarth and Schaltegger ( 2014), competencies related to the specific change agents are derived from the combination of the competencies of entrepreneurship, sustainability and management literature. The literature on competencies from a commercial outlook is very scant ( Ploum et al., 2018). So far, Extent literature has revealed that six studies are relevant to sustainable competencies of change agent in a certain work environment i.e. ( Hesselbarth & Schaltegger, 2014; Lans et al., 2014; Osagie et al., 2016; Ploum et al., 2018; Wesselink et al., 2015). Hesselbarth and Schaltegger ( 2014), Osagie et al. ( 2016), and Wesselink et al. ( 2015) have focused on the competencies from the standpoint of corporate social responsibility. Lans et al. ( 2014) have explored sustainable competencies in the domain of would-be entrepreneurs i.e. those individuals who intend to be sustainable entrepreneurs. Ploum et al. ( 2018) have explained about competencies in relation to sustainable entrepreneurs.

Sustainable performance

Different researchers have conceptualized differently sustainability in a business context ( Montiel, 2008; Iqbal et al., 2020). Traditionally, corporate social responsibility (CSR) cope with social issues while on the other side environmental management take into account ecological issues ( Kaynak & Montiel, 2009). Academic researchers later realized that corporate social responsibility considers additional dimensions such as environment and/or economic, where corporate sustainability has emerged ( Kaynak & Montiel, 2009). Sustainability is a tri-dimensional construct based on social, economic, and environmental ( Iqbal, 2018). According to Bansal ( 2005), environmental integrity ensures that human activities do not erode air, water resources, and land, (ii) economic prosperity enhances quality of life through the inductive capacity of individuals and organizations within society and (III) social equity ensures the equal opportunities and resources for all members of the society ( Bansal, 2005). Furthermore, the integration of quality management with environmental management improves quality and ecological performance ( Wolf, 2014) that results in enhanced environmental and economic sustainability. Sustainable performance consists of four dimensions i.e. employee satisfaction, environmental performance, quality and inventory performance, market and financial performance that are synchronized to triple bottom line (social, environmental, economic) ( Foran et al., 2005).

Academic researchers have explored the issue of environmental sustainability on the large scale. According to Iqbal et al. ( 2018a), there is scant literature in the context of micro-level. Environmental sustainability highly relies on cognitive beliefs towards corporate social responsible practices ( Fassin et al., 2015) from the perspective of micro-level. Extent literature have emphasized to enhance the understandings from the perspective of micro firms ( Iqbal et al., 2018b). Being micro foundations, competencies with respect to resource-based view provide foundations for the organizational practices ( Nyberg et al., 2014). RBV Literature highly concludes that resources and practices have direct relationship ( Bowen, 2007). There are prevalence shreds of evidence about the substantial impact of heterogeneous organizational resources and individual characteristics on the environmental sustainability ( Gond et al., 2017; Stea et al., 2017). As, there is high demand for competent individuals to handle contemporary business operations in the presence of advanced technology so right time to explore relevant competenices. According to Akhtar et al. ( 2018), the role of competencies has so far been ignored in relation to environmental sustainability. This study contributes to the literature by developing a conceptual framework where competencies are integrated with practices and environmental performance.