Sustainable entrepreneurs intend to create environmental and social value while they build their financially viable business. With this in mind, they are embedded in multiple institutionalized value systems (i.e., institutional logics) that provide them with different, often contradictory values, beliefs, and guiding principles. Adhering to these value systems and integrating multiple forms of value into a coherent business model is a key task for sustainable entrepreneurs, yet current efforts lack insight into how this can be achieved. To address this, the article utilizes the institutional logic perspective in conjunction with the componential approach to business models. By analyzing a longitudinal in-depth case study, this article develops a novel theoretical model linking shifts in the entrepreneur’s perception of institutional logic to business model alterations, and emphasizes the underlying mechanisms and behavior of the sustainable entrepreneur. Sustainable entrepreneurs integrate and blend institutional logic through multiple business model transitions, which are characterized by a personal reorientation of the entrepreneur and new practices to implement change. Furthermore, our findings show that the entrepreneur’s habitus, the pre-change business model, and the change-specific dominant logic are integral and previously overlooked concepts that contextualize their business model transition. The findings and discussion advance the theoretical and practical understanding of the processes through which sustainable entrepreneurs integrate multiple forms of value into their business models. With that, the article contributes to research on sustainable entrepreneurship, institutional logic and business models.

This article investigates how sustainable entrepreneurship on digital platforms enacts digital connectivity to capture and create value. By complementing the business model lens with sociomateriality, we theorize digital technologies as key actors that participate in the enactment of business models. We analyze visual and textual data from 19 entrepreneurial initiatives for sustainability established on the social media platform YouTube. Our findings demonstrate novel business model configurations enacted by a web of human and nonhuman (digital) actors: connecting for sustainability as part of the value proposition, forming connective spaces for socioenvironmental value creation, and leveraging connectivity for multidimensional value capture. These findings have two major contributions. First, we offer novel insights on the practices that configure business model elements of sustainable entrepreneurship on platforms. We especially draw attention to how digital connectivity of platforms is achieved and made durable by human and digital actors. Second, we elaborate on how digital agencies intervene in entrepreneurial efforts to make sustainability visible and how this affects the business models. Thus, the study contributes to and further develops the intersection of digital technologies, sustainable entrepreneurship, and business models.

Purpose: Entrepreneurial identity aspiration refers to the desire to occupy an entrepreneurial role in the future and is an essential impetus for initially engaging in entrepreneurial activities. Building on identity theory, the article investigates the effects of personal attitudes, experiences and inclination towards specific practices on the strength of entrepreneurial identity aspiration.Design/methodology/approach: This article applies multiple linear regression analysis to test the developed hypotheses on an original sample of 127 vocational college students in Austria.Findings: Results show that risk-taking propensity, proactiveness, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and competitiveness drive entrepreneurial identity aspiration. The effects of innovativeness and need for achievement motivation are nonsignificant. Data further suggest that entrepreneurial identity aspiration is related to gender, while entrepreneurial exposure and previous entrepreneurship education show no or adverse effects.Practical implications: Based on our findings, the authors argue that education should focus on teaching and discussing the identified attitudes and inclinations to foster the formation of entrepreneurial identities. Doing so increases students' aspirations and provides them with the necessary cognitive underpinnings for subsequent entrepreneurial action. The article suggests action-based teaching to achieve this goal.Originality/value: This article is the first to investigate antecedents of entrepreneurial identity aspiration by connecting it to essential concepts of entrepreneurship research. The authors extend previous work on entrepreneurial identity and add to the theoretical approaches for research in entrepreneurship education. Furthermore, the article points out central aspects that should receive additional attention in educational settings.

Purpose: This study investigates antecedents determining the inclination to engage in future environmental entrepreneurial activities. Building on passion research and social cognitive theory, the authors explore the role of environmental passion for environmental entrepreneurial intention, drawing attention to the mediating role of environmental self-efficacy.Design/methodology/approach: A regression-based path analysis for mediation to test the developed hypotheses on a sample of 139 young individuals is applied.Findings: The results demonstrate a significant positive effect of environmental passion on environmental entrepreneurial intention. The mediation analysis shows a positive direct and indirect effect of passion on intention, concluding that self-efficacy is a partial mediator. The results further suggest that environmental entrepreneurial intention is related to gender. In contrast, covariates like age, entrepreneurial exposure and entrepreneurship education have no significant effect.Practical implications: The results have implications for practitioners and policymakers who aim to further entrepreneurship for environmental sustainability. It underlines the need to take emotional antecedents seriously, suggests policy for creative and interdisciplinary education with respect to its challenges and emphasizes the roles of teachers in fostering passion.Originality/value: The results provide a deeper contextualized understanding of passion, self-efficacy and intention in environmental entrepreneurship. These results offer an original perspective of entrepreneurship as a conduit to channel energy, concerns and passionate interests in the natural environment. The study presents theoretical implications for passion theory by extending sources of passion and clarifying the direction of self-efficacy in entrepreneurship.