For the sake of nature: Identity work and meaningful experiences in environmental entrepreneurship

Abstract

This study investigates how environmental entrepreneurs engage with identity work to develop a sense of self based on environmental and commercial institutional logics and how these efforts relate to a meaningful entrepreneurial experience. Drawing on interviews and additional data from 26 environmental entrepreneurs, the findings highlight identification, disidentification, responses to institutional contradictions, and emotions as central constituents of environmental entrepreneurs’ identity work. Furthermore, the article shows how environmental entrepreneurs perceive their entrepreneurial endeavors as meaningful or experience a lack of meaning when enacting their identities. This article contributes to environmental entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial identity, and institutional logics by discussing the link between identity and meaningfulness, the role of emotions in entrepreneurial identity work, and the dark side of meaningfulness in entrepreneurship.