Herman Stål

Conceptualizing strong sustainable entrepreneurship

This conceptual article focuses on the environmental dimensions of sustainable development which are essential for satisfying current and future human needs. It assesses ecological economics (EE) as an alternative base for a “strong” version of sustainable entrepreneurship (SE). EE recognizes the biophysical base of economic activity, critical natural capital (non-substitutability) and limits to market valuation and exchange. Contemporary entrepreneurial definitions, however, as well as recent SE framings, pre-suppose that functioning markets will achieve sustainable development. As discussed in this paper, natural processes are non-linear and critical, and as thresholds are impossible to anticipate, markets are unreliable and principally at odds with the objectives of sustainable development. Our proposed alternative constitutes a way forward.

Examining the Relationship between Emerging and Prevailing Institutional Logics in an Early Stage of Institutional Entrepreneurship

This study examines how potential institutional entrepreneurs in the Swedish policy process construct an emerging institutional logic to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the Swedish agricultural sector. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between this emerging logic and the prevailing logics. A case study is used to investigate a project led by the Swedish Board of Agriculture, and qualitative methods are applied to reveal how policy makers reflect upon and discuss prevailing goals and templates. The results demonstrate that templates currently in use are handled in four ways: diffusion (or failure) and translation (or failure). Failures occur when translation or diffusion is discussed but subsequently dropped, due to, for example, resistance. The conclusion is that the new logic is less of a divergent break with the prevailing logics and more of a co-mingling containing changed, reused and new templates rationalized by pre-existing as well as new political goals.