ABSTRACT This study examines the impact of entrepreneurial motivation on green in-role, green extra-role, and green innovative behaviors between Generation Z and millennial entrepreneurs. The mediating role of adaptability tendencies and moderating role of green entrepreneurial knowledge were investigated. Six hundred and eighty valid samples were collected from entrepreneurs in Malaysia and Pakistan using purposive sampling technique. Data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. The results indicate entrepreneurial motivation has significant positive relationships with three types of entrepreneurial green behaviors. Adaptability tendencies significantly mediate the relationship between entrepreneurial motivation and green in-role and green innovative behaviors for both generations but not green extra-role behavior. Further analysis revealed differences between generations in moderating effects of green entrepreneurial knowledge. The findings enhance our understanding of differences between Generation Z and millennial entrepreneurs. While both generations possess significant green consciousness, their green concept approaches differ. This study highlights practical implications for entrepreneurs, policy makers, and educators on cultivating traits and knowledge for fostering environmentally responsible business practices.

ABSTRACT Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) drive economic development in emerging economies, where women’s entrepreneurial leadership contributes to sustainable business growth aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In Morocco’s unique socioeconomic context, where traditional business practices coexist with modernization efforts, examining women’s leadership provides critical insights into gender-inclusive development pathways for North African emerging markets. This study examines how women’s leadership influences SME performance in Morocco’s private sector, contributing to economic sustainability and gender equality objectives. Using data from 598 micro-, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in the 2023 World Bank Enterprise Surveys, we employ propensity score matching (PSM) methodology to establish causal relationships between women’s leadership and firm performance. Our findings reveal that women-led MSMEs achieve significantly higher annual sales, with performance improvements of 9.3 percent to 12.7 percent across different matching approaches. Women-led SMEs exhibit superior performance through investments in research and development and formal employee training programs. SMEs with international quality certifications show higher propensity for women’s leadership, indicating correlation between global competitiveness and gender-inclusive management practices. While PSM addresses observable selection bias, potential limitations include unmeasured confounders and reverse causality, which we discuss in detail. Promoting women’s entrepreneurial leadership can simultaneously advance gender equality and sustainable economic growth (SDGs 5 and 8).

ABSTRACT This study examines how digital skills and information technology (IT) capabilities shape small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs’) performance, with entrepreneurial resilience as a mediator. Drawing on the resource-based view and dynamic capabilities view, this research aims to fill gaps in understanding how digital skills and robust IT capabilities require adaptive, resilience-building processes to translate into sustained performance gains. Using structural equation modeling on survey data from 227 Tunisian SMEs, the findings indicate that digital skills and IT capabilities have positive direct effects on performance. However, entrepreneurial resilience emerges as a proactive, value-creating capability that turns digital endowments into financial, market, and digital performance. The results offer theoretical implications for integrating resources and dynamic capabilities, as well as practical guidance for prioritizing skill development, IT investment, and resilience programs in the digital transformation of SMEs.

ABSTRACT This study explores how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in emerging economies enact sustainability through everyday practices that remain invisible in mainstream environmental, social, and governance (ESG) frameworks. Current standards, designed for large firms, create structural biases that exclude SMEs from sustainability assessments and financing. Drawing on translation theory, practice theory, and vernacularization, the article proposes the grassroots ESG framework, conceptualizing ESG as a bottom-up, adaptive process embedded in local cultural and operational logics. Based on a qualitative multiple-case study of 10 Tunisian SMEs in agriculture, textiles, crafts, and food production, findings reveal three clusters of grassroots ESG practices: frugal environmental stewardship, community-based social engagement, and trust-based governance. These practices reflect culturally rooted responses to resource scarcity and institutional voids. The study extends ESG theorization by showing how SMEs reinterpret global norms and offers policy pathways—such as proportional indicators and inclusive financing—to bridge global frameworks with local SME realities.

ABSTRACT This study explores the development of students’ social entrepreneurship competencies (SEC) through the combined lens of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and experiential learning theory (ELT). Data were collected using a stratified random sampling method from 384 students enrolled in higher education institutions in Delhi, Greater Noida, and Noida. The results reveal that moral obligation, self-efficacy, and social support significantly and positively impact SEC. Although empathy does not directly influence SEC, its relationship becomes significant when moderated by experiential learning, signifying that experiential exposure enhances students’ empathetic engagement in entrepreneurial contexts. The moderating effect of experiential learning also strengthens the link between moral obligation and SEC. These findings validate the role of experiential learning as a pedagogical enabler, transforming intention into competency and bridging the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application. The study contributes to entrepreneurship education by extending TPB and reinforcing the value of ELT in shaping socially responsive, competency-driven student entrepreneurs.

ABSTRACT Micro-, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) are vital to developing economies but often face performance issues due to weak strategic orientation and limited internal commitment. This study examines the influence of entrepreneurial orientation and business motivation on MSME performance, with organizational commitment as a mediating variable. A proportional random sample of 200 snack food MSMEs in Bogor City, Indonesia, was analyzed using structural equation modeling with SmartPLS 3. Results reveal that entrepreneurial orientation has a significant direct effect on performance, while business motivation impacts performance indirectly through organizational commitment. The mediating role of commitment underscores its psychological function in translating motivation into outcomes. These findings indicate that sustainable MSME performance depends on strategic behavior combined with emotional engagement. The study contributes to entrepreneurship literature by integrating cognitive and affective perspectives and offers practical insights for enhancing entrepreneurial capacity, aligning motivation with goals, and strengthening commitment-building efforts to improve business resilience in dynamic market environments.

ABSTRACT Entrepreneurial ventures, specifically start-ups, face significant challenges throughout their entrepreneurial journey. A range of business support types has emerged to support them. Previous research has focused on narrow subsets of business support types and identified practical barriers, such as unclear support needs, limited awareness, and difficulty evaluating services. This study addresses these gaps through a scoping review of academic and gray literature, identifying 16 distinct business support types and analyzing them along four descriptive constructs: context, accessibility, design, and services offered. The study contributes to the descriptive stage of theory building by advancing the steps of observation, classification, and defining relationships, thereby laying the groundwork for further empirical and normative research. It also offers practical guidance for policy makers, support providers, and start-ups navigating the entrepreneurial support landscape.

ABSTRACT This article examines how founders’ prior career experiences affect the extent to which their new ventures are formally structuralized at the founding stage. Through an analysis of the founders of 2,736 new ventures, all established in 2004, this study investigates how two types of prior founder experiences—founding and working experiences—distinctly affect new venture formalization. Findings indicate that, whereas a founder’s prior founding experience increases the likelihood that new ventures will formalize their organizational structure, their prior working experience does not. In addition, while the positive effect of prior founder experience on structural formalization is intensified when new ventures are founded in high technology industries, the negative effect of prior working experience on structural formalization is weakened when they are funded by venture capitalists.

ABSTRACT The significance of sustainable practices in today’s world is underscored by escalating concerns over environmental degradation and the socioeconomic challenges posed by climate change. A new class of entrepreneurs, known as sustainable entrepreneurs (SEs), has emerged amid these developments, which include green entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs, and impact entrepreneurs, who aim to achieve both social and environmental benefits alongside financial return. This study examines the behavioral drivers that motivate SEs and presents a conceptual framework that illustrates the hierarchical relationships underlying decision-making processes in establishing sustainable businesses. The study employs a qualitative research design guided by an interpretive paradigm using interpretive structural modeling (ISM). It was observed that moral altruism, egocentric beliefs, and biospheric ideals formed the base layer of the final ISM model and influenced a maximum number of constructs, while the dependence power of intention was the highest. With the core values influencing higher-level constructs like norms and intention, the finalized ISM framework produced the hierarchical relationships among key variables influencing sustainable business intentions. These findings were corroborated through an expert interview. The study contributes toward theory development by integrating two grand theories; namely, the theory of planned behavior and value–belief–norm theory, to a specific context of sustainable entrepreneurship, which will pave the way for theory development at the meso level. However, the ISM model excludes institutional and socioeconomic factors. Such components could be added to the model in further studies to construct a comprehensive model of sustainable entrepreneurial behavior.

ABSTRACT This research explores small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs’) practices in implementing digitalization based on six case studies from Serbia, an emerging and developing country within the Eastern European economy. The digital readiness level model and the technology–organization–environment framework are found to be suitable models for analyzing digitalization implementation and readiness in SMEs. This study reveals that enterprise technology acceptance and readiness for digitalization are influenced by the business sector; financial, technical, and operational-process factors; and the existing strategy. The main obstacles are related to technical complexity and cost, user-friendliness of digital technologies and their perceived benefits, financial and technical resources, regulatory support, and workforce shortage. Small, low-cost technological improvements implemented in small steps, which begin with collecting data and analytics and involve external experts, are the best strategy for implementing digitalization because they are socially acceptable in terms of investment levels and employees’ understanding of the importance and benefits of the implementation.