By Sharma, R (2024). Greener Journal of Business and Management Studies, 12(1): 53-58.
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Vol. 12(1), pp. 53-58, 2024
ISSN: 2276-7827
Copyright ©2024, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.
https://gjournals.org/GJMBS
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15580/GJBMS.2024.1.042414200
1 Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India – 721302
Type: Research
Full Text: PDF, PHP, HTML, EPUB, MP3
DOI: 10.15580/GJBMS.2024.1.042414200
In the recent studies of green entrepreneurship, it has been seen that firms have only recently begun generating strong research and policy interest for green practices. But the concept for green practices to the students or budding entrepreneurs is at the infancy stage. Because of the relative newness of green practices in the entrepreneurship literature in Indian context, the amount of systematic, research-based knowledge about them is limited. Therefore, in this paper we aim to contribute a brief overview of literature which discusses green entrepreneurship and a detailed descriptive analysis of the awareness about green practices among the students and entrepreneurs in India followed with the suggestion and recommendation.
Published: 06/10/2024
Richa Sharma
E-mail: richasharma.iitkgp@ gmail.com
Entrepreneurship is the wider area of research for researchers from many years. Traditionally, researchers has been linked it to wealth creation and economic development. Subsequently, this entrepreneurial research has gone through a process of development throughout the years. Many fields of entrepreneurship have emerged; for instance, one of them is green entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs are now making changes in their ways of doing business so as to address the society’s new concerns. They are called green entrepreneurs and are being called upon to take leading roles for sustainable development through green entrepreneurship (Porritt and Winner, 1988), creating wealth and meet the current generation needs while saving the environment for future (Daft, 2008). The increasing challenges, governments are also seeking more novel ways to promote economic activity and enhance sustainability by moving towards “greening” economic activities. Green entrepreneurs undertake new business opportunities or activities that differentiate them from the traditional entrepreneur.
This shift in the business architecture provides diverse and number of alcove that the prospective entrepreneurs and existing firms can diagnose and service. There lies an unexplored spectrum of opportunities for entrepreneurs by adopting “eco-business practices” or “green practices”. Entrepreneurs in adoption of green practices act as a ‘pull’ strategy to attract and motivate former firms to go green, compare to the ‘push’ factors of government environmental guideline. Green practices activities involved reducing, reusing and recycling of resources as they are related to products or processes for economic, environmental and social sustainability. Moreover, Ambec and Lanoie (2008) said that the costs or risk can be reduce or create differentiation from competitors by adopting green practices. Thus, green practices have become more relevant in everyday life. The importance of green practices can not only be justified as it provides new opportunities for the budding entrepreneurs but also because it acts as a primary force in the overall transition of market dynamics. Therefore, using green practices in start-ups can push the overall process of sustainable reformation of any industry or business.
In the recent studies, it has been seen that firms have only recently begun generating strong research and policy interest for green practices (Shepherd et.al, 2009). The concept for green practices to the students or budding entrepreneurs is at the infancy stage. Thus, green practices is important among the future techno-managers and budding entrepreneurs as they are the one who are going to govern the dynamics of future market. Because of the relative newness of green entrepreneurship and sustainability in the entrepreneurship literature in Indian context, the amount of systematic, research-based knowledge about them is limited. Therefore, in this paper we aim to contribute a brief overview of literature which discusses green entrepreneurship and a detailed descriptive analysis of the awareness about green practices among the students and entrepreneurs in India. Thus, this research intends to identify the concern of students and entrepreneurs towards the awareness about the green practices among them.
Although researchers traditionally define entrepreneurship as a field primarily concerned with wealth generation and economic growth (Majid, 2012), it has gone through different stages of development. As stated by Parrish (2010) entrepreneurial action can help alleviate these environmental and social predicaments, which gave rise to the concept of sustainable development (Shepherd and Patzelt, 2011). Abidin (2010) said that to increase the awareness on environment and sustainable development various actions had been taken place. In line with this description, several different terms have been used by researchers while analysing the environment and entrepreneurship. Commonly used terms are green entrepreneurship (Berle, 1991), ecopreneurship (Schaper, 2002a), eco-entrepreneurship (Schaper, 2002b) and environmental entrepreneurship (Keogh and Polonsky, 1998). Schaper (2005) argues that these terms capture the same concept and may be used interchangeably. As explained in the previous subsection, sustainable entrepreneurship (Dean and McMullen, 2007) describes a somewhat different phenomenon and needs to be differentiated from these terms. Hence, in line with Schaper (2005), this paper assumes that the four terms mentioned above are interchangeable. In accordance with the latter and for the sake of clarity and readability, this paper will state any of these terms solely as green entrepreneurship.
As diverse as the terminology used by researchers to name the phenomenon, so are the definitions of green entrepreneurship they advance. These definitions may be classified according to the dimensions of green entrepreneurship to which they relate. For example, Isaak (1998) defines green entrepreneurship as breakthrough innovation which can transform system and environmental business, while focusing on the distinctive organisational characteristics of the venture and emphasises an environmental purpose of the latter. Researchers have also focused on the process involved in green entrepreneurship when the economic opportunities are exploited from market failures significant to environment (Dean and McMullen, 2007). Correspondingly, Kotchen (2009) suggests that green entrepreneurship as starting new businesses to earn a profit and provide environmental sustainability. Lastly, there exist definitions who relate more to the dimension of environmental outcomes that green entrepreneurs aim for. For example, a rather broad definition is advanced by Anderson and Leal (1997) who define green entrepreneurship in context of entrepreneurs as they are engaged in conserving the open space, growing wildlife habitation, saving endangered species, and improving quality of environment using business tools. Looking at these definitions it can be noted that researchers still seem to struggle with capturing the phenomenon of green entrepreneurship. This can be substantiated by the fact that to date there exists no generally accepted definition of green entrepreneurship (Hall et al.,2010).
Further, from the review of past researchers it has been seen that firms have recently begun generating strong research and policy interest for green practices (Shepherd et al., 2009). In earlier research, the concept of greening has been measured as performance of business ecologically while meeting the stockholders’ expectations (Gupta, 1995). Similarly, Shrivastava (1995b) incorporates the concept as a tool called “environment management” to robust social as well as environmental system. In the similar vein, Gupta and Sharma (1996) define green practices as management principles where natural resources are converted into better outputs or environmentally friendly product. This transition occurred not only for generating financial performance and returns owing to a greater popularity and demand towards sustainable products and services offerings by them, but also for their intent to curtail environmental impacts and respect the protocols laid by the environmental regulatory boards. Additionally at the core of the green entrepreneurship literature, the traditional notions and use of large firm tools together with corporate social responsibility (CSR) and triple bottom line as measurement acts as green concept and measure how it affects firm performance. In a simple way, it has been seen that the motivations for adapting green practices was taken in context of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) (Hussain, 1999; Tzschentke et al., 2004). However, the use of these tools may not be appropriate in all contexts: young and nascent firms face dissimilar business environments and experience multiple constraints during firm development (Shepherd et al., 2005).
We considered that the adoption of environment friendly business models can, conceivably, open up better avenues for budding entrepreneurs. Decision makers must recognize the benefits of green practices or policies and the necessity for developing green models. But, there is lack of awareness of environmental legislation or green practices among the new firms. Stuart (2000) identified that the environmental legislation complexities further confuse matters and deter business from fully grasping the implications of green practices. Thus the aim of the present study was to assess the awareness regarding the green practices among students and entrepreneurs to make relevant suggestions.
A small structured questionnaire was developed to collect the data. It was mainly focused to collect the level of knowledge and information among students and entrepreneurs regarding their awareness on green practices and belief regarding green start-ups. The questionnaire was constructed with close-ended questions.
Table 1: Target Sample Size
3.1 Questionnaire Development
Questionnaire here is a systematic and standardized instrument for collecting data to measure response to the same set of questions presented in the same way to all target audience. The format has been designed to obtained responses on scales like High (H), Moderate (M), and Low (L), yielding meaningful numerical scores.
3.2 Methodology of Survey and Research
A sampling survey method has been adopted to sample the target audience to bring out the overall conclusion.
3.3 Data Collection Method
Total response to effectiveness of awareness factor was measured on a three pointer scale.
High (H) – Above 2.2
Moderate (M) – Between1.9-2.2
Low (L) – Less than 1.9
Analysis and Interpretation of Data (Profile of Respondent and Data Discussion) :
4.1 Weighted Mean: To analyze the weighted mean of the responses from the respondent each of the questions in the questionnaire is tabulated like below:
Weighted Mean (
4.2 Concept Awareness Aspect
Table 2: Concept Awareness Aspect for Students and Entrepreneurs
Table 3: Survey Rating of Green Practice Awareness Aspect for Students and Entrepreneurs on 3-Pointer scale
HDA-High Degree of Agreement, LDA – Low Degree of Agreement
Table 4: Correlation between students and entrepreneurs affecting green practice awareness
Correlation coefficient calculation of green practice awareness aspects
Where, and and n=10
and
= 0.8108
Based on the analysis of the data collected from 100 respondents, students and entrepreneurs together using a questionnaire instrument, this study identified that awareness is an important process on the use of green practices by student and entrepreneurs but tends to be low among them. The non awareness of green practices led low interest in the concept origin. In addition to that, understanding the definition of green practice is also less in entrepreneurs rather than students. Whereas, the day-to-day green practice concept repetition is higher in students than entrepreneurs. The study has also shown that in Indian context, the scope of green practice concept adoption has been seen higher among entrepreneurs, and can be improvised more only once proper information is channelized along with the technology innovation building a successful work culture as shown in Table 3. Furthermore, the importance of green practice concept education in Indian scenario is affirmably supported by entrepreneurs and concluded that green practice can leads to sustainable economic model for industry.
Based on these findings, the following recommendations are proposed:
There is a need for educational programmes/training courses for students and entrepreneurs on green practices so as to be more familiar with green entrepreneurship and can be put forward from the initial stage of learning among the students.
There is a need for additional persons to lay more emphasis on green practices in such a way that it increases the practice reliability and benefits.
There is a need for more publicity on green practices which should be done mostly on radio and television so as to create more awareness among the people.
Global and domestic players should bring certain changes in their ideas of implementation by increasing the cultural and traditional approach.
A dedicated websites containing all the major beneficial attributes of green practices can also be advertised and linked to major government websites, email services websites and social networking sites.
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