The green entrepreneur: Opportunist, Maverick or Visionary?

Abstract

Amongst the wealth of research on entrepreneurship in general, there has, hitherto, been surprisingly little investigation into the motives and influences on green entrepreneurs. This paper presents a range of frameworks for understanding and investigating the genesis of green start-ups. The scope encompasses all possible forms of new green businesses and the main analytical approach taken is to review the literature on approaches to classifying entrepreneurs with a view to gaining useful insights for the green context. An exploratory typology of green entrepreneurs is proposed which produces four ideal types: innovative opportunists, visionary champions, ethical mavericks and accidental enviropreneurs. Conceptualising the bigger picture within which green entrepreneurs emerge, a structure–action framework (S-I-M-A/C-P-C) is presented to convey the iterative nature of organisational and societal greening. A range of research approaches to further investigate the motives of, and influences on, green entrepreneurs are explored, with a view to the ultimate aim of providing insights for policy makers and educators into ways to foster green entrepreneurship.