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Powered by compassion: The effect of loving-kindness meditation on entrepreneurs' sustainable decision-making
Abstract
As environmental degradation and climate change continue to threaten our livelihood, entrepreneurs have a crucial role to play in promoting environmental regeneration and infusing their ventures with sustainable decision-making. Building on advances in research on social and sustainable entrepreneurship, we propose that compassion is an important predictor of entrepreneurial decisions involving an ethical balancing act between concerns for environmental and economic sustainability. We further draw on emerging evidence in psychology, pointing to meditative practice as a powerful and accessible source of compassion. In two experimental studies, we test and find support for a mediation model predicting that, compared to an active control group, entrepreneurs engaging in a brief Loving-Kindness Meditation report an increase in compassion and, in turn, higher sustainable decision-making. On the basis of these findings, we offer contributions to research on the psychological drivers of sustainable entrepreneurship and to the literature about meditation and compassion in entrepreneurship.
... In addition to differences in all negative emotions between the three segments, members of the emotionally-detached, emotionally-ambivalent, and empathic-alarmed segments differed in their levels of compassion, a finding that contributes to previous research in this area [63,64]. In a recent study, Pfattheicher and colleagues [63] found that participants who were assigned to a high-compassionate condition (i.e., had to imagine how a person feels) had higher pro-environmental intentions than those assigned to a low-compassionate condition. ...
... In a recent study, Pfattheicher and colleagues [63] found that participants who were assigned to a high-compassionate condition (i.e., had to imagine how a person feels) had higher pro-environmental intentions than those assigned to a low-compassionate condition. Similar results were reported by Engel and colleagues [64] who found that entrepreneurs who listened to a guided loving-kindness meditation had higher levels of compassion and made more sustainable decisions than a group which only listened to a talk about meditation (without actually meditating). In their study, the relationship between the loving-kindness meditation and pro-environmental decision making was mediated by compassion. ...
... In their study, the relationship between the loving-kindness meditation and pro-environmental decision making was mediated by compassion. In the current study, compassion, which evokes a feeling for the suffering of others [65], may have increased the awareness of how one's actions impact others negatively, reduced psychological distance, and elicited moral concern [26,63,64]. This in turn may have acted as a motivator for alleviating the suffering of others and hence may have contributed to the willingness to practice PEB. ...
The rapid degradation of the environment is one of our greatest challenges in the 21st century. To avoid the worst consequences, human behavior change is required. The current study investigated how feelings about environmental problems (eco-emotions) predict concern for the natural environment and willingness to make sacrifices for it. Using a cross-sectional online sample of 286 New Zealand residents, latent profile analysis identified three profile groups with distinct patterns of eco-emotions: emotionally-detached (40%), emotionally-ambivalent (34%), and empathic-alarmed (26%). Validation analyses revealed that members of the empathic-alarmed segment reported significantly higher levels of environmental concern and willingness to make sacrifices for the environment than members of the emotionally-ambivalent segment, who in turn expressed greater concern and willingness to sacrifice than members of the emotionally-detached segment. Findings from this study suggest that inducing a combination of negative eco-emotions with compassion may be effective for promoting environmental concern and pro-environmental sacrifice.
... Compassionate leadership is linked to sustainable decision-making and organizational performance. It encourages ethical balancing between economic and environmental goals, motivating actionoriented responses to sustainability challenges (Engel et al., 2020;Powell & McGuigan, 2024). In both public sector and business contexts, compassion enhances employee engagement, shapes sustainable mindsets, and supports long-term organizational success by valuing people and promoting well-being (Westover, 2024;Engel et al., 2020;Malik et al., 2021;Powell & McGuigan, 2024;Estrada et al., 2021). ...
... It encourages ethical balancing between economic and environmental goals, motivating actionoriented responses to sustainability challenges (Engel et al., 2020;Powell & McGuigan, 2024). In both public sector and business contexts, compassion enhances employee engagement, shapes sustainable mindsets, and supports long-term organizational success by valuing people and promoting well-being (Westover, 2024;Engel et al., 2020;Malik et al., 2021;Powell & McGuigan, 2024;Estrada et al., 2021). ...
... Organizations that integrate compassionate leadership with collective intelligence practices are better equipped to navigate uncertainty, address systemic challenges, and achieve sustainable outcomes. These approaches support ethical decision-making, employee engagement, and adaptive strategies that are essential for long-term public sector and business success (Wood et al., 2021;Westover, 2024;Engel et al., 2020;Malik et al., 2021;Powell & McGuigan, 2024;Woolley et al., 2015;Riedl et al., 2021). ...
This study investigates the strategic value of leading with compassion and collective intelligence as foundational leadership paradigms for enhancing sustainable performance in public sector institutions and business organizations. The objective is to critically examine how empathetic leadership practices and collaborative knowledge-sharing processes contribute to ethical governance, employee engagement, and long-term organizational success. The study adopts a qualitative research design grounded in an extensive review of existing literature across leadership, organizational behavior, and sustainability studies. Thematic content analysis is employed to extract, categorize, and interpret recurring patterns, themes, and insights from the selected academic and policy sources. Findings suggest that compassionate leadership significantly enhances trust, psychological safety, and motivation, while the deliberate use of collective intelligence facilitates innovative problem-solving and adaptive strategy implementation. Together, these leadership attributes create a resilient and inclusive organizational culture that drives sustainable outcomes. The study recommends that policymakers and organizational leaders institutionalize compassionate and participatory practices through leadership development programs, inclusive policy frameworks, and systems that reward collaboration and empathy.
... Compassion has been identified as a significant antecedent to pro-social behavior by several studies [50]. Yet, in the sustainability field, studies have either established this relationship using solely self-reported levels of general mindfulness and compassion (without any mindfulness intervention) [27] or using a very specific sample group [51]. ...
... Similarly, Lu and Schuldt (2016) have shown that higher levels of compassion lead to greater climate policy support as follows: increased levels of compassion lead to a higher likelihood that people think that human activities cause a natural catastrophe, and thus the more likely they will be to support policies to mitigate such catastrophes, since people perceive human-made catastrophes as preventable [65]. More recently, Engel et al. (2020) found that exposing entrepreneurs to a brief LKM meditation led to a higher level of compassion and, in turn, increased the likelihood of making more sustainable decisions [51]. ...
... Similarly, Lu and Schuldt (2016) have shown that higher levels of compassion lead to greater climate policy support as follows: increased levels of compassion lead to a higher likelihood that people think that human activities cause a natural catastrophe, and thus the more likely they will be to support policies to mitigate such catastrophes, since people perceive human-made catastrophes as preventable [65]. More recently, Engel et al. (2020) found that exposing entrepreneurs to a brief LKM meditation led to a higher level of compassion and, in turn, increased the likelihood of making more sustainable decisions [51]. ...
Mindfulness practices have the potential to induce the cognitive and behavioral changes needed to foster pro-environmental behavior and increase support toward sustainable and climate-oriented policies. However, the empirical evidence of the effectiveness of meditation on sustainable behavior is limited and mostly confined to correlational studies, often based on the same type of mindfulness interventions. In this paper, we report the results of an online experiment (n = 1000) comparing the impact of three different short-term mindfulness interventions on various (self-reported and incentivized) measures of mindfulness state and sustainable behavior. While only one of our interventions is found to impact environmental attitude and climate policy support directly, we show that the three meditation practices indirectly foster sustainable behavior through preidentified mediators. These results are relevant for organizations and policymakers who seek to foster climate policy support and environmental attitudes in their stakeholders.
... It fosters integrative thinking and a deep desire to alleviate suffering attributes observed in successful social entrepreneurs (Miller et al., 2012;Lam-Lam et al., 2020). Compassion can enhance resilience and creativity in entrepreneurs by focusing them on community-centered approaches (Griffin-EL, 2021; Engel et al., 2020). In summary, empathy and compassionate love not only encourage caring behavior but significantly influence one's motivation to address social challenges, making these traits critical for those inclined toward "people-centered" entrepreneurship. ...
... Moreover, compassion influences decision making through a prosocial lens, prioritizing social outcomes alongside financial returns (Miller et al., 2012). Practices such as loving kindness mediation which are designed to cultivate compassion have been linked to improved sustainability in entrepreneurial decision making (Engel et al., 2020). Compassionate entrepreneurs are also more likely to engage stakeholders, cross organizational boundaries and ensure that their ventures remain embedded within and responsive to community needs (Griffin-EL, 2021; Pittz et al., 2017). ...
This research examines how individual characteristics shape the intention to pursue social entrepreneurship among MBA students in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh. Social entrepreneurship is increasingly recognized for addressing societal challenges through innovative, sustainable business solutions. Understanding the personal traits that motivate students to engage in socially-oriented ventures is crucial. This study focuses on key individual factors including self-efficacy, empathy, proactiveness, compassionate love, attitude, locus of control, and creativity. Using a structured questionnaire, data were collected from 30 MBA students and analyzed with descriptive statistics, correlation, and multiple regression techniques. The results reveal that empathy is a significant positive predictor of social entrepreneurial intention, whereas other traits (such as self-efficacy and proactiveness) show positive but statistically non-significant effects. The overall model explains a high proportion of variance in intention (Adjusted R² = 0.833), underscoring the important role of personal factors. These findings offer insights for educators and policymakers to cultivate empathy and related attributes in management education to nurture future social entrepreneurs. The study contributes to the growing literature on social entrepreneurship in India by highlighting how individual dispositions can influence students’ propensity to become socially-oriented business leaders.
... To achieve this aim, the study reports the results of three experiments examining whether LKM elicits greater prosocial behavior compared to an active control group. Based on the single-paper meta-analysis approach (McShane and Böckenholt, 2017), these results are later integrated with the past findings of six studies, reported in five papers, that test the effect of short LKM practice on prosocial behavior (Engel et al., 2020;Hafenbrack et al., 2020;Hirshberg et al., 2018;Miyahara et al., 2020;Reb et al., 2010) using a meta-analysis (k=10; n= 683). Results show that brief LKM has a small-to-medium effect on prosocial behavior. ...
... Studies were included in the analysis if they were randomized control trials in nonclinic populations that compared the effects of a brief Loving-Kindness Meditation intervention with an active control group (i.e., focused breathing meditation) and when the outcome variable was a measure of prosocial behavior. Applying these inclusion criteria yielded six studies from four published articles (Engel et al., 2020;Hafenbrack et al., 2020;Hirshberg et al., 2018;Miyahara et al., 2020) and one conference paper (Reb et al., 2010) involving seven valid measurements. Thus, when integrated with the three previously reported studies, the metaanalysis was done on ten measures (k) and n= 683. ...
Purpose. Brief Loving-Kindness meditation (LKM) is introduced here as a valid social marketing intervention. LKM positively influences prosocial cognitions and affects. However, it remains unclear whether brief meditation interventions can influence prosocial behavior. This study aims to provide evidence of the effects of short LKM on prosocial behavior.
Design/methodology/approach. The study reports the results of three experiments examining the effects of brief LKM on donations to unknown others. Results are then integrated with the results of seven other studies testing the effects of brief LKM on prosocial behavior using a meta-analysis (n=683).
Findings. LKM increased love more than the control group (focused breathing) in the three experiments; however, its effects on donations were mixed. The meta-analysis shows that LKM has a small-to-medium significant effect compared to active control groups (d=0.303); moreover, age and type of prosocial measure used moderate the effects.
Originality. Results suggest that LKM can nurture prosocial emotions such as love and lead young individuals to donate. However, these emotions may not be sufficient to lead adult meditators to share their resources with unknown others. This study presents the first meta-analysis of brief LKM and provides insights into the use of meditation in social marketing programs.
KEYWORDS: meditation; mindfulness; pro-social; donation; meta-analysis; behavioral change
... Some of the observed problem-focused strategies that entrepreneurs commonly use include thinking based on metaphors (Hill & Levenhagen, 1995;Johannisson, 2011), working harder (Duxbury et al., 1996), engaging in collective learning experiments (de Vasconcelos Gomes et al., 2018) and bootstrapping (Singh et al., 2022). In contrast, examples of emotion-focused strategies include loving-kindness meditation (Engel et al., 2020) and emotional regulation (Shepherd et al., 2009). Various studies have revealed that these strategies influence entrepreneurs' mental health (Shepherd & Patzelt, 2011;Uy et al., 2013), physical health , and response to failure (Byrne & Shepherd, 2015;Corner et al., 2017). ...
... Our interviewees described using emotionbased strategies similar to those evident in the literature for their own purposes. For example, strategies they used included focusing on their health, attending mentoring programs, engaging in hobbies, exercising and listening to music, and painting to reduce their stress (Engel et al., 2020;Goldsby et al., 2005). ...
Recently, women entrepreneurship has become of particular interest to corporate social responsibility (CSR) scholarship, however, little is known about the impact of crises on women’s business activities and how they adapt to the disruptions and new market realities caused by a crisis. To design CSR initiatives that genuinely cater to the needs of women entrepreneurs, it is imperative to acquire an in-depth understanding of their unique experiences during times of crisis. This study employed a qualitative methodology to investigate the development of resilience among women entrepreneurs amidst crisis. The study sample comprised Iranian women entrepreneurs who were operating health-related businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to challenges related to money, market, management, motherhood, macro and meso level factors, women entrepreneurs were found to face crisis related challenges such as emotional exhaustion, altruism, fear of failure and uncertainty. Additionally, the findings revealed the different problem-based and emotion-based coping strategies (e.g., bootstrapping and emotional regulation) that women entrepreneurs used to build entrepreneurial resilience as well as business resilience. The resultant findings offer a comprehensive understanding of women entrepreneurs’ resilience-building process and suggest that resilience-building is a contextual as well as a gendered phenomenon. Implications for entrepreneurship research as well as women entrepreneurship and ethics literature is discussed.
... A CE implies a high level of attention to the environment and a strong intention to improve it [64,65], which directly affects entrepreneurial behavior, including production, sales, and pollution treatment [33,66]. This enhances the entrepreneurs' social status, reputation, and benefits their enterprises [41,67]. Entrepreneurs with ecological thinking actively develop green projects and seek strong support from various social institutions, including governments, education departments, industry associations, and multinational organizations to initiate and operate green enterprises [38,52,68]. ...
... Entrepreneurs with ecological values take positive actions to prevent environmental damage during their entrepreneurial process [66,67]. Their CE guides them in starting and developing green enterprises, thus promoting the realization of environmental sustainability [41,42]. ...
With the increasingly negative impact of environmental pollution on human production and life caused by the non-green operation of enterprises, a new generation of returnee entrepreneurs is called upon to take on regional environmental protection and global ecological improvement. This study examined the impact of returnee entrepreneurship education (REE). A conceptual model is constructed based on REE as the core factor of environmental sustainability and uses the occurrence of green entrepreneurial behavior among new university graduates returning to their hometowns as an evaluation basis. Convenience sampling was applied, and the relevant data were collected from 358 new university graduates in Jiangsu Province, China who received REE during their university years. Empirical analysis based on partial least squares structural equation modeling shows that REE evokes a commitment to the environment (CE) and has an indirect significant impact on green returnee entrepreneurial behavior (GREB) through institutional support and intention. However, a CE did not have a significant direct effect. The findings of this study have significant reference value for decision-makers in government departments in developing countries, universities, and many social groups that are actively responding to the United Nations Sustainable Development Initiative.
... However, when innovation and institutional constructs are taken into account, the impact of both forms of entrepreneurship on sustainability becomes positive. Entrepreneurs who are motivated to enhance sustainability transitions are challenged to increase their market influence to achieve a meaningful sustainability effect (Hörisch, 2015;Engel et al., 2020). Similarly, grassroots entrepreneurs craft environmentally friendly solutions and such innovations have an impact on long-term sustainability (Pansera and Sarkar, 2016). ...
... Our study supported the positive impact of entrepreneurship on innovation capability which is line with some previous studies such as Sulistyo and Siyamtinah (2016), Lubberink et al. (2018) and Rajapathirana and Hui (2018). The findings also confirmed the significance of entrepreneurs' success in sustainable innovation and transitions to sustainability in literature; for example Provasnek et al. (2017), Youssef et al. (2018), Filser et al. (2019 and Engel et al. (2020). ...
Purpose
This study aims to conceptualize and investigate the relationships between halal entrepreneurial success, innovation capability and sustainable innovation in the halal industry.
Design/methodology/approach
Both integrative and generative approaches are combined to move forward from the literature to a theoretical contribution. The paper presents a model that relates halal entrepreneurial success to innovation capability and sustainable innovation. A purposive sample of 340 Malaysian halal entrepreneurs is used to test the conceptualized model. The partial least square technique was then used to assess the structural model.
Findings
The results disclosed that halal entrepreneurial success is positively related to both innovation capability and sustainable innovation. Also, the innovation capability mediates the relationship between halal entrepreneurial success and sustainable innovation.
Originality/value
This research conceptualized and examined a novel model that assesses the relationships between halal entrepreneurial success, innovation capability and sustainable innovation in the halal industry.
... Some of the observed problem-focused strategies that entrepreneurs commonly use include thinking based on metaphors (Hill & Levenhagen, 1995;Johannisson, 2011), working harder (Duxbury et al., 1996), engaging in collective learning experiments (de Vasconcelos Gomes et al., 2018) and bootstrapping (Singh et al., 2022). In contrast, examples of emotion-focused strategies include loving-kindness meditation (Engel et al., 2020) and emotional regulation (Shepherd et al., 2009). Various studies have revealed that these strategies influence entrepreneurs' mental health (Shepherd & Patzelt, 2011;Uy et al., 2013), physical health , and response to failure (Byrne & Shepherd, 2015;Corner et al., 2017). ...
... Our interviewees described using emotionbased strategies similar to those evident in the literature for their own purposes. For example, strategies they used included focusing on their health, attending mentoring programs, engaging in hobbies, exercising and listening to music, and painting to reduce their stress (Engel et al., 2020;Goldsby et al., 2005). ...
Women entrepreneurs have to deal with the gendered impact of crisis on their business activities. Regardless, they successfully adapt to the disruptions and new market realities caused by crisis. Given that resilience explains how individuals maintain functioning or even thrive despite challenges, it becomes crucial to understand women entrepreneurs’ resilience building during times of crisis. This study used a qualitative approach to examine how women entrepreneurs build resilience during crisis by specifically examining the challenges they face and the coping strategies they utilize to build their resilience. Using a sample of Iranian women entrepreneurs operating health related businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic, we offer a comprehensive understanding of women entrepreneurs' resilience building process. Our findings suggest that resilience building is not only a gendered phenomenon but a contextual one.
https://doi.org/10.5465/AMPROC.2023.16322abstract
... Some of the observed problem-focused strategies that entrepreneurs commonly use include thinking based on metaphors (Hill & Levenhagen, 1995;Johannisson, 2011), working harder (Duxbury et al., 1996), engaging in collective learning experiments (de Vasconcelos Gomes et al., 2018) and bootstrapping (Singh et al., 2022). In contrast, examples of emotion-focused strategies include loving-kindness meditation (Engel et al., 2020) and emotional regulation (Shepherd et al., 2009). Various studies have revealed that these strategies influence entrepreneurs' mental health (Shepherd & Patzelt, 2011;Uy et al., 2013), physical health , and response to failure (Byrne & Shepherd, 2015;Corner et al., 2017). ...
... Our interviewees described using emotionbased strategies similar to those evident in the literature for their own purposes. For example, strategies they used included focusing on their health, attending mentoring programs, engaging in hobbies, exercising and listening to music, and painting to reduce their stress (Engel et al., 2020;Goldsby et al., 2005). ...
... The audio was recorded by an experienced Chinese clinical psychologist who invited participants to focus on the present moment and bring a non-judgmental awareness to bodily sensations, the breath, thoughts, and feelings. In contrast, participants in the control condition listened to a recording of a TED Talk about mindfulness meditation (Engel et al., 2020). ...
The broader and non-sexual form of self-objectification—perceiving oneself as a tool for others’ goals (self-instrumentality) and denying one’s humanness (self-denial of humanness)—can occur in various contexts and among everyone. Despite its negative consequences, few studies have systematically examined ways to reduce this form of non-sexual self-objectification. The current research aimed to investigate whether mindfulness, either as a chronic trait or a temporarily induced state, could mitigate both dimensions of self-objectification. Across four studies (Ntotal = 5,132), including three large-sample surveys (Studies 1, 3A, and 3B), and one laboratory experiment (Study 2), we consistently found that mindfulness predicts and results in reduced self-objectification, including decreased self-instrumentality and lower self-denial of humanness. Additionally, as a secondary aim, we found that reduced self-denial of humanness, but not reduced self-instrumentality, as predicted by mindfulness, is further associated with an increased sense of meaning in life (Studies 3A and 3B). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
... In this context, individuals must understand that when we destroy forests, wild species may not have enough space for survival and could face extinction. By cultivating compassion, individuals are more likely to make responsible decisions regarding consumption to protect environmental ecology, as suggested by Engel et al. (2020). ...
In recent decades, the rapid growth of the global population has led to an increase in deforestation activities aimed at expanding industrial, agricultural, and residential areas, along with the exploitation of natural resources to meet rising consumption demands. Over the past twenty years, approximately 120,000 square kilometers of forest have been destroyed annually to clear land for human purposes, resulting in significant threats to various forms of biodiversity and wildlife. Furthermore, the extraction of fossil fuels—such as oil, gas, and coal—has emerged as a primary contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 75% of total emissions and 90% of carbon dioxide emissions. Recognizing the gravity of environmental issues, the United Nations has actively promoted sustainable development goals since 2015, aiming to motivate nations to address climate change and other ecological concerns. This call to action has garnered the practical involvement of various stakeholders, including national leaders, educational institutions, and non-governmental organizations, all of whom are committed to enhancing the environment and improving natural ecology through both scholarly theories and real-world projects.
Nevertheless, there remains a notable deficiency in studies or theoretical frameworks that encourage individual participation in efforts to enhance natural ecology. Existing literature lacks comprehensive guides that equip individuals with the necessary tools to cultivate perceptions, habits, and strategic approaches for the betterment of the environment. Consequently, this project seeks to develop a model of information and strategies that empowers audiences to enhance their knowledge and understanding or to illuminate potential methods for protecting and improving the natural environment and ecology.
This project is conducted for non-profit purposes across all levels, with the aim of contributing to the United Nations' global sustainable development initiatives, emphasizing environmental and ecological concerns. As such, audiences are encouraged to freely share this project with others without needing to obtain permission from us.
Sincerely
Project manager
Quan Thuan Kieu, Ph. D,
Hanoi, Vietnam
October 6th 2024
... The practices of spiritual entrepreneurship often include mindfulness, ethical decision-making, and community building (Kumar et al., 2022). Mindfulness, for instance, helps entrepreneurs maintain focus and clarity, enabling them to navigate the challenges of business with greater resilience and creativity (Engel et al., 2020). Ethical decision-making ensures that business practices are aligned with moral and spiritual values, promoting fairness, transparency, and social responsibility (Szromek, 2020). ...
... Furthermore, existing experimental studies also find that the disposition of compassion enhances the effect of compassion-cultivating treatment on entrepreneurs' sustainable decision-making (Engel et al. 2020). Extending these findings to our research context, it can be posited that empathy stimuli may work more effectively for Japanese than Germans in encouraging sustainable investment. ...
This research focuses on the increasing but unexplored role of individual investors in sustained sustainable investment. Sustainable investment with pecuniary motives tends to be fractured by economic downturns. Drawing on research on social emotions shaping decision‐making, this study explores how non‐pecuniary motives and emotions—empathy and self‐esteem—affect the attention to sustainability ratings by individual investors. We administered the original survey‐embedded experiments to nationals of two countries in the Global North, Germany, and Japan. We found that evoking empathy can lead experienced Japanese investors to focus on sustainability ratings while German investors are unaffected. On the other hand, self‐esteem stimuli are effective for German potential investors who have expressed an interest in investing but not for Japanese investors. These results underline the potential of emotional stimuli in promoting sustainable investment and highlight the importance of tailoring such stimuli to different cultural contexts and groups of people.
... We recruited entrepreneurs with a track record of answering questions thoughtfully (Prolific approval rate > 95%). Prolific has been used in prior research to sample entrepreneurs (e.g.,Engel et al., 2020;Zhu et al., 2023).2 We included participants who pitched to key stakeholders other than investors to increase the sample pool. ...
We investigate a strategy entrepreneurs can use to manage their emotions prior to pitching: linking anxiety to passion. We theorize that internally acknowledging anxiety and interpreting it as a reflection of one’s passion for the venture can make passionate feelings salient, facilitate expressions of passion during pitches, and increase judges’ evaluations of pitch performance. A field study and a randomized experiment support the theory, offering insights for how entrepreneurs can mentally reframe their seemingly detrimental emotional experiences for beneficial outcomes. More broadly, this work demonstrates the utility of fostering beneficial emotions rather than just alleviating negative ones
... Furthermore, the Prolific master data allow prescreening for entrepreneurs as the only possible survey participants. Thus, it has already been used for rigorous entrepreneurship research (Brändle et al., 2023;Engel et al., 2020;Gunia et al., 2021). In total, 501 entrepreneurs finished the survey. ...
The degrowth paradigm has gained popularity in the sustainability discourse in recent years. Questioning the absolute decoupling of economic growth from environmental degradation, degrowth proponents suggest downscaling production and consumption to reduce resource extraction and energy consumption. However, this seems to be at odds with conventional wisdom about entrepreneurship. Thus, our research aims to shed light on the implications of the degrowth discourse on entrepreneurship. We answer how degrowth attitudes among (sustainable) entrepreneurs are associated with decision‐making on scaling strategies for their ventures. Differentiating between scaling fast and scaling slow strategies, we show that a degrowth attitude is negatively associated with scaling fast strategies, whether entrepreneurs consider themselves sustainable or not. However, sustainable entrepreneurship is positively associated with scaling slow strategies. Furthermore, we show that the development level of the economy an entrepreneur is active in is an essential factor in the decision‐making on scaling strategies.
... A nascent domain of research that attempts to address the aforementioned question is the entrepreneurship-disaster interface (Engel, et al., 2020;Mittermaier et al., 2021Mittermaier et al., , 2022Shepherd, 2015;Shepherd and Williams, 2014;Williams and Shepherd, 2016). Disaster and other (exogenous) 'value-destroying' events (e.g., earthquake and financial crisis) form opportunities for people to act to benefit the 'needy' others, and these actions spark subsequent opportunities to improve welfare of the community. ...
We develop a community-based model of entrepreneurial action under value-destroying uncertainty (e.g., disasters) to formalize two well-established altruistic motivations— reciprocal opportunity belief (a “calculative” mindset of doing good with expectations of future payback) and compassionate opportunity belief (a “non-calculative” mindset of doing good without expectations of future payback)—and identify which belief and contingencies produce greater community welfare (i.e., value). Three moderating factors are considered: community size, actor’s action desirability, and welfare value increment of the community members. Our analysis shows that when the three moderating factors are large, the reciprocal opportunity belief generally produces greater community welfare than the compassionate opportunity belief; otherwise, the reverse occurs. We conclude that calculative mindset and community size go hand in hand to produce greater network effects through altruistic-venturing actions, which ultimately lead to greater community welfare. Our findings contribute to the emerging literature on the post-disaster venturing by advancing the contingency effects of altruistic motives on entrepreneurial actions to alleviate others’ sufferings and the counter-intuitive benefits of “calculative” mindset. We also stimulate a new conversation to redirect research in entrepreneurship toward the “community” as a viable unit of analysis.
... A nascent domain of research that attempts to address the aforementioned question is the entrepreneurship-disaster interface (Engel, et al., 2020;Mittermaier et al., 2021Mittermaier et al., , 2022Shepherd, 2015;Shepherd and Williams, 2014;Williams and Shepherd, 2016). Disaster and other (exogenous) 'value-destroying' events (e.g., earthquake and financial crisis) form opportunities for people to act to benefit the 'needy' others, and these actions spark subsequent opportunities to improve welfare of the community. ...
... Because of an increased awareness of environmental degradation and climate change, it has been argued that entrepreneurs have a particularly important role to play, in infusing their ventures with sustainable decision-making. Engel, Ramesh and Steiner (2020) argue that emotions of compassion are central in determining entrepreneurial decisions, involving ethical balancing between, on the one hand, environmental concerns, on the other hand, economic sustainability. Thus, they extend the literature on social entrepreneurship and propose that affective constructs, previously studied exclusively as predictors of social entrepreneurship, also may predict sustainability-related decision-making. ...
Background: Entrepreneurs have the potential to play an especially important role for sustainable development, considering their very foundational character of finding solutions to problems in different creative ways. Thus, we need more entrepreneurs who are willing to address global challenges of today.Aim: This paper aims to discuss the role of compassion in entrepreneurship education, particularly within experience-based teaching.Setting: Based on a 3-week course, where students were exposed to poverty and other challenges in the Global South, the focus is on how experience-based teaching affected their compassion and motivation related to sustainability issues.Methods: This qualitative study is based on longitudinal interview data collected during a 3-week entrepreneurship education course, involving 23 master’s students from various academic disciplines. The course included a field visit to an underprivileged, rural area in India.Results: Students gained a deeper understanding of social and economic sustainability. After the field visit, they expressed stronger focus on compassion and empathy and deeper interest in working with sustainability issues. Further, they expressed an increased interest for entrepreneurship.Conclusion: The rich data collected during the process described above, gives in-depth insights on how students can develop compassion, empathy and a deeper understanding for global challenges of today.Contribution: Findings contribute to entrepreneurship literature, by highlighting the importance of compassion and empathy, and to the topic of entrepreneurship education, by discussing how students can be trained to develop these characteristics.
... Besides that, Fischer et al. (2017) identified at least three other mechanisms of trait mindfulness for sustainable consumption: congruence of attitude and behavior, non-material values and wellbeing, and prosocial behavior. However, in addition to its qualities of awareness, the gentle emotional quality of mindfulness (Kabat-Zinn, 2003) that can be experienced through exercises of the constructive family such as LKM, can also be seen in relation to sustainable consumption as it fosters pro-environmental tendencies (Pfattheicher et al., 2016) and sustainable decision making (Engel et al., 2020). As mentioned above, the practice of LKM strengthens prosociality (Böckler et al., 2018) and increases feelings of social connection (Hutcherson et al., 2008). ...
Objectives
The main goal of our intervention study was to investigate whether two conceptually different mindfulness interventions positively impacted the explicit and implicit affective evaluations of vegetarian foods. We included possible mediating variables (e.g., wellbeing) and related our results to the stage model of self-regulated behavioral change (SSBC).
Methods
We implemented a compassion and caring-based mental training (N = 31) and an adapted MBSR course (N = 34) as mindfulness interventions, and a stress-reduction course (N = 26) as the active control group. The curriculums consisted of 12 weekly group sessions á 75 min. All participants were tested pre- and post-intervention and 3 months after the last intervention session, answered questionnaires (mindfulness, compassion, wellbeing, items of the SSBC) and completed an explicit affective evaluation task and an affective priming task.
Results
There was an improvement in the explicit attitudes toward vegetarian foods regardless of the intervention group. In the SSBC, we found a link between the explicit attitudes toward vegetarian foods and the indicated stage in the model. Multiple regression analysis revealed social and personal norms and a vegetarian/vegan diet as the only significant predictors for goal intention in the SSBC.
Conclusion
The results of our study suggest that both conceptually different mindfulness interventions, as well as a stress-reduction program, have a positive impact on explicit affective attitudes toward vegetarian foods. We highlight the meaning of inner dimensions and transformation for change processes for a more sustainable diet and the role of social and personal norms.
... The approaches to enhancing human capital through strategy are based on three main concepts: competence, compassion, and commitment.Equipping the workforce with more competencies, both in sustainability and in work-related subjects, is vital for the organization's sustainability transformation(Chiu et al., 2019;Mithun Ali et al., 2019). Compassion can act as a compass for employees to orient toward sustainable decisions and balance environmental and economic sustainability in daily business decision-making(Engel et al., 2020). Finally, commitment is the key ingredient for turning ...
In recent years, research on corporate sustainability integration strategies has witnessed a significant growth in interest. However, contributions remain disjointed and fragmented, preventing the emergence of a cohesive understanding of the current research state. This study uses a systematic review of 126 articles from Web of Science (WoS) and Ebsco to extract a seven‐dimensional integrated view of corporate sustainability integration strategies. Our review's contributions are threefold: (1) we enrich the corporate sustainability strategies literature by identifying the focuses and themes of recent publications; (2) we address the research's fragmentation issue by presenting the sustainability implementation strategies in an integrated view with the essential interdependencies shown at different hierarchical levels and across organizational dimensions simultaneously, (3) we present the theoretical and managerial implications and discuss in detail the crucial interdependencies of sustainability integration strategies. The study finishes with a conclusion highlighting potential avenues for future research.
... The reason is probably connected with the specificities of entrepreneurs, who are highly autonomous and determined in their decisions, hardly resorting to external suggestions for their choices and thinking to control everything that happens around them [31,71]. In other studies, it has also been observed that entrepreneurs' attitudes are also extremely important in areas such as risk taking [72] and decision making [73]. ...
Background: Social media platforms are a significant growth opportunity for enterprises, especially for microenterprises, due to the possibility of establishing direct contact with their customers. We investigate the psychological reasons that drive entrepreneurs towards the use of social networking sites (SNSs) for their business, following two important social psychology theories: the theory of planned behaviour and the technology acceptance model. We also tested for two personality traits: openness to experience and dominance. Methods: Data were acquired by examining 325 microentrepreneurs who decided to use either SNSs or traditional sales methods for their businesses. Results and conclusions: Our results confirm that of all the behavioural antecedents tested, perceived usefulness and attitude towards SNSs’ effect on business proved to be the best predictors of the intention to use (or continue using) SNSs for business activity. Implications and suggestions for future research are also discussed.
... 81 Hence, mindfulness might also indirectly affect pro-environmentalism via an increase in self-compassion and compassion for others. Related research suggests that increases in compassion are positively linked to pro-environmental intentions, 82 sustainable decision-making in organizational contexts, 83 and support for climate mitigation and adaptation measures. 84 While experimental evidence that mindfulness and (self-)compassion have a causal effect on facets of sustainability remains shallow and is questionable in a context of complex systems (e.g., emerging epistemological, ontological, and ethical understanding that underlies research on inner-outer transformation questions the focus of specific outcomes and the value of cause-effect reductionism when working with complex systems 17 ), correlational and exploratory intervention studies provide a reason for optimism. ...
Recent research suggests that mindfulness, compassion, and self-compassion relate to inner transformative qualities/capacities and intermediary factors that can support increased pro-environmental behavior and attitudes across individual, collective, organizational, and system levels. However, current insights focus on the individual level, are restricted to certain sustainability fields, and wider experimental evidence is scarce and contradictory. Our pilot study addresses this gap and tests the aforementioned proposition in the context of an intervention: an EU Climate Leadership Program for high-level decision-makers. The intervention was found to have significant effects on transformative qualities/capacities, intermediary factors, and pro-environmental behaviors and engagement across all levels. The picture is, however, more complex for pro-environmental attitudes. With due limitations (e.g., small sample size), this preliminary evidence confirms the feasibility and potential of mindfulness- and compassion-based interventions to foster inner-outer transformation for sustainability and climate action. Aspects that should be taken into account in larger confirmatory trials are discussed.
... However, several scholars agree with Miller, Grimes, McMullen, and Vogus (2012) that compassion is both compelling prosocial motivator and an emotional connection the sufferings of others (Davis, 1998(Davis, , 2007Fowler, 2000;Atkins and Parker, 2012;Goetz et al., 2010). It is a predictor of entrepreneurial activity (Engel, Ramesh, and Steiner, 2019), and it motivates social entrepreneurship (Dees, 1998). In addition, Cecen (2008) claims that perceived social support consists of three components namely: family, friends, and special persons/partners. ...
The emergence of social entrepreneurship has been undeniably observant all over the world. Its existence has been studied and explored in several scholarly literature. The failure of profit-seeking companies to produce the goods and services, because many people are willing but unable to pay for what they want and need (Seelos & Mair, 2004), gives an opportunity to social enterprises to cover the unmet needs and social goals, specifically in developing country like the Philippines. However, a major catastrophe, the threat of Covid-19, had reshaped the way people do business. The rise of more complicated social problems has been felt more than ever. Prior studies suggest that compassion and perceived feasibility encourage the likelihood of an individual to take part in social enterprises, and these studies have been the theoretical foundation of this study. The study aims to determine the effect of compassion on social entrepreneurial intentions (SEIs); and the mediating effect of perceived feasibility to the relationship of compassion and social entrepreneurial intent in times of Covid-19. The research design of the study is quantitative, descriptive and causal explanatory. An online questionnaire was distributed among 191 business students taking their capstone project as they are considered nascent entrepreneurs. Structural Equation Modelling and SmartPLS 3.0 were used in data analysis. The findings of the study exposed that compassion positively affects social entrepreneurial intentions, and perceived feasibility has partial mediating effects on the relationship of compassion and social entrepreneurial intentions. The study contributes to the social entrepreneurship and traditional entrepreneurial intent literature by introducing compassion as a predictor of social intent. Future researchers may replicate the study in various geographical areas to validate or invalidate the results of this study or future studies may explore other prosocial motivation constructs relationship on social entrepreneurial intentions.
In the rapidly evolving landscape of the new energy sector, where innovation and sustainability are paramount, the integration of mindfulness practices holds promise for fostering the skills and mindset necessary for entrepreneurial ventures and employment opportunities. College and university students, as the future workforce and innovators, stand to play a pivotal role in shaping the trajectory of the new energy industry. Drawing upon a comprehensive literature review and empirical data collected through surveys and interviews with students, faculty members, and industry professionals, this paper explores mindfulness cultivation models tailored for entrepreneurship and employment among college and university students, specifically within the context of the emerging new energy industry. The research performed structural and equation modelling using Python to derive the resultant outcome. This work deploys improved fuzzy decision tree for classification of the entrepreneurial and employment behavior (EEB). The results of the study revealed that self-regulation and self-transcendence positively impact EEB, whereas self-awareness does not significantly influence EEB. The study shows that by embracing mindfulness as a foundational element of academic and professional development, stakeholders can contribute to building a more resilient, compassionate, and inclusive society.
Entrepreneurship has long been recognized as crucial for economic and social development. Today, entrepreneurship as a field may be more important than ever, due to the global challenges we are facing and the new ideas and solutions we need in order to achieve sustainable development. Thus, it is important that educators equip students with the competence and knowledge they need, in order to address global challenges in a holistic way. The overall aim of this chapter is to shed light on how experience-based teaching methods can be used to encourage students’ engagement for sustainable entrepreneurship. The study is primarily relevant in relation to SDGs 1 (no poverty), 8 (decent work and economic growth), and 11 (sustainable cities and communities). The study is based on an entrepreneurship course, where master’s students at a Norwegian university were exposed to a new and unfamiliar cultural/geographical context in a rural area in India. Two cohorts of students were studied. The first group traveled to India as part of the course, while the second group of students took the whole course online but were introduced to the same teaching and to the same rural context. Individual interviews with all students were conducted three times—before, during, and after the field work. Data were coded inductively, aiming to detect central themes related to students’ learning and their reflections around the exposure to an unfamiliar context. Results show that the students who physically traveled to India found the field visit central to their ability to understand entrepreneurial challenges at both micro and macro levels. The students reported that they both learned to identify problems and solutions in the specific place they visited but also that they got a better understanding for global challenges of today, due to exposure to an underprivileged community in the global south. The students who took the course online similarly expressed that they learned to identify problems and solutions but were less devoted to really find solutions for the specific community. These findings shed light on the role of entrepreneurship education and the fostering of change agents who are willing to commit to sustainability solutions for the future. This can help in developing pedagogical tools, specifically regarding experience-based learning tools.
Entrepreneurial affect has emerged as a burgeoning area of study, with a wealth of articles demonstrating that affect, broadly conceptualized, plays an important part in entrepreneurial life. While a few affective phenomena, such as passion and positive and negative affect, are primarily driving the affective revolution in entrepreneurship, a wide range of additional forms of affect, from momentary feelings to enduring affective dispositions, have been found to influence entrepreneurs’ judgments, decision-making, attitudes, and behaviors in distinct parts of the entrepreneurial process. Moreover, entrepreneurs’ affective experiences and displays of these experiences influence entrepreneurial behaviors and investors’ decision-making. Although this is an exciting time for work on entrepreneurial affect, several theoretical and empirical inconsistencies impede further knowledge accumulation. To assess how and why affect is critical to entrepreneurship, to clarify the theoretical inconsistencies, and to provide an integrative framework, we conduct a systematic review of 276 published empirical and conceptual articles on entrepreneurial affect. In doing so, we analyze how various affective phenomena (e.g., emotions, moods, sentiments), along with their discrete forms (e.g., anger, grief, happiness), influence and are influenced by specific stages of the entrepreneurial process. We conclude that while this body of research confirms that entrepreneurship is an emotional endeavor, the collective approach has thus far obscured a more detailed and useful understanding of affect in each stage of the entrepreneurial process. We examine the theoretical and empirical approaches taken to date and lay out an agenda for future scholars, thus bolstering the affective revolution in entrepreneurship.
While other applied sciences systematically distinguish between manipulation designs, organizational research does not. Herein, we disentangle distinct applications that differ in how the manipulation is deployed, analyzed, and interpreted in support of hypotheses. First, we define two archetypes: treatments, experimental designs that expose participants to different levels/types of a manipulation of theoretical interest, and primes, manipulations that are not of theoretical interest but generate variance in a state that is. We position these and creative derivations (e.g., interventions and invariant prompts) as specialized tools in our methodological kit. Second, we review 450 manipulations published in leading organizational journals to identify each type's prevalence and application in our field. From this we derive our guiding thesis that while treatments offer unique advantages (foremost establishing causality), they are not always possible, nor the best fit for a research question; in these cases, a non-causal but accurate test of theory, such as a prime design, may prove superior to a causal but inaccurate test. We conclude by outlining best practices for selection, execution, and evaluation by researchers, reviewers, and readers.
Purpose
Generation Z (GenZers) significantly influences sustainability-related issues in emerging economies like India. Literature on sustainability suggests exploring ways to enhance their sustainable behavior, especially for food and clothing products, which have detrimental consequences despite being essential. Mindfulness is often proposed as a factor that could potentially influence sustainability. However, the empirical association between mindfulness and sustainable consumption behavior (SCB) and the underlying pathways remain underexplored. Therefore, this study aims to advance the empirical understanding of how GenZers’ trait mindfulness affects their SCB for food and clothing.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a time-lagged study involving responses from 519 Indian GenZers (college students aged 18–24 years) the authors examined two models (one for SCB related to food and one for clothing) to explore the direct relationships and mediating factors between trait mindfulness and SCB.
Findings
GenZers with higher levels of trait mindfulness are more likely to influence their SCB for food and clothing. Besides, in both models, self-regulation, self-compassion and prosocialness mediate the association between trait mindfulness and SCB.
Research limitations/implications
Mindfulness and its intervening variables are promising for positively driving SCB for food and clothing. Marketers and policymakers can consider these findings to strategize and encourage sustainable consumption, particularly among GenZers.
Originality/value
This seminal study uses the reperceiving theory to empirically validate the relationship between GenZers’ trait mindfulness and SCB for food and clothing.
The purpose of this paper is to depict how entrepreneurs improve community vitality in the economic, social and environmental dimensions. The paper joins the conversation of business spirituality as the study participants were Sri Lankan Buddhist entrepreneurs from the emerging venture context (i.e. from enterprises which are less than 1–10 years old). The aim of the paper is to introduce spiritually informed entrepreneurial actions, thus contributing to a better understanding of entrepreneurial impact on communities.
The paper involves a qualitative, interpretivist research design. Data was collected by conducting 28 semi-structured interviews with 18 Sri Lankan Buddhist entrepreneurs. Research participants were selected from diverse business sectors. The research applied inductive thematic analysis for structuring and interpreting data.
For Sri Lankan Buddhist entrepreneurs, improving community vitality is an essential altruistic goal of their business agenda. During the operations of their ventures, this altruistic goal is translated into altruistic actions that improve the economic, social and environmental vitalities of communities. Research findings highlight that in the case of Sri Lankan Buddhist entrepreneurs, altruistic actions are informed by compassion, which is a fundamental value in the Buddhist religion. Drawing on the findings, an integrated model of community vitality, which describes the role of compassion and the mechanisms of entrepreneurial actions in a Buddhist setting was developed inductively.
Studying entrepreneurial actions to focus on the motivations behind improving community vitality is a new research topic. The paper provides valuable knowledge on business spirituality regarding the compassionate motivations of Buddhist entrepreneurs. The integrated model of community vitality, which describes the mechanisms of entrepreneurial actions to improve community vitality in a Buddhist setting could be an essential compass not only to entrepreneurs but also research scholars in the field of business spirituality.
Purpose: The study of mindfulness is still shown to be of interest in different aspects of organizations and/or businesses. Therefore, this study aims to present an integrative, multi-level model of mindfulness based on a holistic approach that can contribute to better governance practices and lead to competitive advantages.
Design/methodology/approach: To fulfil this aim, an extensive integrative review of the literature, from the main articles about this topic, was made.
Findings: This study shows that the concept of mindfulness, a conscious presence or full attention and its relation with organisations or firms’ personal, behavioural and social characteristics, in the current context of great adversity, uncertainty and unpredictability, is of interest at the individual, organisational and social level.
Practical implications: This conceptual study has important implications for both practice and theory. It demonstrates that mindfulness significantly impacts the manager/business person’s ecosystem at the individual, organizational and social levels, particularly in relation to sustainable development goals (SDGs).
Originality/value: This study introduces a comprehensive theoretical model that explains this relationship and organizes information from a multi-level perspective. This approach can contribute to the advancement of theory by clarifying and discussing the role of mindfulness at the individual, organizational, and societal levels. It also identifies opportunities and outlines future research directions, aiming to promote more sustainable development.
Entrepreneurship scholars have much to gain from including time perspective in developing theory about entrepreneurs’ alertness. In this study, interviews with 22 French entrepreneurs revealed associations between their alertness and past-positive, present-hedonistic, and future time perspectives. Complementarily, a sample of 376 U.S. entrepreneurs provided evidence that their present-hedonistic and future time perspectives impacted their alertness; we found mixed support for the relationship between past-positive time perspective and entrepreneurial alertness. A replication analysis with 764 U.K. entrepreneurs corroborated support for our hypotheses.
Purpose – The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of principal's decision making, organizational commitment, organizational climate on teacher performance at Private Vacational High School Kota Tangerang Methodology/approach – This research is causal quantitative with survey method used in data collection. The population is a private vocational school teacher in Tangerang City with a sample of 100 respondents using a random sampling technique. Findings – The results showed that 1) There is an influence of Decision Making on Teacher Performance, with the interaction between school principals and teachers in making decisions to be a big influential indicator. 2) There is an influence of Organizational Commitment on Teacher Performance, with commitment to career development according to the period of service being an indicator of great influence. 3) There is an influence of Organizational Climate on Teacher Performance, with the principal's efforts to encourage teachers to foster gifted students being a big influential indicator. Novelty/value – The interaction between the principal and the teacher in making decisions is a major indicator of influence, so the principal should be able to maintain interaction with teachers in order to decide on appropriate policies for the progress and improvement of teacher performance in schools. Then, career development according to the period of service is a big indicator of organizational commitment, it is necessary to have talent management in this case the teacher and the right career succession so that it can improve teacher performance. Finally, the coaching of gifted students in this study is alleged to have a major influence on the creation of a good organizational climate, talented students are expected to become good influencers for schools so that the school's learning situation and climate will be good and teacher performance will increase because the students are talented.
Purpose
This paper aims to explain the occurrence of sustainable entrepreneurship in the underresearched sub-Saharan Africa context and to improve the understanding of how effectuation manifests in this context.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a qualitative research approach based on multiple case studies. Responses were sourced from owners, employees, suppliers, the community and customers of sustainable entrepreneurial firms. Data collection methods included in-depth interviews, document reviews and observations. The Gioia analytical approach was used.
Findings
Overall, the authors find the concept of effectuation to be well-suited to capturing the processes through which individuals with limited means seek to engage in sustainable entrepreneurship. The authors also identify three pervasive practices that are key to understanding effectuation in the developing country context: complementation of indigenous knowledge with modern science, compassion and pluriactivity.
Practical implications
This study underscores the importance of co-creation, diversification of revenue sources and the role of emotional awareness and interpersonal skills in entrepreneurial endeavors.
Originality/value
This study, therefore, contributes new knowledge about the mechanisms through which entrepreneurs faced with resource constraints use control as opposed to prediction strategies to exploit sustainable entrepreneurship opportunities. In so doing, this study contributes to entrepreneurship theory by proposing the integration of cognitive and affective dimensions in realizing sustainable entrepreneurship goals.
In order to achieve a competitive advantage in the market, enhance a positive brand reputation, and respond to consumers' requirement, organizations' key leaders may have to make sustainable decisions for the sake of the environment, the society and the organization simultaneously. In this study, Buddhism and compassion are proposed to extend the sustainability mindset framework in understanding key leaders' sustainable decision making to achieve a balance between concerns for environmental, societal, and economic outcomes. Data from a survey of 142 key leaders who are business owners, entrepreneurs, and managers in SMEs and startups in Vietnam provide evidence that Buddhist teaching and lifestyles are important predictors of key leaders' sustainable decision making through the mediator of compassion. Furthermore, the study also revealed that Buddhism positively and significantly influences compassion. This research, thus, makes contribution to the extant literature regarding factors influencing key leaders' sustainable decision making. Practical implications are also discussed.
Educators at all levels are being challenged to ensure that students know the truth about climate change and are empowered to be agents of change, able to resist despair and propose radical innovation in the face of sustainability challenges (Department for Education, 2022). For Enterprise Educators, this demand is potentially problematic, implicated as we are (through economic preparation activities), in contributing to take-and-consume cultures that relate to the unsustainability of development (Frederick, 2018; Hallonsten, 2023), and where limited empirical examples of transformed and sustainable practice exist (Klapper and Fayolle, 2023; Dodd et al, 2022). A question therefore becomes – how do we re-orient ourselves and our practice away from unsustainability? One possibility is to connect with the substantial materials and resources proposing regenerative business design, offered through the Doughnut framework (Raworth, 2017), and the Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL, 2023). To explore this possibility, in this paper we adopt the stance of self-study, an approach used in teaching and teacher education where educators purposefully study themselves in order to bring about change in thinking and practice (Bullough and Pinnegar, 2001).
Strong sustainability argues that substitutions of human and reproducible capitals for natural capital are very limited; hence, upholding strong sustainability principles in ecological and climate policies is necessary to tackle existing global ecological crisis. Implementing these principles requires the accumulation of altruistic capital which includes altruistic preferences and behaviors in individuals and organizations. In this article, we present a narrative arguing that cultivating loving-kindness and compassion (LK&C) in individuals is key to the accumulation of altruistic capital. More importantly, we provide several logical arguments to support two hypotheses: first, it is possible for individuals to develop LK&C; and second, LK&C in individuals can be cultivated limitlessly. Our analysis is based on the classical cognitive framework of Buddhism through the lenses of Middle Way Consequence philosophy.
This article discusses the five stages involved in securing financing for a start-up business. The first stage involves market analysis to determine the potential for development, including estimation of the addressable market, analysis of the competitive environment using tools like the Five-Forces Model, and identification of the ideal customer and/or consumer. The second section focuses on the business model, which involves determining whether the product is technological or service-based, and conducting a product description, numerical estimation, and definition of the technological dimension. The third section outlines the growth strategy, including identifying competitive advantages and developing a roadmap with the main commercial and technical characteristics to be developed in the future. The fourth stage involves determining the amount of investment required and how the funds will be used. The evaluation of the start-up is a crucial step in this process. The article identifies two fundamental principles for evaluation, namely, that the earlier the start-up, the less sophisticated the evaluation methods, and that since start-ups are not listed on the stock exchange, evaluation is eminently subjective and a continual negotiation process. The final stage involves auditing the existing situation to determine whether the company presents legal or financial risks and whether financing can take place or not.
Loving‐kindness and compassion meditation (LKCM) have been well applied among employees to improve their health and well‐being. Existing studies on LKCM have also provided supportive evidence of its benefits and effectiveness under organizational contexts. The current meta‐analytical study aimed to systematically summarise the effects of LKCM in the workplace and to outline directions for future research and practice. Among 327 empirical studies on LKCM published until March 2022, 21 trials focussed on employees and provided sufficient information, which were included in the following meta‐analysis. The results showed that LKCM benefited eight categories of workplace outcomes. Specifically, LKCM effectively decreased employees' burnout (g = 0.395, k = 10) and stress (g = 0.544, k = 10) and facilitated their mindfulness (g = 0.558, k = 14), self‐compassion (g = 0.646, k = 12), personal mental health (g = 0.308, k = 13), job attitudes (g = 0.283, k = 4), interpersonal relationships (g = 0.381, k = 12), and psychological resources (g = 0.406, k = 6). The results of moderation analyses further indicated that the participants' job type, gender, and the focus of LKCM might differentially fluctuate the magnitude of LKCM effects. To advance research and best practice, we finally pointed out several issues that deserve attention, such as long‐term effects, underlying mechanisms, potential moderators, and outcomes or influential factors at the organizational level.
Psychological mediators underlie many entrepreneurship phenomena. Unfolding psychological mechanisms enhances our understanding of theoretical relationships in entrepreneurship. This paper first reviews the current state of entrepreneurship studies examining psychological mediators and identifies the hurdles that push researchers away from employing randomized experiments to unfold the causal relationships underlying mediation. To alleviate these hurdles, we then propose parsimonious yet rigorous experimental designs that make experiments testing psychological mediators in entrepreneurship feasible and cost efficient. In addition, when manipulating the mediator is not feasible, we theorize and identify two remedies a single experiment can use to examine the causal chain underlying mediation.
Purpose
The present research integrates conservation of resources theory (COR) and adaptation theory to investigate the dynamics of entrepreneurs' reactions to obstacles. Furthermore, this research explores whether entrepreneurs' effort allocations following an obstacle influence how entrepreneurs appraise subsequent loss-related events. Finally, this research seeks to understand why some entrepreneurs handle obstacles better than others by considering the role of optimism.
Design/methodology/approach
This research utilized a longitudinal survey with 130 nascent entrepreneurs across 4 time periods. This research used a multivariate latent change analysis model to examine the temporal dynamics of new venture effort after exposure to obstacles.
Findings
The results indicated that entrepreneurial obstacles at time t were associated with decreased effort in new ventures at time t+1. Furthermore, new venture effort at time t was associated with decreased effort in new ventures at time t+1. The results also demonstrated that the allocation of greater effort may lead to a decrease in subsequent obstacle appraisals, a relationship that also varies as a function of nascent entrepreneurs' optimism.
Originality/value
This research extends the understanding of the dynamic pattern of reactions following exposure to entrepreneurial obstacles. The findings suggest that, rather than being straightforward, reactions are likely to ebb and flow over time.
Supporting female entrepreneurship is important in the context of developing countries where the participation of women in the formal sector has historically been limited. In this paper, we explore the perceptions of female entrepreneurs in the Jordanian tourism sector regarding how gendered formal and informal sector institutions impact their ventures as well as the sources of self-actualization derived from their role as entrepreneurs. Using a qualitative approach, we find that (a) female entrepreneurs in Jordan’s tourism industry face numerous challenges that are primarily gender-related and (b) their entrepreneurial achievement is fueled by several external and internal success factors, which are related to aspects of life as women in Jordan. Further, we find that women entrepreneurs in the Jordanian tourism achieve self-actualization from not only economic emancipation for themselves and other women, but also as agents of social change and from a stewardship role in Jordanian society, achieved through the establishment and operations of their businesses. We also offer recommendations for both policymakers and academics based on our findings.
Public low-carbon travel is of great significance for achieving carbon neutrality and mitigating climate change. Therefore, taking the Chinese public as the research object, this paper discusses the impact of public awareness of climate policy on low-carbon travel. First, based on stimulus-organism response (SOR) theory, this paper constructs a theoretical model to study the impact of public perception of climate policy on low-carbon travel. Then, environmental emotion is used as a mediating variable in the model. Finally, 419 respondents were selected for a questionnaire survey to collect data. It is found that public awareness of climate policy affects low-carbon travel by triggering environmental emotions. Positive environmental emotions have a significant positive impact on low-carbon travel, while negative environmental emotions have a significant negative impact on low-carbon travel. In addition, positive environmental emotions have a greater impact on low-carbon travel than negative environmental emotions. Based on the above conclusions, this paper puts forward the following specific suggestions: in-depth publicity of climate policy, cultivation of positive environmental sentiment, strengthening the public's responsibility to respond to climate change concerns, etc.
Recent studies have emerged that highlight the critical role of green entrepreneurial orientation (GEO) in achieving sustainability in a business context. However, knowledge of drivers of GEO and how and when GEO influences corporate environmental performance (CEP) is limited and lacks clarity. Therefore, this review aims to enrich the present literature on environmental research and practice by synthesizing the literature regarding drivers of GEO in organizations. Moreover, it highlights underdeveloped and overlooked areas regarding mediating and moderating factors that influence GEO and CEP links. Thus, this review advances the research by proposing the conceptual framework using the identified gaps in the literature, suggesting that the micro, meso, and macro-level factors enhance the adoption of GEO in organizations. This also shows that organizational factors mediate the relationship between GEO and CEP while socio-demographic characteristics and favorable contextual factors moderates the GEO–CEP link. In addition, it calls for researchers to turn attention from the importance of the process to finding how GEO can be improved to enhance environmental performance.
Entrepreneurial fear of failure is a ubiquitous yet aversive experience with critical implications for entrepreneurial action and well-being. To understand how entrepreneurs can effectively cope with fear-inducing obstacles, we hypothesize and experimentally test the extent to which self-compassion, cultivated through Loving-Kindness Meditation (LKM), counteracts entrepreneurs’ fear of failure when facing a threatening venture obstacle. Compared to an active control group, entrepreneurs exposed to a brief guided LKM showed higher self-compassion, which, in turn, was associated with lower fear reactivity. We offer novel contributions to entrepreneurship theory and practice by highlighting the role of meditation and self-compassion in building entrepreneurial resilience.
Entrepreneurship research typically emphasizes firm-level outcomes such as growth and performance. However, people pursue entrepreneurship for deeply personal, idiosyncratic reasons. Therefore, as in other self-organized human pursuits, how entrepreneurship relates to fulfillment and well-being is of utmost importance. In this paper, we provide an overview of the well-being concept, related research, and its connection to entrepreneurship. We define entrepreneurial well-being as the experience of satisfaction, positive affect, infrequent negative affect, and psychological functioning in relation to developing, starting, growing, and running an entrepreneurial venture. We explain this definition of entrepreneurial well-being and review significant developments in our field and the broader field of well-being. Highlights of social, technological and institutional trends illustrate key areas for future research that can enhance our understanding of these phenomena. The eight papers in this special issue focus on entrepreneurial well-being each offering a specific perspective on how scholars can theorize and study the antecedents and consequences of entrepreneurship related to well-being.
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In Spontaneous Venturing, Dean Shepherd and Trenton Williams identify and describe a new approach for responding to disaster and suffering: the local organizing of spontaneous, compassionate, and impromptu actions—the rapid emergence of a compassionate venture. This approach, termed by the authors “spontaneous venturing,” can be more effective than the traditional “command-and-control” methods of large disaster relief organizations. It can customize and target resources and deliver them quickly, helping victims almost immediately. For example, during the catastrophic 2009 bushfires in Victoria, Australia—the focal disaster for the book—residents organized an impromptu relief center that collected and distributed urgently needed goods without red tape. Special bonds and friendships formed among the volunteers and victims; some were both volunteer and victim. Many victims were able to mobilize resources despite considerable personal losses. Shepherd and Williams describe the lasting impact of disaster and tell the stories of Victoria residents who organized in the aftermath of the bushfires. They consider the limitations of traditional disaster relief efforts and explain that when victims take action to help others, they develop behavioral, emotional, and assumptive resilience; venturing leads to social interaction, community connections, and other positive outcomes. Finally, they explore spontaneous venturing in a less-developed country, investigating the activities of Haitians after the devastating 2010 earthquake. The lesson for communities hit by disaster: find opportunities for compassionate action.
Mindfulness, meaning a receptive attention to and awareness of present events and experience, is reported to have a wide range of benefits, but it has been suggested that it could prove costly in terms of task performance. This article analyzes how dispositional mindfulness relates to taking entrepreneurial action. Based on two waves of survey data, we find that mindful individuals are less likely to engage in entrepreneurial action than less mindful individuals, but when they do start to act, they take as many actions as individuals who score low on trait mindfulness, and even more if they have entrepreneurial experience.
The entrepreneurial process is associated with high uncertainty. Uncertainty is also a major source of stress. Therefore, a core aim of entrepreneurs is to reduce uncertainty to an extent that allows the entrepreneurial process to unfold. However, entrepreneurship scholars have insufficiently addressed stress processes that may be associated with this uncertainty. We argue that uncertainty is the concept connecting both the entrepreneurial and stress processes. We discuss the link between the two processes regarding: (1) opportunity recognition, (2) opportunity exploitation, and (3) associated outcomes. We then illustrate how future research should incorporate the interaction between the two processes using a morphological box and discuss how such research would change the way we specify entrepreneurial process models and study entrepreneurial behavior.
Growing globalisation and climate change are challenging the sustainability of our societies. It is now clear that climate change and its devastating impacts cannot be resolved by new technology or governance alone. They require a broader, cultural shift. As a result, the role of human beings' 'inner dimensions' and related transformations is attracting increased attention from researchers. Recent advances in neuroscience suggest for instance that mindfulness can open new pathways towards sustainability. However, the role of mindfulness in climate adaptation has been largely ignored. This paper is the first exploratory empirical investigation into linking individuals' intrinsic mindfulness (as opposed to outside mindfulness interventions) to pro-and reactive climate adaptation. Based on a survey of citizens at risk from severe climate events, we explore if, and how individual mindfulness is correlated with climate adaptation at different scales. The results show that individual mindfulness coincides with higher motivation to take climate adaptation actions or to support them, especially actions that are 'other-focused' or support pro-environmental behaviour. Mindfulness may also corroborate the acknowledgement of climate change and associated risk perception, and it may steer people away from fatalistic attitudes. We conclude with a call for more research into the relationship between human beings' inner dimensions and climate adaptation in the wider public domain.
Dilemmas featuring competing moral imperatives are prevalent in organizations and are difficult to resolve. Whereas prior research has focused on how individuals adjudicate among these moral imperatives, we study the factors that influence when individuals find solutions that fall outside of the salient options presented. In particular, we study moral insight, or the discovery of solutions, other than selecting one of the competing moral imperatives over another, that honor both competing imperatives or resolve the tension among them. Although individuals intuitively consider the question “What should I do?” when contemplating moral dilemmas, we find that prompting people to consider “What could I do?” helps them generate moral insight. Together, these studies point toward the conditions that enable moral insight and important practical implications.
Many individuals believe that meditation has the capacity to not only alleviate mental-illness but to improve prosociality. This article systematically reviewed and meta-analysed the effects of meditation interventions on prosociality in randomized controlled trials of healthy adults. Five types of social behaviours were identified: compassion, empathy, aggression, connectedness and prejudice. Although we found a moderate increase in prosociality following meditation, further analysis indicated that this effect was qualified by two factors: type of prosociality and methodological quality. Meditation interventions had an effect on compassion and empathy, but not on aggression, connectedness or prejudice. We further found that compassion levels only increased under two conditions: when the teacher in the meditation intervention was a co-author in the published study; and when the study employed a passive (waiting list) control group but not an active one. Contrary to popular beliefs that meditation will lead to prosocial changes, the results of this meta-analysis showed that the effects of meditation on prosociality were qualified by the type of prosociality and methodological quality of the study. We conclude by highlighting a number of biases and theoretical problems that need addressing to improve quality of research in this area.
Interest in entrepreneurs' mental health and well-being (MWB) is growing in recognition of the role of MWB in entrepreneurs' decision-making, motivation and action. Yet relevant knowledge is dispersed across disciplines, which makes it unclear what we currently understand about entrepreneurs' MWB. In this systematic review I integrate insights from 144 empirical studies. These studies show that research is focused on three research questions: (1) Do different types of entrepreneur differ in their MWB? What are the (2) antecedents and (3) consequences of entrepreneurs' MWB? The review systematizes evidence on known antecedents and consequences of entrepreneurs' MWB but also reveals overlooked and undertheorized sources and outcomes of entrepreneurs' MWB. The review provides a mapping and framework that advance research on entrepreneurs' MWB and help to position entrepreneurs' MWB more centrally in management and entrepreneurship research. It calls for researchers to go beyond applying models developed for employees to understand entrepreneurs' MWB. Instead, the findings point the way to developing a dedicated theory of entrepreneurial work and MWB that is dynamic, socialized, open to considering context, and acknowledges variability and fluidity across entrepreneurs' life domains, as well as the centrality of work for entrepreneurs' identity.
The number of online experiments conducted with subjects recruited via online platforms has grown considerably in the recent past. While one commercial crowdworking platform - Amazon's Mechanical Turk - basically has established and since dominated this field, new alternatives offer services explicitly targeted at researchers. In this article, we present www.prolific.ac and lay out its suitability for recruiting subjects for social and economic science experiments. After briefly discussing key advantages and challenges of online experiments relative to lab experiments, we trace the platform's historical development, present its features, and contrast them with requirements for different types of social and economic experiments.
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 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. This paper explores 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: i. purpose-driven, determined; ii. value-based, vacillating; iii. value-based, unintended; iv. single motive, single solution; and v. purpose-driven, hesitant.
Research limitations/implications: This study demonstrates that no single condition is necessary or 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 and causally linked to 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 organising 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
The dangers of mindless behaviors remain better defined than their remedies. Even as mindfulness becomes increasingly prevalent, we lack clarity on three key questions: What is mindfulness? How does mindfulness training operate? And why might mindfulness matter for organizations? In this article, I introduce a new conceptualization of mindfulness called metacognitive practice. Metacognitive practice is so-named because it blends insights from metacognition and practice theory to answer these three key questions. First, when seen as metacognitive practice, mindfulness is not a single mode of information processing to be applied in all situations. Instead, mindfulness is a metacognitive process by which people adjust their mode of information processing to their current situation. Second, this metacognitive process is made possible by three specific beliefs that supersede lay beliefs about human information processing. A core function of mindfulness training is thus to provide a context that cultivates these beliefs. And third, when these beliefs are put into practice, people gain greater agency in how they respond to situations. This matters for organizations because as people interrelate their individual actions into a collective response, metacognitive practice can get embedded in amplifying processes that transform the organization—or in fragmentation processes that threaten it.
The recognition of entrepreneurship as a solution to, rather than a cause of, environmental degradation and social inequality moved the field to identify a new type of entrepreneurial activity, namely sustainable entrepreneurship. Scholarly interest has spiked in recent years, however, aside from its aspirational appeal, there remains a lack of understanding of the nature of the phenomenon and the future of sustainable entrepreneurship in theory and practice. This review seeks to provide a conceptual basis for stimulating scholarly thought and improving our collective understanding of sustainable entrepreneurship as a distinct subdomain within entrepreneurship research. Based on boundary definition and delineation of main features, this review critically discusses the main challenges ahead and elaborates on the research implications and future research directions beyond current, dominant approaches to entrepreneurial action.
We provide an ethnographic account of how social entrepreneurs in the Safe Water for Africa program made sense of hybrid goods, as well as how and why those understandings affected both the social enterprise's marketing mix and stakeholders' expectations of the enterprise's rights and responsibilities. We find that output maximizing-behavior enabled by prosocial motivation elicits a psychological feeling of entitlement to a socio-emotional return on investment in the form of beneficiary gratitude. When considered justified, these feelings become moral norms that can induce or prevent the institutionalization of a suboptimal path of development depending on the motivations of competitors. We show that social entrepreneurs' emotional attachment can have consequences for development, challenging the functionalist conception of social enterprise as a temporary patch to institutional voids. We present a detailed account of the Safe Water for Africa (SWA) program that examines (1) how the stakeholders of SWA made sense of water as a “hybrid good” - goods characterized as both a human right and a private good - and (2) how these understandings shaped (a) the social entrepreneurs' attitudes, (b) the social enterprise's marketing mix, and (c) stakeholder's expectations of the enterprise's rights and responsibilities. We find that the same motivation that prompted social entrepreneurs to act on behalf of those without safe water elicited a sense of entitlement to a “return on investment” in the form of beneficiary gratitude. If reciprocated, these feelings may become normalized and, depending on competitor's motives, hinder long-term development efforts by precluding their entry.
Suffering comes in many forms that significantly impact organizations' operations and performance. As a result, recent research on compassion organizing seeks to explain how efforts to notice, feel, and respond to suffering create organizational (and societal) benefits. Widespread suffering can be generated by natural disasters, which in turn can trigger compassionate organizational responses. In this paper, we build on social capital theory to theorize about how compassionate ventures leverage network relationships to identify and mobilize resources. We also explore how differences in these approaches influence the magnitude, speed, and customization of the response, all of which are theorized indicators of the effectiveness of compassion organizing in alleviating suffering. We use structural equation modeling to test our model and find that compassionate ventures with stronger ties to the local community are more likely to bundle (i.e., stretch) resources, which facilitates a speedy, customized, and large magnitude response. In contrast, those with stronger ties outside the local community are more likely to pursue (i.e., chase) new resources, which results in a large magnitude response, but one that is not associated with speed or customization. We discuss the implications of our findings and make recommendations for future research. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Attention checks have become increasingly popular in survey research as a means to filter out careless respondents. Despite their widespread use, little research has empirically tested the impact of attention checks on scale validity. In fact, because attention checks can induce a more deliberative mindset in survey respondents, they may change the way respondents answer survey questions, posing a threat to scale validity. In two studies, we tested this hypothesis (N = 816). We examined whether common attention checks—instructed-response items (Study 1) and an instructional manipulation check (Study 2)—impact responses to a well-validated management scale. Results showed no evidence that they affect scale validity, both in reported scale means and tests of measurement invariance. These findings allow researchers to justify the use of attention checks without compromising scale validity and encourage future research to examine other survey characteristic-respondent dynamics to advance our use of survey methods.
We examined the entrepreneurial orientation and sustainability orientation, a persistent and conflicting duality, of sustainable entrepreneurs and their evaluation of competing priorities in sustainability decision making. We conducted an exploratory, mixed-method study of 24 sustainable fashion firms and collected data through structured surveys and rich in-depth interviews. Through our inductive and deductive analysis, we derive three sustainability decision making profiles (singular, flexible and holistic) with distinct prioritization logic (nested, ordered and aligned, respectively). We find different configurations of entrepreneurial orientation correspond to the sustainability decision making profiles. We extend the literature by showing how the reflexivity of entrepreneurial orientation interacts with sustainability orientation.
The success of Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) as an online research platform has come at a price: MTurk has suffered from slowing rates of population replenishment, and growing participant non-naivety. Recently, a number of alternative platforms have emerged, offering capabilities similar to MTurk but providing access to new and more naïve populations. After surveying several options, we empirically examined two such platforms, CrowdFlower (CF) and Prolific Academic (ProA). In two studies, we found that participants on both platforms were more naïve and less dishonest compared to MTurk participants. Across the three platforms, CF provided the best response rate, but CF participants failed more attention-check questions and did not reproduce known effects replicated on ProA and MTurk. Moreover, ProA participants produced data quality that was higher than CF's and comparable to MTurk's. ProA and CF participants were also much more diverse than participants from MTurk.
This paper explores the current role of mindfulness in sustainability science, practice, and teaching. Based on a qualitative literature review that is complemented by an experimental learning lab, we sketch the patterns and core conceptual trajectories of the mindfulness–sustainability relationship. In addition, we assess this relationship within the field of climate change adaptation and risk reduction. The results highlight that notions such as ‘sustainability from within’, ‘ecological mindfulness’, ‘organizational mindfulness’, and ‘contemplative practices’ have been neglected in sustainability science and teaching. Whilst little sustainability research addresses mindfulness, there is scientific support for its positive influence on: (1) subjective well-being; (2) the activation of (intrinsic/ non-materialistic) core values; (3) consumption and sustainable behavior; (4) the human–nature connection; (5) equity issues; (6) social activism; and (7) deliberate, flexible, and adaptive responses to climate change. Most research relates to post-disaster risk reduction, although it is limited to the analysis of mindfulness-related interventions on psychological resilience. Broader analyses and foci are missing. In contrast, mindfulness is gaining widespread recognition in practice (e.g., by the United Nations, governmental and non-governmental organizations). It is concluded that mindfulness can contribute to understanding and facilitating sustainability, not only at the individual level, but sustainability at all scales, and should, thus, become a core concept in sustainability science, practice, and teaching. More research that acknowledges positive emotional connections, spirituality, and mindfulness in particular is called for, acknowledging that (1) the micro and macro are mirrored and interrelated, and (2) non-material causation is part of sustainability. This paper provides the first comprehensive framework for contemplative scientific inquiry, practice, and education in sustainability.
Jonathan Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory identifies five moral axes that can influence human motivation to take action on vital problems like climate change. The theory focuses on five moral foundations, including compassion, fairness, purity, authority, and ingroup loyalty; these have been found to differ between liberals and conservatives as well as Democrats and Republicans. Here we show, based on the Cornell National Social Survey (USA), that valuations of compassion and fairness were strong, positive predictors of willingness to act on climate change, whereas purity had a non-significant tendency in the positive direction (p = 0.07). Ingroup loyalty and authority were not supported as important predictor variables using model selection (). Compassion and fairness were more highly valued by liberals, whereas purity, authority, and in-group loyalty were more highly valued by conservatives. As in previous studies, participants who were younger, more liberal, and reported greater belief in climate change, also showed increased willingness to act on climate change. Our research supports the potential importance of moral foundations as drivers of intentions with respect to climate change action, and suggests that compassion, fairness, and to a lesser extent, purity, are potential moral pathways for personal action on climate change in the USA.
Researchers have long been interested in the relationship between feeling what you believe others feel?often described as empathy?and caring about the welfare of others?often described as compassion or concern. Many propose that empathy is a prerequisite for concern and is therefore the ultimate motivator of prosocial actions. To assess this hypothesis, the authors developed the Empathy Index, which consists of 2 novel scales, and explored their relationship to a measure of concern as well as to measures of cooperative and altruistic behavior. A series of factor analyses reveal that empathy and concern consistently load on different factors. Furthermore, they show that empathy and concern motivate different behaviors: concern for others is a uniquely positive predictor of prosocial action whereas empathy is either not predictive or negatively predictive of prosocial actions. Together these studies suggest that empathy and concern are psychologically distinct and empathy plays a more limited role in our moral lives than many believe.
This special topic forum (STF) features four articles that focus on sustainability, which is generally defined as the ability to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (World Commission on Environment and Development – WCED, 1987). Our own research of the 500 most cited studies on sustainability shows that scholars and managers often struggle with the concept and applications of sustainability. To some, sustainability is about environmental preservation, to others, it is about addressing societal needs, and yet for those who use a financial lens, sustainability is primarily about the economic bottom line. Then, there are scholars and managers for whom sustainability is synonymous with corporate social responsibility (CSR), ethical issues, shared value creation, and/or legal compliance. Naturally, all of the above are critical, and efforts in these areas should continue. But as we explain, none of these are sustainability per se and to date, no firm is truly or fully sustainable. Also, most research and practice in sustainability follows a preservation view. We advance a new paradigm and evince that sustainable practices—whether in supply chain management or any other business activity—are a function of two inseparable principles: (i) they must enhance ecological health, follow ethical standards to further social justice, and improve economic vitality; and (ii) they must prioritize the environment first, society second, and economics third. Our introduction to this STF elaborates on what sustainability is and is not, and it also summarizes the four articles in the STF. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
On the basis of a qualitative study of 25 renewable energy firms, we theorize why and how individuals engage in environmental entrepreneurship, inductively defined as: the use of both commercial and ecological logics to address environmental degradation through the creation of financially profitable organizations, products, services, and markets. Our findings suggest that environmental entrepreneurs: (1) are motivated by identities based in both commercial and ecological logics,(2) prioritize commercial and/or ecological venture goals dependent on the strength and priority of coupling between these two identity types, and (3) approach stakeholders in a broadly inclusive, exclusive, or co-created manner based on identity coupling and goals. These findings contribute to literature streams on hybrid organizing, entrepreneurial identity, and entrepreneurship’s potential for resolving environmental degradation.
Exploring environmental entrepreneurship: Identity coupling, venture goals, and stakeholder incentives (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/295088464_Exploring_environmental_entrepreneurship_Identity_coupling_venture_goals_and_stakeholder_incentives [accessed May 4, 2016].
This editorial to the special issue addresses the often overlooked question of the ethical nature of social enterprises. The emerging social entrepreneurship literature has previously been dominated by enthusiasts who fail to critique the social enterprise, focusing instead on its distinction from economic entrepreneurship and potential in solving social problems. In this respect, we have found through the work presented herein that the relation between social entrepreneurship and ethics needs to be problematized. Further, we find that a range of conceptual lenses and methodological approaches is valuable as the social entrepreneurship field matures.
While it has been suggested that loving-kindness meditation (LKM) is an effective practice for promoting positive emotions, the empirical evidence in the literature remains unclear. Here, we provide a systematic review of 24 empirical studies (N = 1759) on LKM with self-reported positive emotions. The effect of LKM on positive emotions was estimated with meta-analysis, and the influence of variations across LKM interventions was further explored with subgroup analysis and meta-regression. The meta-analysis showed that (1) medium effect sizes for LKM interventions on daily positive emotions in both wait-list controlled RCTs and non-RCT studies; and (2) small to large effect sizes for the on-going practice of LKM on immediate positive emotions across different comparisons. Further analysis showed that (1) interventions focused on loving-kindness had medium effect size, but interventions focused on compassion showed small effect sizes; (2) the length of interventions and the time spent on meditation did not influence the effect sizes, but the studies without didactic components in interventions had small effect sizes. A few individual studies reported that the nature of positive emotions and individual differences also influenced the results. In sum, LKM practice and interventions are effective in enhancing positive emotions, but more studies are needed to identify the active components of the interventions, to compare different psychological operations, and to explore the applicability in clinical populations.
Mindfulness research activity is surging within organizational science. Emerging evidence across multiple fields suggests that mindfulness is fundamentally connected to many aspects of workplace functioning, but this knowledge base has not been systematically integrated to date. This review coalesces the burgeoning body of mindfulness scholarship into a framework to guide mainstream management research investigating a broad range of constructs. The framework identifies how mindfulness influences attention, with downstream effects on functional domains of cognition, emotion, behavior, and physiology. Ultimately these domains impact key workplace outcomes, including performance, relationships, and well-being. Consideration of the evidence on mindfulness at work stimulates important questions and challenges key assumptions within management science, generating an agenda for future research.
In this chapter, we review and examine the differences and similarities between social, sustainable, and environmental entrepreneurship. We explore the concepts, key questions, empirical methodologies, and disciplinary roots that differentiate and relate these emergent interest areas. The result of this comparative analysis inevitably raises the question of whether these new literature streams are inclusive or separate from the traditional domain of entrepreneurship research. We find that these three areas share many similarities, yet are distinguishable from one another and from more traditional, commercial forms of entrepreneurship. However, we determine that although these three areas of entrepreneurial scholarship raise unique questions and highlight different types of phenomena, they are not their own fields of study, but rather promising contexts for studying key questions of the entrepreneurship field.
We investigated the individual and contextual influences shaping the environmental ethical decision intentions of a sample of managers in the U.S. metal-finishing industry in this study. Ajzen's (1991) theory of planned behavior and Jones's (1991) moral intensity construct grounded our theoretical framework. Findings revealed that the magnitude of consequences, a dimension of moral intensity, moderated the relationships between each of five antecedents-attitudes, subjective norms, and three perceived behavioral control factors (self-efficacy, financial cost, and ethical climate)-and managers' environmental ethical decision intentions. We then developed implications for theory and practice in environmental ethical decision making.
Combinations of multiple meditation practices have been shown to reduce the attrition of telomeres, the protective caps of chromosomes (Carlson et al., 2015). Here, we probed the distinct effects on telomere length (TL) of mindfulness meditation (MM) and loving-kindness meditation (LKM). Midlife adults (N = 142) were randomized to be in a waitlist control condition or to learn either MM or LKM in a 6-week workshop. Telomere length was assessed 2 weeks before the start of the workshops and 3 weeks after their termination. After controlling for appropriate demographic covariates and baseline TL, we found TL decreased significantly in the MM group and the control group, but not in the LKM group. There was also significantly less TL attrition in the LKM group than the control group. The MM group showed changes in TL that were intermediate between the LKM and control groups yet not significantly different from either. Self-reported emotions and practice intensity (duration and frequency) did not mediate these observed group differences. This study is the first to disentangle the effects of LKM and MM on TL and suggests that LKM may buffer telomere attrition.
Exhaustion is a prominent problem in entrepreneurship because it inhibits cognitive functioning, opportunity identification and evaluation, decision-making, and perseverance. We examine the possible benefits of sleep and mindfulness exercises in reducing the exhaustion experienced by entrepreneurs in the course of launching and growing ventures. Across two studies, we find that both sleep and mindfulness exercises provide avenues for entrepreneurs to combat exhaustion. More interestingly, we find that these two factors compensate for one another; as the usage of one increases, the efficacy of the other decreases. This has important implications for reducing exhaustion and improving cognitive functioning and motivational energy among entrepreneurs.
The past decade has witnessed a surge of research interest in social entrepreneurship (SE). This has resulted in important insights concerning the role of SE in fostering inclusive growth and institutional change. However, the rapid growth of SE research, the emerging nature of the literature, and the fact that SE builds on different disciplines and fields (e.g., entrepreneurship, sociology, economics, ethics) have led to a rather fragmented literature without dominant frameworks. This situation risks leading to a duplication of efforts and hampers cumulative knowledge growth. Drawing on 395 peer-reviewed articles on SE, we (1) identify gaps in SE research on three levels of analysis (i.e., individual, organizational, institutional), (2) proffer an integrative multistage, multilevel framework, and (3) discuss promising avenues for further research on SE.
The aim of this Special Issue is to demonstrate how drawing on multidisciplinary insights from the literature on prosociality can broaden the individual-opportunity nexus to make room for a variety of actors. Five feature articles emphasize the collective level of the analysis, underscoring the social distance between the entrepreneurs and the different communities they serve. Leveraging construal level theory, we abductively derive an organizing framework that helps us articulate how stretching or compressing social distance can transform initial opportunities into occasions for serving the greater good. We identify two distinct mechanisms present in all five empirical studies that explain how the needs and hopes of many others may add creativity, consistency and connectivity to one's venture. We also connect these abductive insights with the two editorials that follow this introduction and nudge our collective attention towards the research opportunities awaiting our academic community once we begin to relax the egocentric reference point that, until recently, has defined the discipline of entrepreneurship.
In this chapter we seek to explore the emergent literature on social innovation and make ties to the affective underpinnings of these activities. Referencing a typology of social innovation developed by Tracey and Stott (2017) outlining three major types of social innovation, including social entrepreneurship, social intrapreneurship, and social extrapreneurship, we draw on three metaphors to examine the role of emotions in social innovation: emotions as fuel, emotions as glue and emotions as rust. We develop the metaphors theoretically, reviewing relevant literature on social innovation, then use the metaphors to derive a research agenda for each type of social innovation. We conclude the chapter with a call for future work in this important domain of scholarship.
The present study introduces fear of failure as a responsive avoidance motive to the entrepreneurship literature and demonstrates its relevance as a psychological process in three experimental studies with nascent entrepreneurs. Drawing upon a social cognitive perspective on achievement motives, we show that fear of failure explains how obstacles encountered in the nascent phase affect individual entrepreneurial activity. We demonstrate that the perception of obstacles activates fear of failure, which, in turn, has a detrimental impact on opportunity evaluation and exploitation. Fear of failure's mediating effect generalizes across different samples and various obstacles (resource-oriented, market-oriented, and social-capital-oriented obstacles), and contributes to entrepreneurship research and practice by explaining individuals' decisions to withdraw from an entrepreneurial endeavor.
An experiment involving 115 undergraduate students (74.8% females; mean age = 20.5 years, SD = 4.3) was conducted to explore effects of meditation on social connectedness, nature connectedness, and affect. Participants listened to one of three brief guided meditation Mp3 recordings via the internet, which involved mindfulness meditation (MM), loving-kindness meditation (LKM), or progressive muscle relaxation (active control group). Participants in the MM and LKM groups reported greater social and nature connectedness at post-test than those in the control group. There were no significant differences in connectedness between the MM and LKM groups, suggesting they are both effective for enhancing connectedness. There were no significant changes in negative or positive affect at post-test due to the interventions. Recommendations for future research are provided.
The great challenge of sustainability is addressed by firms with varying levels of social and environmental responsibility and performance. Though traditionally, firms sought a balance, we argue that this is not enough. Rather, we advocate that the natural environment be the foundation on which society resides and the economy operates. Sustainable, ethical, entrepreneurial (SEE) enterprises are moving in this direction, seeking to regenerate the environment and drive positive societal changes rather than only minimizing harm. We also note that sustainability is justified and motivated by ethical considerations and pioneered by entrepreneurial engagement. The eight articles included in this Special Issue draw from cross-disciplinary scholarship to elaborate how SEE enterprises approach sustainability through new organizational forms, business models and innovation, and new governance mechanisms. They also emphasize the roles of institutional forces and logics, government policies and social movements for promoting or impeding sustainable practices. Collectively, they reveal new and compelling insights while spotlighting the great questions for SEE enterprise that await study.
More than a quarter century ago, organizational scholars began to explore the implications of prosociality in organizations. Three interrelated streams have emerged from this work, which focus on prosocial motives (the desire to benefit others or expend effort out of concern for others), prosocial behaviors (acts that promote/protect the welfare of individuals, groups, or organizations), and prosocial impact (the experience of making a positive difference in the lives of others through one's work). Prior studies have highlighted the importance of prosocial motives, behaviors, and impact, and have enhanced our understanding of each of them. However, there has been little effort to systematically review and integrate these related lines of work in a way that furthers our understanding of prosociality in organizations. In this article, we provide an overview of the current state of the literature, highlight key findings, identify major research themes, and address important controversies and debates. We call for an expanded view of prosocial behavior and a sharper focus on the costs and unintended consequences of prosocial phenomena. We conclude by suggesting a number of avenues for future research that will address unanswered questions and should provide a more complete understanding of prosociality in the workplace.
This research explores how sustainability-driven entrepreneurs perceive their stakeholder relationships. Entrepreneurial cognition theory has emphasised the need to better understand how individual perception drives the behaviour of entrepreneurs, in general, and their opportunity seeking in the early stages of business formation, in particular. Much of the freedom sustainability-driven entrepreneurs will experience in successfully developing their businesses depends on the appropriate management of stakeholders in support of their business ideas. Therefore, an important research question focuses on how critical stakeholders are identified in this phase. Against the background of entrepreneurial cognition theory, I argue that sustainability-driven entrepreneurs are distinct in the way they deal with this particular task due to the triple-bottom-line nature of their ventures. The article discusses the emergence of sustainability-driven entrepreneurship, develops a revised model of stakeholder identification and proposes a qualitative research design illustrated by a test case.
Scientific research highlights the central role of specific psychological processes, in particular those related to the self, in various forms of human suffering and flourishing. This view is shared by Buddhism and other contemplative and humanistic traditions, which have developed meditation practices to regulate these processes. Building on a previous paper in this journal, we propose a novel classification system that categorizes specific styles of meditation into attentional, constructive, and deconstructive families based on their primary cognitive mechanisms. We suggest that meta-awareness, perspective taking and cognitive reappraisal, and self-inquiry may be important mechanisms in specific families of meditation and that alterations in these processes may be used to target states of experiential fusion, maladaptive self-schema, and cognitive reification.
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In recent years, research on mindfulness has burgeoned across several lines of scholarship. Nevertheless, very little empirical research has investigated mindfulness from a workplace perspective. In the study reported here, we address this oversight by examining workplace mindfulness – the degree to which individuals are mindful in their work setting. We hypothesize that, in a dynamic work environment, workplace mindfulness is positively related to job performance and negatively related to turnover intention, and that these relationships account for variance beyond the effects of constructs occupying a similar conceptual space – namely, the constituent dimensions of work engagement (vigor, dedication, and absorption). Testing these claims in a dynamic service industry context, we find support for a positive relationship between workplace mindfulness and job performance that holds even when accounting for all three work engagement dimensions. We also find support for a negative relationship between workplace mindfulness and turnover intention, though this relationship becomes insignificant when accounting for the dimensions of work engagement. We consider the theoretical and practical implications of these findings and highlight a number of avenues for conducting research on mindfulness in the workplace.
This article defines the construct of self-compassion and describes the development of the Self-Compassion Scale. Self-compassion entails being kind and understanding toward oneself in instances of pain or failure rather than being harshly self-critical; perceiving one's experiences as part of the larger human experience rather than seeing them as isolating; and holding painful thoughts and feelings in mindful awareness rather than over-identifying with them. Evidence for the validity and reliability of the scale is presented in a series of studies. Results indicate that self-compassion is significantly correlated with positive mental health outcomes such as less depression and anxiety and greater life satisfaction. Evidence is also provided for the discriminant validity of the scale, including with regard to self-esteem measures.
Some managers and entrepreneurs decide to act in ways that result in harm to the natural environment, despite the fact that such actions violate their own values. Building on moral self-regulation theory (Bandura, 1991), we propose that entrepreneurs' assessments of the attractiveness of opportunities that harm the natural environment depend on the simultaneous impact of values and personal agency. By cognitively disengaging their pro-environmental values, decision makers (i.e., entrepreneurs) can (under certain circumstances) perceive opportunities that harm the environment as highly attractive and thus suitable for exploitation. The results of a judgment task that generated 1,264 opportunity assessments nested within 83 business founders offered support for this general prediction and indicated that the extent of founders' disengagement of their pro-environmental values was stronger when they had high, rather than low, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and stronger when industry munificence was perceived as low rather than high. We discuss our new measure of moral disengagement in a decision-making context and the implications of the study's findings for extant literatures on moral disengagement and sustainable entrepreneurship.
Judgment and decision-making research has a long tradition in management and represents a substantial stream of research in entrepreneurship. Despite numerous reviews of this topic in the organizational behavior, psychology, and marketing fields, this is the first review in the field of entrepreneurship. This absence of a review of entrepreneurial decision making is surprising given the extreme decision-making context faced by many entrepreneurssuch as high uncertainty, time pressure, emotionally charged, and consequential extremesand the large number of studies in the literature (e.g., 602 articles in our initial screen and 156 articles in a refined search). In this review, we (1) inductively categorize the articles into decision-making topics arranged along the primary activities associated with entrepreneurshipopportunity assessment decisions, entrepreneurial entry decisions, decisions about exploiting opportunities, entrepreneurial exit decisions, heuristics and biases in the decision-making context, characteristics of the entrepreneurial decision maker, and environment as decision context; (2) analyze each context using a general decision-making framework; (3) review and integrate studies within and across decision-making activities; and (4) offer a comprehensive agenda for future research. We believe (hope) that this proposed review, integration, and research agenda will make a valuable contribution to management scholars interested in decision making and/or entrepreneurship.
We propose that organization members overestimate the degree to which others share their views on ethical matters. Further, we argue that being a broker in an advice network exacerbates this false consensus bias. That is, a high level of "betweenness centrality" increases an individual's estimates of agreement with others on ethical issues beyond what is warranted by any actual increase in agreement. We tested these ideas in three separate samples: graduate business students, executive students, and employees. Individuals with higher betweenness centrality overestimated the level of agreement between their ethical judgments and their colleagues'.