No abstract

This article explains how collective environmental entrepreneurship can ensure the sustainable exploitation of opportunities based on natural resources. We discuss the major threats entrepreneurial ventures face in pursuing potential nature-based opportunities and the collective action they take to preserve the associated natural resources while also providing access to them. This analysis adds to our understanding of environmental entrepreneurship by detailing the possible problems associated with exploiting potential nature-based opportunities, the ways ventures can come together to collectively address these exploitation challenges, and the benefits of such collective action (for both ventures and nature).

Sustainable management of nature-based tourism sites is a pertinent issue in vulnerable Arctic environments. Arctic tourism operators often act collectively to protect their common interests of ensuring the sustainability of tourism sites. Nowadays, information and communication technology (ICT) is increasingly used to support these collaborative efforts, but the remoteness and risks associated with Arctic tourism operations challenge the success of such collective action. This study explores the use of ICT as a management tool for Arctic tourism sites to ensure their sustained quality. Drawing on a case study of an expedition cruise operators' network in Svalbard, we explore how the use of ICT affects collective action and sustainable management of tourism sites. Our findings show that, through increased noticeability, the creation of artificial proximity and the development of new management practices, ICT can help to overcome the challenges for collective action that are posed by the Arctic environment. The use of ICT results in changes in a network's relational and normative structures, which can as much add to as detract from the success of collective action. Our study indicates that the successful application of ICT depends on a high level of social capital, in particular norms, to guide interactions between ICT and network actors.

Geopolitical interventions since the end of the 1980s—such as the collapse of the Soviet Union, a decline in the activities of state-owned coal companies, and governmental initiatives to increase tourism activities—have affected the community viability of two main settlements on Svalbard: Barentsburg and Longyearbyen. This paper explores how the residents of these settlements (with different cultural backgrounds) perceive the effects of socioeconomic transitions on community viability. The analysis of qualitative interviews with residents of Barentsburg (n = 62) and Longyearbyen (n = 36) reveals the residents’ perceptions of the pace of the transition and the changing community composition. New types of commercial activities, such as tourism, contribute to local value creation and socioeconomic development but come with concerns grounded in community fluctuation, environmental protection, economic prioritisation, and power relationships. Compared to Longyearbyen, Barentsburg has undergone relatively minor demographic and social changes and remains stable in terms of culture, language, and management practices. We conclude that the viability of Longyearbyen and Barentsburg during the transition was affected by community dynamics and fluctuations, social relationships within and between communities, and local institutional practices.

Previous studies discuss how regulatory, technological and market drivers increasingly challenge manufacturing industries to adopt eco-innovations. However, the understanding of the process by which eco-innovations are developed and commercialized as a result of these drivers is not yet well established, in particular because these drivers are perceived differently by the end-users and their suppliers. In this paper, we address the following research question: How do eco-innovation drivers shape processes in value-creating networks? To answer this question, we carried out a case study purposely selected to understand how eco-innovation drivers, such as regulation, market pull and technology, interact and affect the eco-innovation decisions in a given industry. We analyzed the processes in an eco-innovation initiative about retrofitting old ships, contextualized in the maritime equipment and supply industry. The paper makes two novel contributions: First, we develop a framework that can support supply-network eco-innovation initiatives to deal with changes at the regulatory, market and technology levels. The framework includes elements, such as value co-creation to explore technological opportunities emerging from the interaction of the drivers or value proposition development to align multiple actors' interests in the network and agree on shared expectations to exploit the opportunities. Second, we contribute to the emerging research area on eco-innovation processes by highlighting the lesser-known role of value-creating network dynamics. Value-creating networks can be a platform for the development of more radical eco-innovations if actors in the networks can align their value creation and capture objectives.