Beyond Sustainability in Innovative Startups : Exploring the Underlying Characteristics and Strategies

Many startups are embracing sustainability for a variety of reasons; however, despite the growing interest of academics and practitioners in this phenomenon, and the benefits for several stakeholders involved, there is limited knowledge regarding the underlying dynamics of these ventures and, in particular the nature of their sustainability demand, the behavioural characteristics of their entrepreneurs, the strategies for sustainability and the post-transition life of these ventures.

This book sheds new light on these issues and seeks to improve our collective understanding of these entrepreneurial initiatives pursuing sustainability. By using a bibliometric approach to systematic literature reviews, the editors shed new light on the relationship between sustainability, entrepreneurial initiatives, and innovation, and provide new knowledge on this emerging topic. An in-depth exploration of the sustainability demand of startups and the behavioural characteristics of their entrepreneurs by focusing on the European context, Troise and Rizzo analyse the main stages and theories used in literature to explain corporate transitions toward sustainability and explores the application of the dynamic capabilities theory. By applying the three dimensions of this theory – i.e. sensing, acquiring, and transforming – the editors examined the key strategies across these dimensions to explain how companies embrace sustainability.

The series Emerald Studies in Sustainable Innovation Management aims at exploring the advancements of innovation management in turbulent times with a special attention to the transition towards a sustainable economy. The practice of innovation management is evolving rapidly as a consequence of positive phenomena such as digitalization and the green transition and negative ones such as crises and global emergencies.