Opportunity identification for sustainable entrepreneurship: Exploring the interplay of individual and context level factors in India
通过定性研究，分析了印度可持续能源和道德服装两个领域的创业者如何识别机会，发现个体背景和动机因素在印度情境下具有独特性，且不同地区的情境因素存在显著差异。
Abstract Sustainable entrepreneurship is becoming an increasingly established topic within the entrepreneurship literature. The phenomenon of businesses incorporating social and environmental agendas within their core activities has gathered an increasing academic interest. However, few empirical studies have explored the stage of opportunity identification in the sustainable entrepreneurship process in a more systematic manner, even more so in non‐Western contexts such as India. We structure our analysis using a framework situated in the conventional entrepreneurship literature and the literature on National Business Systems (NBS). We conduct a qualitative study to explore the motivations of Indian sustainable entrepreneurs in two sectors: sustainable energy and ethical clothing. While we find that the conventional entrepreneurship based framework provides crucial insights to understand opportunity identification within sustainable entrepreneurship, we also observe a number of features unique to sustainable entrepreneurship in the Indian context—including the personal backgrounds of the participants as well as prioritization of motivational factors. Importantly, we find notable within‐country variation in the contextual factors that appear to shape motivational dynamics. In the words of one participant, “there are many Indias” rather than one monolithic approach to sustainable entrepreneurship in India.