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Ecopreneurship in Theory and Practice

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Ecopreneurship in Theory and Practice Ecopreneurship in Theory and Practice - A Proposed Emerging Framework for Ecopreneurship Author: David Kainrath Supervisors: Margareta Paulsson, Åke Gabrielsson Student Umeå School of Business Spring semester 2009 Bachelor thesis, 15 hp Dedication I dedicate this thesis to my parents, Brigitta and Wolfgang, who raised me to respect the environment. Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without the help and support of many people. I would like to thank all of them and mention a few. I would like to thank my supervisors, Margareta Paulsson and Åke Gabrielsson, for inspiring me and supporting me throughout my work on this thesis, and for having very much patience with me. I would also like to thank Boel Elmroth of the ENS - Enheten för Näringsliv och Samhälle - for providing support and office space for me during January 2009, something that really kick-started my thesis-writing process. I would like to thank the participants of my study: Björn Stenbeck of Salt & Brygga, Jan Miörner of Replik AB, Elisabeth Ernehag of Ernehag Consulting AB, Jenny Nordberg of Apocalypse Labs, and the other participants I interviewed, without whom the realization of this study would not have been possible. During February and March 2009 my landlord in Stockholm, Giesela W., both gave me the moral support I needed for carrying on with my thesis work, and allowed me to transform her living room into my improvised office. Thank you Giesela! I would also like to express my gratitude to the staff of the Austrian Trade Commission in Oslo, and especially to Berit Semb, for the support and understanding they showed for my thesis work. Thank you to my many friends and former classmates for listening, for advice, and for being my intellectual sparring partners. Summary What is Ecopreneurship? This thesis proposes to define ecopreneurship in theory, and to increase the understanding of it in practice. In the introduction I present the background for the thesis, which are the world’s increasing environmental problems and their causes. They make clear the demand for more environmentally friendly ways of doing business. One such environmentally friendly approach is ecopreneurship, a child to a seemingly dissimilar pair of parents: the entrepreneurship and sustainability disciplines. Ecopreneurship is an emerging concept, and it may become one way of doing business in more environmentally friendly ways. I therefore formulate my research question: “How can ecopreneurship be defined in theory and understood in practice?”. The research question is further specified by three purposes, which are to explore and define the concept of ecopreneurship in theory, to analyze its manifestation in practice, and to discuss emerging patterns in its practical manifestation. In the theory chapter, the intersection of the fields of sustainability science and of entrepreneurship, excluding social sustainability, are defined as ecopreneurship. Further, the main concepts of the entrepreneurship and sustainability fields are explored. Also in the theory chapter, three concepts are identified as being compatible with the main themes of both sustainability science and entrepreneurship. The first concept is eco-innovation as described by Halila and Hörte (2006), Rennings (2000) and Wagner (2008). The classification system for eco-innovations, developed by Halila and Hörte (2006), is also adopted. The second concept which also harmonizes both with sustainability science and with entrepreneurship is environmental commitment as developed by Keogh and Polonsky (1998). Environmental commitment is renamed to eco-commitment in order to be clearly identifiable as a sub-concept in the proposed ecopreneurship framework. Keogh and Polonsky’s (1998) categorization system for environmental commitment, is equally adopted and complemented with the steps suggested by Lynes (2004) to establish environmental commitment in companies. Thirdly, the concept of eco-opportunity, as described by Dean and McMullen (2005), is identified as fitting both with sustainability and entrepreneurship, and their categorization system for different kinds of eco-opportunities is included. Finally, a critique of two authors' ((Schaltegger, 2002) and (Pastakia, 1998)) conceptions of ecopreneurship is presented, in order to argue against the inclusion of other concepts into the instrumental theory part, and indirectly for the three ecopreneurship concepts which were chosen. In the empirical part, case studies of the Swedish companies Salt & Brygga, Replik AB, Ernehag Consulting AB and Apocalypse Labs, are presented and analyzed. In the analysis of the cases, the transcriptions of five semi-structured interviews with the four respective owners of the companies and one employee are interpreted. Through the analysis of the cases insight is gained into how the three ecopreneurship concepts manifest in practice. Lastly, the discussion and conclusion chapter highlights the main patterns and themes, which emerged from the cases that were analyzed. First, the patterns and themes in the establishment of the three ecopreneurship concepts, and their implications for ecopreneurship. Second, other themes and issues that emerged in the analysis of the cases, are considered. Finally, recommendations for future research, resulting from the application of the instrumental theory on the empirical cases, are given. Table of Contents LFIST OF IGURES ............................................................................................................................................................................1 LIST OF TABLES ..............................................................................................................................................................................1 LKIST OF EY TERMS.......................................................................................................................................................................2 1 INTRODUCTION...................... ............. ................................................................................................................. 3 1.1 BACKGROUND......................................................................................................................................................................3 1.2 RESEARCH QUESTION A ND PURPOSE..............................................................................................................................6 1.3 DELIMITATIONS ..................................................................................................................................................................6 1.4 DISPOSITION OF THE THESIS............................................................................................................................................7 2 THE ORETICA L METHODOLOGY...................................................................................................................... 9 2.1 EPISTEMOLOGY AND ONTOLOGY .....................................................................................................................................9 2.2 RESEARCH S TRATEGY ..................................................................................................................................................... 10 2.3 RESEARCH DESIGN................. ............ ............................................................................................................................. 11 2.4 BIAS AND PRECONCEPTIONS ......................................................................................................................................... 11 2.5 LITERATURE SEARCH AND REVIEW ............................................................................................................................. 12 3 EXPLORATIVE THEORY....................................................................................................................................14 3.1 EXPLORATIVE AND INSTRUMENTAL THEORY ............................................................................................................. 14 3.2 FRAMING ECOPR ENEURSHIP ......................................................................................................................................... 14 3.3 SUSTAINABLE DEVEL OPMEN T.................................. ..................................................................................................... 19 3.4 THE FIELD OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND SOME OF ITS CONCEPTS......................................................................... 22 3.5 CRITIQUE OF TWO A'CUTHORS ONCEPTIONS OF ECOPRENEURSHIP....................................................................... 25 4 INST RUMENTAL THEORY................ .... .... .................... ....................................................................................28 4.1 ECO ‐ INNOVATION .......................................................................................................................................................... 28 4.2 ENVIRONMENTAL COMMITMENT (ECO‐COMMITMENT).......................................................................................... 30 4.3 ECO‐OPPORTUNITIES ..................................................................................................................................................... 32 5 EMP IRICAL METHODOLOGY ..........................................................................................................................36 5.1 INTERVIEW TYPE AND
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