Cleaning the window of opportunity: Towards a typology of sustainability entrepreneurs

Abstract

Essential for targeting the urgent societal challenges of today and tomorrow, entrepreneurial activity requires deeper, more thorough information on sustainability entrepreneurs. Through an opportunity recognition process lens, this study contributes to deriving a typology of sustainability entrepreneurs by underscoring their diversity and a variety of factors that can be used to differentiate between them. Analyzing 22 in-depth narrative interviews achieved a framework with dimensions helping derive different types of sustainability entrepreneurs. We use this to point out that sustainability entrepreneurs are not merely a homogeneous group of “do-gooders,” while also discussing factors that may influence the fruition process of sustainability-entrepreneurial endeavors. Along with delivering a basis for future research on the types of sustainability entrepreneurs, our results question current work by not only showing various forms of sustainability entrepreneurial activity, but also how the diversity of sustainability entrepreneurs can lead to a broader understanding of sustainability orientation and entrepreneurship.