Wanting to change the world, is it too much of a good thing? How sustainable orientation shapes entrepreneurial behaviour

When pursuing a sustainable orientation (SO), entrepreneurs can resolve environmental and social problems and act as change agents by pursuing opportunities related to market failures. While many studies focus on entrepreneurial intention, very few try to explain entrepreneurial behaviour. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the circumstances under which people could be led to become sustainable entrepreneurs. It examines the effect of SO, as well as the entrepreneurial motivation to change society as key drivers of entrepreneurial behaviour.

The hypotheses were tested in three waves (six-month interval) on a sample of 197 university students that are neither entrepreneurs, nor involved in any entrepreneurial processes. The authors measured entrepreneurial behaviour as a dependent variable and used subjective norms towards entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, entrepreneurial attitude as well as entrepreneurial motivation and SO as independent variables.

Contrary to the expectations, sustainability orientation has a negative impact on entrepreneurial action. However, individuals who think that entrepreneurship can change society (instrumentality) exhibit higher entrepreneurial action. Furthermore, this belief positively moderates the negative impact of SO on entrepreneurial action. In other words, if someone thinks that entrepreneurship can change the world, not only he/she is more inclined to engage in entrepreneurial actions but their values of SO will not decrease their entrepreneurial action.

A longer timeframe of longitudinal research is needed to overcome the limitation regarding the assessment of entrepreneurial action.

As a practical implication, educators who want to engage their institution as an engine of change towards sustainable development could highlight cases of sustainable businesses where profits, environmental and social issues were not neglected to improve the perceived feasibility and thus, entrepreneurial action.

Results demonstrate the negative effect of SO on entrepreneurship as a career choice, but not for those who believe that they can change society through this mean. This research highlights the relevance of Socio Cognitive Career Theory in the field of entrepreneurship, especially the neglected effect of outcome expectations on entrepreneurship as a career choice.