Exploring Environmental Entrepreneurship: Identity Coupling, Venture Goals, and Stakeholder Incentives

Abstract

On the basis of a qualitative study of 25 renewable energy firms, we theorize why and how individuals engage in environmental entrepreneurship, inductively defined as: the use of both commercial and ecological logics to address environmental degradation through the creation of financially profitable organizations, products, services, and markets. Our findings suggest that environmental entrepreneurs: (1) are motivated by identities based in both commercial and ecological logics, (2) prioritize commercial and/or ecological venture goals dependent on the strength and priority of coupling between these two identity types, and (3) approach stakeholders in a broadly inclusive, exclusive, or co‐created manner based on identity coupling and goals. These findings contribute to literature streams on hybrid organizing, entrepreneurial identity, and entrepreneurship's potential for resolving environmental degradation.

Keywords: effectuation, entrepreneurial identity, environmental entrepreneurship, hybrid organizations, institutional logics, social enterprise, sustainability