Entrepreneurship as a Platform for Pursuing Multiple Goals: A Special Issue on Sustainability, Ethics, and Entrepreneurship

• Date: 01 July 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12214
• Author: Johanna Mair,Michael Russo,Gideon D. Markman,P. Devereaux (Dev) Jennings,G. T. Lumpkin
• Published date: 01 July 2016

Entrepreneurship as a Platform for Pursuing Multiple

Goals: A Special Issue on Sustainability, Ethics, and

Entrepreneurship

Gideon D. Markman, Michael Russo, G. T. Lumpkin,

P. Devereaux (Dev) Jennings and Johanna Mair

Colorado State University; University of Oregon; University of Oklahoma; University of Alberta; Hertie

School of Governance

ABSTRACT The great challenge of sustainability is addressed by firms with varying levels of

social and environmental responsibility and performance. Though traditionally, firms sought a

balance, we argue that this is not enough. Rather, we advocate that the natural environment

be the foundation on which society resides and the economy operates. Sustainable, ethical,

entrepreneurial (SEE) enterprises are moving in this direction, seeking to regenerate the

environment and drive positive societal changes rather than only minimizing harm. We also

note that sustainability is justified and motivated by ethical considerations and pioneered by

entrepreneurial engagement. The eight articles included in this Special Issue draw from cross-

disciplinary scholarship to elaborate how SEE enterprises approach sustainability through new

organizational forms, business models and innovation, and new governance mechanisms. They

also emphasize the roles of institutional forces and logics, government policies and social

movements for promoting or impeding sustainable practices. Collectively, they reveal new and

compelling insights while spotlighting the great questions for SEE enterprise that await study.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, ethics, sustainability

INTRODUCTION

Sustainability is an urgent, global concern. Humans now consume 50 per cent more

resources than the Earth can provide and by 2030, even the carrying capacity of two

planets will fail to supply our resource needs (World Wildlife Fund, 2012). The same

Address for reprints: Gideon D. Markman, Colorado State University, 218 Rockwell Hall, Fort Collins, CO

80523, USA (gideon.markman@colostate.edu).

Authors contributed equally.

We thank the entire team of the Journal of Management Study, our authors, hundreds of reviewers, and

the Sustainability, Ethics, and Entrepreneurship (SEE) Conference, all of which provided invaluable sup-

port for the development of this Special Issue.

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C2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Society for the Advancement of Management Studies

Journal of Management Studies 53:5 July 2016

doi: 10.1111/joms.12214

report shows that our footprint is exceeding the Earth’s biocapacity – the productive

land and ocean areas available to produce renewable resources and absorb CO2 emis-

sions – by more than 50 per cent. Similarly, each year we dump 8 million tonnes of plas-

tic particles and by-product into rivers, lakes, and oceans; and if this rate continues, by

2050 the oceans will contain more tonnes of plastic than tonnes of fish (World Economic

Forum, 2015). Earth has entered a new epoch, the Anthropocene (‘New Man’). This

transformation is pivotal, because unlike earlier epochs, which were triggered by natural

events, the culprit of the Anthropocene is humans (Hoffman and Jennings, 2015; Steffen

et al., 2007; Wigginton, 2016). As a result, in addition to environmental concerns, we

now consider many social and ethical challenges, such as destitute poverty, slavery, cor-

ruption, and overpopulation (to name a few), to be part of the sustainability problem.

Because our actions – and inaction – pose a great threat to sustainability, it is this imper-

ative we address it; that’s the focal impetus for this Special Issue.

Of course, the issue of sustainability and the effort to bring sustainable development

are not new, as the early definition of sustainability from the World Commission on Envi-

ronment and Development (WCED, 1987) shows: ‘the ability to meet the needs of the

present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’.

Even with a heightened awareness of and commitment to Sustainable Development Goals

(SDG), 17 goals (and 169 accompanying targets) that the UN expects to achieve by 2030,

most corporations prioritize economics first, followed by social and ethical issues, and

then the environment. Ongoing research in this area – as well as the growth of social

entrepreneurship – brought greater awareness that sustainability requires firms to balance

environmental, societal, and economic n eeds and goals (Aguinis and Glavas, 2012 ; den

Hond et al., 2014; Walsh et al., 2013). For example, many global brands such as FedEx

Kinkos, Nike and Tesco, as well as small firms use the triple bottom line approach (Elkington,

1998) to measure and balance environmental, social, a nd economic performance.

Expanded accountability is certainly an important step, but our assessment – based

on media reports, published research, and over 120 papers that we reviewed for this

Special Issue – is that organizations are struggling to balance these goals. While new

construction technology and material science make it possible to erect net-zero build-

ings,

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we are unaware of net-zero or fully sustainable firms, so we certainly recognize

the challenge that sustainability poses to business operations. We wonder, however, if

the traditional approach of seeking to balance the needs of the environment, society, and

economics goes far enough. After all, the society and its economy are nested, such that

the economy is embedded within society, which itself resides within the biophysical envi-

ronment (Doppelt, 2008; Giddings et al., 2002; Montabon et al., 2016). If the natural

environment is the ultimate foundation for everything else (Ehrenfeld and Hoffman,

2013; Gladwin et al., 1995), then balanced approaches are certainly necessary, but

might not be sufficient. Instead, sustainability requires organizations to prioritize the

environment first, society second, and economics third, as opposed to balancing all three

(Markman and Krause, 2016). This prioritization suggests that organizations would

need to transition from the customary ‘do-less-harm’ thinking to more proactive ‘do-no-

harm’ or better yet ‘do-good’ paradigms that restore and enhance the natural environ-

ment. Certain sustainable, ethical, entrepreneurial (SEE) enterprises are beginning to priori-

tize their activities according to this paradigm, and we suspect that this shift will be

674 G. D. Markman et al.

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C2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd and Society for the Advancement of Management Studies