Sustainable Entrepreneurship, Firm Performance and Innovation

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue will bring together a collection of works that collectively contribute to a better understanding of the challenges that sustainability and climate change pose to firms. All firms, large or small, young or established, public or private, are confronted by the subject of sustainability and its impact on their performance and innovation. Society increasingly expects firms to lead on sustainability practices, mitigate environmental impact, and navigate climate change. The purpose of this Special Issue is to promote theoretical and empirical research on sustainable entrepreneurship, firm performance, and innovation in order to better understand the connections between entrepreneurship, sustainability, innovation, and financial and non-financial forms of firm performance. We encourage submissions that systematically examine existing literature, provide empirical tests of new and existing theories, or develop thought-provoking agendas for future research.

Background

The notion of sustainability emerged based on the position that natural resources are limited and finite. In this position, sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Bastas & Liyanage, 2019; Kemp et al., 2007; Lintukangas et al. 2019).

Studies on innovation and technology oriented towards sustainability from the perspective of entrepreneurship have received increasing attention in the last decade (Fernandes, et al. 2019; Fernandes, et al. 2017; Markard et al., 2012; Zijm et al., 2015). Organizations need, for example, to face up to the fact that the boundaries of responsibility are moving rapidly. The trend towards sustainable entrepreneurship means that organizations are beginning to implement an increasingly comprehensive approach to systems that link across the business to the broader overall environment (de Boer & Andersen, 2018; Jabłoński, 2017; Lintukangas et al., 2019).

In this sense, many companies attempt to implement sustainability behaviors, but they face difficulties of various kinds, both internal, such as resource constraints and management practices, and externally, such as social, economic challenges, political, and environmental (Buffa, 2015; Camuffo et al., 2017). The efforts that some companies make towards the real incorporation of sustainability into their strategies are also visible, and the output that arises from this need to be sustainable and perform better (Ferri & Pedrini, 2018; Siddh et al., 2017). Sustainable entrepreneurship thus strives to gain credibility in the markets by reducing the difficulty of implementation by sustainably planning the renewal of the organizational system in response to the challenges of the environment (Bastas & Liyanage, 2018, 2019; Jonker et al., 2017; Siddh et al., 2017).

Aims and Scope

Research on sustainable entrepreneurship is rapidly increasing in quantity and quality and is even a multidisciplinary theme. Now is the time to offer a comprehensive review that identifies, synthesizes, and integrates previous research and highlights knowledge gaps and the way forward.

This Special Issue will address and contribute to a greater understanding of the challenges that sustainability and mitigation of climate change pose to companies and their consequent impact on their performance and innovation. More specifically, this Special Issue welcomes papers that reflect new theoretical perspectives and consolidated methodologies related to entrepreneurial sustainability, performance, and innovation, thus, making the interaction and contribution to this field of knowledge.

Conceptual and empirical articles using quantitative or qualitative analysis, with a special interest in studies using different levels and units of analysis, are welcome. To fulfill the purpose of this Special Issue, the topics of possible contributions may focus on, but are not limited to, the following contents:

• Effects of knowledge and/or technology transfer, climate change mitigation and patents on company performance
• Models of sustainable entrepreneurship
• Sustainable innovation and business performance
• The sustainability promoted by entrepreneurship
• Sustainable entrepreneurship and sustainable innovations
• Public policies and sustainable entrepreneurship
• Entrepreneurial sustainability, performance, and technology

Please direct any questions to the editors: Cristina Fernandes (cristina.isabel.fernandes@ubi.pt), Mathew Hughes (m.hughes2@lboro.ac.uk) and João J. Ferreira (jjmf@ubi.pt and/or jjmf66@gmail.com).

Prof. Cristina Fernandes
Prof. Mathew Hughes
Prof. João J. Ferreira
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• sustainability
• entrepreneurship
• firm performance
• innovation