Our paper investigates the microfoundations of sustainable entrepreneurship and aims to shed light on trade-offs made in decisions about social, ecological and economic sustainability. Balancing the three dimensions of sustainability (social, ecological and economic) inherently requires choices in which one dimension or another has less optimal outcomes. There is not much known about the rationale that sustainable entrepreneurs use for making such trade-offs. Thus, we ask how does entrepreneurial orientation affect decisions and trade-offs on sustainability impact? Our study is an exploratory, qualitative study of 24 sustainable entrepreneurs. We collected data about entrepreneurial orientation and sustainability trade-offs and held in-depth interviews with a subsample of six firms. We conducted a cluster analysis based on four entrepreneurial orientations (innovativeness, proactiveness, riskiness and futurity) and three sustainability trade-off dimensions (environmental, social and economic). From the findings, we derive a typology of three types of sustainable entrepreneurs: green-conflicted, humanitarian-oriented and holistically-oriented. We uncover salient characteristics and aspects of entrepreneurial orientation in relation to trade-off decisions. We find that the entrepreneurs accept slower economic growth or lower performance in order to maintain the integrity of their social and ecological principles and values.
New social actors have emerged with the social media. Among them, we highlightedthe digital influencers, people who have millions of online followers, andinduce them in favor or against products and brands to be consumed. Therefore,we aimed to analyze this endorsement process carried out by digital influencers intheir online profiles, having as research field the fitness market that encouragespeople to evaluate and work tirelessly in their bodies. We used the Semiotic ImageAnalysis to investigate the postings of three Brazilian digital fitness influencersand identified four categories that configure the post format: body exposure, bodyextension, interaction between influencer and brand/product, and interaction betweeninfluencer and followers. By means of these categories, we identified thatthese influencers act as brand avatars, creating an intense link with these products,exposing their bodies in advertisements and extending the meanings of theirgood shape to endorsed goods and services.
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The purpose of this paper is to gain deeper insight into the practical judgements we are making together in ongoing organizational life when realizing a complex innovative technical project for a customer and so enrich the understanding of how customer orientation emerges in an organization. The outcome contributes to the knowledge of implementing customer orientation in an organization as according to literature (Saarijärvi, Neilimo, Närvänen, 2014 and Van Raaij and Stoelhorst, 2008) the actual implementation process of customer orientation is not that well understood. Saarijärvi, Neilimo and Närvänen (2014) noticed a shift from measuring the antecedents of customer orientation and impact on company performance, towards a better understanding how customer orientation is becoming in organizations. A different way of putting the customer at the center of attention can be found in taking our day-to-day commercial experience seriously, according to the complex responsive process approach, a theory developed by Stacey, Griffin and Shaw (2000). The complex responsive processes approach differs from a systems thinking approach, because it focuses on human behavior and interaction. This means that the only agents in a process are people and they are not thought of as constituting a system (Groot, 2007). Based on a narrative inquiry, the objective is to convey an understanding of how customer orientation is emerging in daily organizational life. Patterns of interaction between people are investigated, who work in different departments of an organization and who have to fulfill customer requirements. This implies that attention is focused towards an understanding in action, which is quite distinct from the kind of cognitive and intellectual understanding that dominates organisational thought. The reflection process resulting from this analysis is located in a broader discourse of management theory.
