Purpose 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. Design/methodology/approach 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. Findings 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. Research limitations/implications A longer timeframe of longitudinal research is needed to overcome the limitation regarding the assessment of entrepreneurial action. Practical implications 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. Originality/value 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.
A decentralized supply chain that integrates biomass depots as an intermediate pre‐processing hub may be an efficient way to obtain stable and dense non‐food carbohydrate commodities that are economically transportable over long distances. This paper presents an integrated geographic information systems (GIS) method based on transport optimization to design and compare the performance of a decentralized versus a centralized biorefinery supply system. The method determines the suitable locations, allocations, sizing, and number of depots according to different demand location scenarios. The method is exemplified by a real case study in southern Quebec. In the design, the biomass depot generates raw sugar, shipped to the biorefinery, and co‐products that are used on site without transportation as animal feed and bioenergy. This diversification strategy provided by a joint production permits savings amounting to two‐thirds of the tonnage on the second transportation arc. The results present the average travel time performance in minutes in different scenarios. In the centralized configuration, the optimized stand‐alone biorefinery location scenario is 45% (59 min) and 58% (100 min) more efficient in terms of transportation than the two biorefineries located in existing industrial parks. However, the latter have a decentralized configuration that is more efficient than their centralized equivalents. In the decentralized configuration, depending on farmer participation, the biorefineries located in the existing industrial park have a transportation performance 16–42% (27–55 min) that is more efficient than their respective centralized configuration. Smaller depots and the use of numerous depots tend to reduce the average impedance as biomass availability increases. This is due to the economies of transportation related to a denser and more meshed network. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
Tous droits réservés © Editions EMS -In Quarto SARL, 2015Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d'auteur. L'utilisation des services d'Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d'utilisation que vous pouvez consulter en ligne.https://apropos.erudit.org/fr/usagers/politique-dutilisation/ Cet article est diffusé et préservé par Érudit.Érudit est un consortium interuniversitaire sans but lucratif composé de l'Université de Montréal, l'Université Laval et l'Université du Québec à Montréal. Il a pour mission la promotion et la valorisation de la recherche. Résumé de l'article Les recherches sur le développement durable (DD) au sein des PME se multiplient depuis 10 ans. Elles ont permis de clarifier les principaux concepts et de partager un ensemble de constats, particulièrement à propos des « freins à l'engagement » et des retombées positives liées à celui-ci. Malgré ce volume de travaux, nous savons peu de choses sur les facteurs qui favorisent cet engagement, si ce n'est que les valeurs du dirigeant l'alimentent. Mais qu'en est-il des autres déterminants possibles ? L'intérêt de cette question est lié d'une part au constat d'une nécessaire implication des PME pour s'approcher d'un réel DD et, d'autre part, aux besoins des pouvoirs publics et des organismes d'accompagnement qui souhaitent « mieux » soutenir les dirigeants dans la mise en place des pratiques de DD. Les résultats d'une enquête à laquelle ont répondu 314 dirigeants de PME québécoises révèlent qu'une combinaison de facteurs contextuels, organisationnels et individuels a une influence sur la sensibilité des PME au DD. Ainsi, pour les accompagner sur cette voie, il faut agir à la fois sur les contextes dans lesquels elles opèrent, notamment auprès des organismes régionaux où elles sont implantées, sur leurs capacités organisationnelles, particulièrement celles liées à l'innovation, et surtout sur les valeurs du dirigeant. Cependant, ces actions devront être modulées selon la taille des PME, laquelle joue un rôle majeur sur les facteurs à mobiliser. 157La conjugaison des facteurs contextuels, organisationnels et individuels comme déterminant de la sensibilité des PME au sujet du développement durable
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