Sharing economy businesses have emerged in recent years as a disruptive approach to the traditional way of planning, modeling and doing business. The phenomenon has gained significant traction within ...a wide range of domains including entrepreneurship, innovation, technology and management more broadly. Despite this surge and interest, there is a lack of empirical research regarding the increasing diversity of sharing economy business models and the implications for business growth, community impact, sustainability and public policy. With this research, we sought to leverage a rigorous comparative method, fs/QCA, to assess the business models of 36 firms in the sharing economy. Leveraging a rich set of qualitative data, our analysis leveraged seven dimensions of sharing economy business models drawn from extant research, revealing a typology comprising five ideal types that collectively account for the constellation of possible, empirically-relevant business models across the sharing economy. The emergent dilemmas and paradoxes as well as implications of these typologies of business models for startups, investors and policymakers are explored.
•Sharing business modeling is complex yet the one-size model fits all logic prevails.•It seeks to understand the inner complexity and diversity of sharing business models.•Using fsQCA, it analyses 36 firms deriving a typology of 5 business models.•It enables a more fine-grained understanding of the sharing business space.•It reveals a number of paradoxes, challenges and opportunities for a range of actors.
Calls for a transformation towards more sustainable consumption and production (SCP) have been intensifying. As urban populations swell across the planet, cities are faced with increasing pressure on ...infrastructure, economic and ecological systems. Yet, with their high population densities and ubiquity of information and communication technologies, cities are becoming breeding grounds for a new, circular economy driven by emerging and long-standing sharing activities. This research provides a comprehensive view of SCP systems in cities by integrating and examining sharing economy activities in the context of two continuums, i.e. SCP and private/public orientation. Based on these two analytical dimensions, the paper evaluates and plots five groups of 18 sharing activities to create a Sharing Cities-SCP Typology comprised by five ideal types. Each of these five types represents a unique form of SCP activity, with the potential to directly impact SCP systems in the context of urban environments. By enabling diversity and hybridity in the SCP analysis, we allow for a theoretical expansion of SCP models and a new way of understanding how they may play out in cities.
•The paper examines the relationship between sharing economy activities and SCP in cities.•It analyzes several classification alternatives in light of substantive data.•It examines sharing activities in light of two continuums, i.e. SCP and private/public orientation.•It evaluates 18 activities to develop a Sharing Cities-SCP Typology comprised of 5 ideal types, each representing a unique form of SCP activity.•In the context of sustainable business, we extend the notion of hybrid modeling by incorporating the consumption and production dimensions.
In social entrepreneurship, social and economic missions co-exist in a tensioned balance. At times, business survival requires reprioritizing objectives, leading social entrepreneurs to drift away ...from social values in pursuit of commercial gains. This requires (re)balancing acts aimed at mitigating the effects of drift. Although critical for business survival, the micro antecedents of this balancing act remain uncovered. This study explores the complex interactions between the strategic conditions of social entrepreneurs in the development of market-oriented social missions. Drawing on a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis of 111 social entrepreneurs in Chile, this study reveals four alternative combinations of strategic conditions that explain why the social mission of a social entrepreneur can be perceived as being valuable for achieving a competitive advantage. The findings contribute to a more complex understanding of the set of conditions involved in the balancing act between social and economic missions in social entrepreneurship. This study calls into question the binary assumption underlying the commitment of social entrepreneurs to their social mission.
This paper examines the development process of sustainable ventures by focusing on three substantive markers, namely the ideas, actions, and exchange relationships articulated and instigated by the ...entrepreneurs in question. Based on data from 45 sustainability-oriented new ventures, it examines the causal configurations behind the manifestations of these markers using Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparison Analysis (fsQCA). The analysis also reveals two distinct opportunity development paths. The first, conformist, operates in an enabling supporting context as sustainability conveyor. The second, insurgent, path operates as a change agent against an establishment that is not conducive to sustainability ideals.
•We examine the development of sustainable ventures by focusing on ideas, actions and exchange relationships.•It uses a fuzzy set approach of 45 sustainable ventures to identify the causal conjunctions of six relevant factors.•It reveals two distinct venture development paths: conformist and insurgent.•It opens up the black box of the process that connects ideas for sustainability and their ultimate entrepreneurial enactment.•It highlights the conjunctural and equifinal nature of causal relationships in the development process of sustainable ventures.
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This study examines the local institutional complexity of social entrepreneurship. Building on a novel fuzzy-set analysis of 407 social entrepreneurs in the UK, the study identifies five ...configurations of local institutional forces that collectively explain the confidence of social entrepreneurs in successfully managing their business. The findings demonstrate that local authorities are a dominant condition; yet combinations of other complementary—more and less formalized—local institutions need to be in place to promote the development of social entrepreneurship.
Purpose
Under what conditions do entrepreneurs make the sustainable decisions they need to develop socially and environmentally responsible new businesses? Explanations of sustainable decision-making ...have involved various cognitive features; however, it is not yet clear how they play a role in empirical terms and, moreover, how they combine to induce business decisions based on social, environmental and economic considerations. The purpose of this paper is to explore how five cognitive factors combine and causally connect to produce sustainable decision-making in entrepreneurship.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to examine the decision-making of 37 sustainable entrepreneurs. It focuses on a substantive conception of entrepreneurial behaviour to uncover the cognitive antecedents underlying entrepreneurial decisions that involve the explicit development and implementation of measures, targets and strategies aimed at improving its impact on people and the environment.
Findings
The configurational analysis reveals a typology comprising five combinations of cognitive factors constituting a comprehensive cognitive map of sustainable decision-making in entrepreneurship, namely: purpose-driven, determined; value-based, vacillating; value-based, unintended; single motive, single solution; and purpose-driven, hesitant.
Research limitations/implications
This study demonstrates that no single condition is necessary nor sufficient for triggering decision-making involving social and environmental concerns, revealing five mental models leading to sustainable decision-making. In doing so, this paper responds to recent calls that stress the need for studies capable of uncovering the complex constellation of cognitive factors underlying entrepreneurial sustainable behaviour. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Originality/value
This paper provides a systematic characterization of the cognitive underpinnings of sustainable decision-making and offers a basis for organizing the study of sustainable outcomes and configurations of cognitive antecedents. It reconciles prior efforts aimed at characterizing sustainability decisions in the context of SMEs and new enterprises, challenging current models based on awareness, experience and ethical normative frameworks.
In this paper, we revisit the entrepreneurship and poverty relationship under a eudaimonic perspective that brings together conversion factors, and future prosperity expectations. Based on an fsQCA ...of changes in life circumstances of 166 farm households in rural Kenya, we explore how different combinations of conversion factors enable distinct forms of entrepreneuring in the pursuit of prosperity. Results show that strong entrepreneurship-enabled future prosperity expectations result from three combinations of enabling conversion factors shaping up three varieties of entrepreneurial endeavors: family-frugal, individual-market, and family-inwards, which show a much more diverse and counterintuitive reality. Our research contributes to literature by revealing and theorizing on a split picture portraying the many ways in which farmers, acting as everyday entrepreneurs, exploit real opportunities in seemingly identical impoverished communities. It also reveals a central disconnect between entrepreneurship, life-satisfaction and financial improvements when assessed against expectations of future prosperity. In doing so, this paper responds to calls for a better understanding of the processes whereby entrepreneurship can distinctively improve current and future life circumstances, and the many ways in which this may happen.
•We revisit the relationship between poverty and entrepreneurship under a eudaimonic perspective•We explore how combinations of conversion factors enable distinct forms of entrepreneuring in the pursuit of prosperity•Future prosperity expectations result from three combinations of enabling conversion factors•It reveals three varieties of entrepreneuring in seemingly identical contexts•It reveals a central disconnect between entrepreneurship, life-satisfaction and financial improvements•It offers a better understanding of the processes whereby entrepreneurship can improve life circumstances in poverty contexts
Agglomeration-oriented theories have grown significantly in the past decade in the explanation and promotion of entrepreneurship. Theoretical frameworks and normative models such as entrepreneurial ...ecosystems are insufficient to observe, explain, and inform policies at the communal level in rural contexts. In this paper, we propose a socio-spatial lens as a more fruitful way of understanding the holistic picture of rural entrepreneurship. By means of abductive research, we explore the distinct elements of entrepreneurial places in rural contexts and derive an integrated meso-level framework, comprising place-sensitive determinations and dimensions, to observe and further analyse the enabling conditions of such places. The findings obtained and the framework developed will be of great use for the evaluation and decision-making, regarding entrepreneurship in rural communities.
In the collective imagination, the practices and outcomes of social entrepreneurship seem to hold hope for a better future. So far, these practices have been largely assumed as idealised types with ...the ‘social’ in social entrepreneurship underexplored. Such assumed neutrality, we argue, is hampering the development of a more robust theoretical corpus for understanding the phenomenon and inspiring practices that are more effective. In this article, we analyse the sensemaking of the social in social entrepreneurship by exploring the ways in which social entrepreneurs make sense of social problems and develop solutions for addressing them. Our empirical analyses of the stories of 15 social entrepreneurs indicate two distinct types of sensemaking and sensegiving practices, aligned with Amartya Sen’s notions of social justice. Drawing on these findings, sensemaking and social justice theory, we elaborate a two-type social sensemaking model pertaining to the appreciation and assessment of circumstances and the differing problem/solution combinations emerging from alternative ontological views of what constitutes a social problem.
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