Am I an environmental entrepreneur? On the evolution of entrepreneurial identity

Abstract

The interest in environmental entrepreneurship (EE) is growing. Notably, environmental entrepreneurs are hybrid individuals, who meet commercial and ecological identities. Their entrepreneurial identity (EI) plays a key role in successfully starting and continuing entrepreneurial activities. Given that scholars have recognized the pivotal concept of EI for understanding EE, and that they have called for research on EI in hybrid contexts – such as EE –, we believe a deeper understanding of EI may provide insights to better comprehend environmental entrepreneurial behaviors. In particular, the research is aimed to catch how EI of environmental entrepreneurs evolves. Identities are, in fact, fluid and emergent. EI is not stable, but rather, is ‘achieved’. To understand its evolution, we adopt the theoretical perspective of identity work, which conceives identity as a process. According to this conceptualization, entrepreneurs are engaged in forming, repairing, strengthening or revising their identity to achieve coherence. Drawing on information obtained from semi-structured interviews with and additional data on 36 entrepreneurs working in the Italian wine industry, we show that EI develops according to an initial emergence of EI to an acquired self-consciousness as an environmental entrepreneur. This identity work includes moments of EI contestation and/or elaboration, triggered by the interplay between environmental and place identity. Our paper contributes to identity work research in environmental entrepreneurship.