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Title How informational stimuli, formative experiences, and socialization can activate values to foster sustainable entrepreneurship engagement
ID_Doc 78543
Authors Hansen, CN; Brühl, R
Title How informational stimuli, formative experiences, and socialization can activate values to foster sustainable entrepreneurship engagement
Year 2024
Published
DOI 10.1111/beer.12688
Abstract Research has shown that specific individual values, such as green and environmental values, are important in motivating the decision to start a sustainable business. Beyond this finding, there is limited knowledge about why, how, and when such values become important and what this means for sustainable entrepreneurship engagement. We address this question abductively and conduct a multi-case study of 18 sustainable entrepreneurs and their fashion companies. Drawing on the self-activation and the impressionable years hypotheses, we identified three ways in which sustainability-oriented values become activated and more important to individuals: (1) through informational stimuli, (2) through formative and life-changing experiences, and (3) through socialization. Further, we show that the entrepreneurs engaged in reflexive learning due to the value-activating experience, whereby they critically questioned their assumptions and actions. Together, one or more value activations and the involved reflexive learning contributed significantly to the decision to become a sustainable entrepreneur. With this novel explanation for why and how values become engaged in the first place, we contribute to the theory of (sustainable) entrepreneurship. Further, our research helps devise value-activating strategies for practitioners who want to help (prospective) entrepreneurs act more in line with their sustainability-oriented values and start a sustainable business.
Author Keywords abduction; case study; entrepreneurial decision-making; sustainable entrepreneurship; value activation
Index Keywords Index Keywords
Document Type Other
Open Access Open Access
Source Social Science Citation Index (SSCI)
EID WOS:001219352400001
WoS Category Business; Ethics
Research Area Business & Economics; Social Sciences - Other Topics
PDF https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/beer.12688
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