Does Ecopreneurship Play a Prominent Platform for Business Sustainability: an Exploratory Study with Reference to Cosmetic Manufacturing Industries in Mysuru City”

International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology (IJMET) Volume 9, Issue 11, November 2018, pp. 741–747, Article ID: IJMET_09_11_075 Available online at http://www.iaeme.com/ijmet/issues.asp?JType=IJMET&VType=9&IType=11 ISSN Print: 0976-6340 and ISSN Online: 0976-6359

“DOES ECOPRENEURSHIP PLAY A PROMINENT PLATFORM FOR BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY WITH REFERENCE TO COSMETIC MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES IN MYSURU CITY”

Rethy B. Menon Department of Management and Commerce Amrita School of Arts and Sciences, Mysuru, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, India

Aparna K.J and Tenzin Chonzom Department of Education, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Mysuru Campus, India

ABSTRACT Ecopreneurs are those entrepreneurs who provide qualitative eco-friendly products and solve environmental problems. Nowadays consumers prefer more eco- friendly quality products. By producing more quality herbal and organic products the organisational profits will be more and which ultimately leads to sustainability of business. The aim of the study is to find out attitudes of entrepreneurs towards ecopreneurship and to find out the relationship between attitude towards ecopreneurship and business sustainability with special reference to Mysore city. The sample of the study constitutes cosmetic manufacturing industries and sample size is 75, with reference to Mysore city. Tool used for collection of data are questionnaire on ecopreneurship and business sustainability. The statistical techniques used are descriptive statistics and correlation. The results of the study revealed that a positive relationship exists between attitude towards ecopreneurship and business sustainability. Keywords: Ecopreneurship and business sustainability. Cite this Article: Rethy B. Menon, Aparna K.J and Tenzin Chonzom, “Does Ecopreneurship Play a Prominent Platform for Business Sustainability: An Exploratory Study with Reference to Cosmetic Manufacturing Industries in Mysuru City”, International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology, 9(11), 2018, pp. 741–747. http://www.iaeme.com/IJMET/issues.asp?JType=IJMET&VType=9&IType=11

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1. INTRODUCTION The safety of environment is a major issue which affects the healthy living of people and economic development throughout the world. It is the utmost responsibility of all people to keep surroundings clean so that there is less sufferings of health issues. If the environment is polluted, people will suffer from various diseases. Ecopreneurship is a phenomenon composed to represent the principles of entrepreneurship being applied to create businesses that solve environmental problems. Ecopreneurship is related to nature. Ecopreneurs are doing favour to the society by promoting ecological products. Utilisation of natural products leads to a healthy society. Now the concept of ecopreneurship is applied in all fields of production. In the case of cosmetic manufacturing industries nowadays customers as well as entrepreneur are aware about the benefits of using herbal products. Even though it is costly customers are ready to buy herbal products. The herbal products help more to satisfy the needs of customers as well as entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs can produce products themselves with minimum input which leads to maximum output and better results for the society. People are not completely aware about air pollution, water pollution and food problems. But now a days a because of these problems, so many health issues especially skin and hair problems are arising. Using eco-friendly products has become the order of the day even among the entrepreneurs who run cosmetic manufacturing industries. Because of this they are taking great care for introducing and making use of herbal and organic products in their service. It will enhance the hair growth and reduce the skin problem of people. It has a great demand in the market. As an entrepreneur, they are giving more importance to the customers. For the sustainability of the business customers plays a crucial role. Ecopreneurship is a fast approaching area in the business field because entrepreneurs are aware about environmental issues. Sustainable development means surviving in the market for a long period of time. So innovative and quality products has to be developed which meets the needs of the people. According to ( Sing and Panackal,2001) showed a positive relationship between selling eco-friendly products and business success. So the investigators feel that it is important to study the relationship between the attitude towards ecopreneurship and business sustainability among the beauty parlour entrepreneurs using for the production of eco-products..

2. LITERATURE REVIEW  Offin (2009) conducted a study on environmental entrepreneurship. The objectives of the study are to create a framework that could be used to evaluate green entrepreneurs. The findings stated that the state of green entrepreneurship is that among other things, access to finance for innovation and awareness of the public about their activities constitute some of the major challenges that confront the new industry.  Scaper(2014) made an attempt to study on „environmental entrepreneurs‟. The objective of the study was to identify the factors that act as a hurdles and triggers to environment entrepreneurship. The sample used was small number of institutions and researchers. The methods used were case study and quantitative studies. The findings of the study wished that Ecopreneurs will provide a spring board from which others will also become stimulates to work in this field of business.  Santini(2016) conducted a study on ecopreneurship. The objective of the study was to identify a relationship between agribusiness and ecopreneurship. The study is a survey questionnaire. In this paper, it was found that the dynamics of ecopreneurship in agricultural business, the starting point was the clear linkage between agricultural business and ecopreneurship.

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 Wen tu and Jahangir (2015) conducted a study on „analyzing key success factors of green brands for enterprises in Taiwan‟. The sampling method used was simple random sampling technique.The data was collected through qualitative research expert interviews, questionnaire. The statistical tool used was descriptive statistics, regression analysis, factor analysis and the analytic hierarchy process. The findings of the study showed enterprises in Taiwan and abroad have been checked through experience in proceeding successful green branding, briefly showing the evaluation indices for operational plan of action for corporate operation of green brands according to specialist opinions and the literary texts, Identify the key success factor for enterprises producing daily essential requirements to operate green brands.  Horicsh(2015) conducted a study on „the role of sustainable entrepreneurship in sustainability transition. A conceptual synthesis against the background of the multilevel perceptive‟.The objective of the study was to find out the prior studies on sustainability of an entrepreneurship . The findings of the study proved that sustainable entrepreneurs with the aspiration to support sustainability changes are challenged to predict the increasing or decreasing in their market impact in order to attain a meaningful overall sustainability effect and to be able to reveal for positive indirect effect  Galkina and Hultman (2015) conducted a study on “ecopreneurship”. The objectives of the study was to use the three criteria for evaluation present status of the ecopreneurship research domain differentiation, mobilization and legitimacy building .The finindgs proved that the ecopreneurship is that it should remain open to the contributions from other fields of study in order to formulate its goals more precisely.  Vivek and Rethy(2018) Conducted a study on “need of corporate social responsibility in business sustainability for meeting today‟s competitive world: A case study on Jyothy Laboratories Pvt Ltd” . The objective of the study is to find the relationship between level of corporate social responsibility and the business sustainability of jyothi laboratories Pvt Ltd. It used random sampling technique to collect data. The sample of the study was 100 employees of jyothi laboratories Pvt Ltd. Tools used for collecting data is likert type questionnaire. The statistical techniques used are descriptive statistics and correlation. The result of the study is there is a connection between corporate social responsibility and business sustainability.  Rethy(2017)conducted a study on “student‟s attitude towards ecopreneurship”. The aim of the study disclose the attitude towards ecopreneurship of higher secondary school students in Kerala and main difference makes in their attitude towards ecopreneurship On the basis of gender, parental occupation and zone the survey method used in this study is purposive sampling method. The study found moderate level in their attitude and no significant difference in the case of gender, , parental occupation and zone towards ecopreneurship among higher secondary school in kerala.

3. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM Ecopreurship is an entrepreurial activity which helps to meet business objectives on the basis of environment, this impact on economic as well as business sustainability. Thus the study is entitled as “WHETHER ECOPRENEURSHIP PLAYS A PROMINENT PLATFORM FOR BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY WITH REFERENCE TO MYSORE CITY”

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4. DEFINITION OF THE VARIABLES “Business sustainability is often defined as managing the triple bottom line- a process by which companies manages their financial, social and environmental risk, obligations and opportunities. These three impacts are sometimes referred to as profits, people and planets.” (Financial times) “Ecopreneurship is a term coined to represent the process of entrepreneurship being applied to create businesses that solve environmental problems or operate sustainably.”(Gwyn Schuler)

5. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY  To find out attitude of entrepreneurs towards ecopreneurship with special reference to Mysore city.  To find out the level of business sustainability of entrepreneurs with reference to Mysore city.  To find out the relationship between attitude of entrepreneurs towards ecopreneurship and business sustainability.

6. HYPOTHESIS 1. There exists a high level of ecopreneurship among Mysore city. 2. There exists a high level of business sustainability among Mysore city. 3. There exists a positive relationship between Ecopreneurship and business sustainability.

7. METHDOLOGY

7.1. Method A survey method is used to find out the relationship between ecopreneurship and business sustainability.

7.2. Sample The sample of the study consists of 75 entrepreneurs who are running cosmetic manufacturing industries among Mysore city. Simple random technique was used for collecting the data.

7.3. Tools Used Questionnaire on ecopreneurship ( Rethy, Aparna ,Tenzin chonzom) Tool consists of 25 questions. The components used for constructing questionnaire are herbal products, skin or hair problem, defects of chemical products, needs of customers, demand in the market. The questionnaire is a Likert type scales with 5 points strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree, strongly disagree. 2.Questionnaire on business sustainability ( Rethy, Aparna ,Tenzin chonzom) Tool consists of 25 questions. The components used for constructing questionnaire are society, finance and environment. The questionnaire is a Likert type scales with 5 points strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree, strongly disagree.

In the case of society, supply of products at the right time, introducing innovative products, new trends, etc will affect the sustainability of business. In the case of environment

http://www.iaeme.com/IJMET/index.asp 744 [email protected] Rethy B. Menon, Aparna K.J and Tenzin Chonzom climate changes, availability of resources etc will affect the sustainability of a business. In the case of finance, the government or banking sectors are ready to provide financial support to the business, more than that without finance no business can exist or sustain in the field of business. Thus the investigators are really interested to carry out a study the relationship between attitude towards of ecopreneurship and business sustainability among the entrepreneurs who are running cosmetic manufacturing industries among the Mysore city.

8. ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION A grading table has been done to find out the level of ecopreneurship among the entrepreneurs of Mysore city. The mean and standard deviation obtained is compared with this grading table. If the mean scores ranges from 1-33 is at low level,34-67 is at moderate level and 68- 100 is at high level.

Table 1 Attitude towards ecopreneurship-Descriptive statistics Descriptive statistics Ecopreneurship Mean 76.240 Median 77.00 Mode 79.0 Standard deviation 5.34 Skewness 0.676 Kurtosis 1.672 Table 1 shows that the mean value is 76.240 with standard deviation5.34.It show that high level of attitude towards Ecopreneurship of entrepreneurs among Mysore city.

Table 2 Attitude towards Business sustainability-descriptive statistics Descriptive statistics Business sustainability Mean 82.280 Median 82.000 Mode 76.0 Standard deviation 5.7459 Skewness 0.038 Kurtosis 0.322 Table 2 shows that the mean value is 82.280 with standard deviation5.7459It show that high level of attitude towards Business sustainability of entrepreneurs among Mysore city. Correlation ECO BSUS Pearson Correlation 1 .708** ECO Sig. (2-tailed) .000 N 75 75 Pearson Correlation .708** 1 BSUS Sig. (2-tailed) .000 N 75 75 **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

9. FINDINGS The findings of the study reveal that positive correlation among ecopreneurship and business sustainability.

9.1. Tenability of Hyothesis The first 2 hypothesis are accepted since there exist a high level of ecoreneurship and business sustainability .The third hypothesis which says there exist a positive correlation is also completely accepted.

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9.2. Suggestions  The cosmetic manufacturing industries should not throw left out herbal products waste, the cosmetic manufacturing industries can make use of it as fertilizers. Through these processes they can produce so many vegetable or fruits which are beneficial for cosmetic manufacturing industries. The cosmetic manufacturing industries can produce eco products out of it. When the customers are making use of these products, they will get to know about the worth of product. Hence they will buy more Eco products which leads to sustainability of business.  The eco products are manufactured by making use of natural resources. So the standard of the product will increase. Then the customers will be contented with the healthy products. This way the sustainability of business will be increased.  Small scale industries are producing the products which are having relatively inexpensive. Since most of the people are middle class and they can also afford the price of the products. Then the eco products will stretch out to more hands. Then there will be profit for the entrepreneur. Then the entrepreneur will get more earnings to sustain his / her business more effectively.  The small scale beauty parlors will be exempted from service tax (income less than 1000000/-). According to sec 93 of the finance act 1994(32 of 1994) the service tax is not pertinent for cosmetic products.  The cosmetic manufacturing industries can make use of hairs which are getting from customers by doing hair dressing; those hairs will be use full for making wig for cancer patients or donate to palliative care unit (center). Through this they can influence the society easily.  Apart from their business / cosmetic manufacturing industries, they can implement social services like going to orphanage for cutting the hair of children with free of cost. Through they will get goodwill in the society. They can achieve in their business.  Awareness programs should be conducted at school and college level so that the young aspirants should be motivated to become ecopreneurs in future. Ecopreneurs can conduct campaign in school, colleges and big organizations/ companies to familiarize the benefits of eco products rather than usage of chemicals.  Creative advertisements highlighting the importance of using herbal and eco-friendly products should be telecasted. Through advertisement the society will get to know about eco products such as price, quality and other advantages. This will help for the marketing of business and generate demand of the products.  The general public should be given awareness on the hazardous effects of using chemicals as a part of their beautification. They should realize that continuous usage of chemicals damage their skin and hair. So the customers should take a firm decision to use only eco-friendly products.

10. CONCLUSION The study concludes that there is a high level of correlation between Ecopreneurship and business sustainability. The reasons are high demand in the market, quality product, awareness among the society and nonchemical products. The usages of products are increasing because each and every person is conscious about their health especially skin and hair.

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