Sustainable Entrepreneurship in Developing Contexts: A Problem-Solving Approach by SME Entrepreneurs

Sustainable entrepreneurship provides the possibility of fighting social and environmental problems with a profitable business. Current literature has so far been unable to entirely explain, both at conceptual and empirical levels, how and why particular individuals decide to pursue opportunities with social, environmental, and intergenerational components concurrent with pursuing economic viability, nor capture the complexity and configurational nature of sustainability entrepreneurship. This research attempts to respond to the recent calls for further study into the process and understanding of sustainable entrepreneurship in developing countries (Millar & Russell, 2011; Spence et al., 2011; Binder & Belz, 2015; Chassé & Boiral, 2017). There is a research gap in the understanding of sustainable entrepreneurship, and the way in which sustainable entrepreneurs establish their businesses and experience difficulties during the start-up process is far from wholly understood (Hoogendoorn et al., 2019). Despite the increasing interest in the sustainable entrepreneurship process over the last decade, few researchers have investigated how entrepreneurs prioritise and incorporate sustainability issues when establishing their ventures (Muñoz & Cohen, 2018). Dhahri & Omri (2018) claim that very few existing studies have investigated the relationship between entrepreneurship and the three dimensions of sustainability in an integrated framework and in the context of developing countries. Our study will address this research gap by providing an understanding of how the micro-SME entrepreneurs (owners/managers) in developing countries understand, formulate, and interpret the concept of sustainable entrepreneurship.