New Business Models and Entrepreneurship for Sustainable Development

Dear Colleagues,

New systemic solutions are needed in order to deal with the complex societal challenges of our time, both globally and locally, as well as to tackle technological, economic, environmental problems. In this sense, the social and organizational levels of sustainability are very relevant for the sustainable development of a global society; however, the scientific knowledge on the transformative process, which leads to entirely new business models for sustainability, as opposed to philanthropy or corporate social responsibility, is rather limited in the sustainability management research (Schaltegger, Hansen, und Lüdeke-Freund, 2016). The dominant paradigms of economic organization in both corporate and small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) contexts have not caught up with the sustainable development era, but seem instead to be stalled in the Fordist, 20^th century era (Biloslavo, Bagnoli, und Edgar, 2018; Perlik, 2021). Therefore, new models, frameworks, approaches and philosophies are needed for modern sustainable economy and management. Recent research demonstrates that radically transformed business models need to merge the creation of economic value for firms whilst preventing unsustainable levels of resource extraction or consumption as well as asymmetrical levels of wealth distribution (Ergene, Banerjee, und Hoffman, 2021; Gasde u. a., 2020). However, even small, incremental changes in the cognition, artefacts and activities on the level of actor–network perspective in organizations can lead to a pervasive change (Laasch 2019). Therefore, both perspectives of new business models should be taken into account.

Entrepreneurship, as a phenomenon relevant to sustainability, has been recognized equally by global sustainable development policy (United Nations 2015), as well as the academic research community (Schaltegger und Wagner, 2011; Youssef, Boubaker, und Omri, 2018). Therefore, we would like to invite researchers interested in social entrepreneurship (Gupta u. a., 2020), ecological and environmental entrepreneurship (Gast, Gundolf, und Cesinger 2017) and sustainability entrepreneurship (Jayaratne, Sullivan Mort, und D’Souza, 2019), both from developed and developing countries.

The recent literature points to the need to differentiate between causation-oriented, long-term value proposition entrepreneurship for sustainability and effectuation-oriented, short-term value proposition entrepreneurship for sustainability (Johnson und Hörisch 2021; Keskin, Wever, und Brezet 2020). The future literature should, therefore, clarify, through case studies, the conditions under which sustainability-oriented effectuation entrepreneurship takes place, as well conditions and infrastructure necessary for this to take place. On the other hand, the conditions for sustainability-oriented causation entrepreneurship, where the need to achieve a more sustainable outcome is present, could be considered, and the means to achieve them are to be chosen should also be uncovered.

A very important future stream of research on sustainability-oriented entrepreneurship is the frugal entrepreneurship for sustainability, a topic highly relevant for the bottom of the pyramid of the global sustainable value chain (Arnold 2018; Yousaf u. a. 2021). Cases of fugal innovation from developing countries are therefore welcome, in order to enhance the understanding on the context where entrepreneurs start stripped from resources and try to make an impact with a very limited resource base, while at the same time following a sustainability perspective with a non-exclusive focus on profit generation.

Finally, the workforce is changing and it includes more and more female entrepreneurs. The full impact of having an increasing number of women entrepreneurs, especially regarding sustainability-oriented business models, has not been researched in detail (Barrachina Fernández, García-Centeno, und Calderón Patier, 2021). Another important issue related to female entrepreneurship for sustainability is the presence of more barriers and obstacles for female entrepreneurs to establish entrepreneurial legitimacy and how relational capital plays a crucial role in overcoming these barriers in women’s start-ups (Dal Mas und Paoloni, 2019; Garud, Schildt, und Lant, 2014). We especially encourage submissions dealing with the impact of female entrepreneurship on sustainability, as well as with the role of relational capital and entrepreneurial legitimacy in female entrepreneurship for sustainability.

The aim of the Special Issue is to provide novel impulses and ideas in the field of sustainability management by focusing on new business models and entrepreneurship for sustainability. Therefore, the focus of this Special Issue is on case studies and multiple case studies as a methodology suitable both as a research as well as a pedagogical method. Therefore, we invite action-oriented research with innovative approaches and academic rigor.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but not limited to) the following:

• SDGs and sustainability management;
• Entrepreneurial business management, marketing and branding for sustainability;
• Innovation management for sustainability (creativity, co-creation, Hackatons, e-learning);
• Novel business models for global sustainability;
• Social entrepreneurship and innovation;
• Ecological and environmental entrepreneurship and innovation;
• Sustainable entrepreneurship;
• Circular economy entrepreneurship;
• Upstream and downstream aspects of sustainability entrepreneurship;
• Effectuation-oriented entrepreneurship for sustainability;
• Causation-oriented entrepreneurship for sustainability;
• Frugal innovation and entrepreneurship for sustainable development;
• Women entrepreneurship and female entrepreneurship for sustainable development;
• Sustainability education as an entrepreneurial opportunity;
• Maintaining and regaining entrepreneurial legitimacy in the eyes of stakeholders through sustainability-oriented entrepreneurship.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Ivan Paunović
Dr. Marc Dressler
Dr. Coralie Haller
Dr. Tatjana Mamula Nikolić
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• sustainability management
• entrepreneurial business management
• novel business models
• circular economy