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.

Ciro Troise is Associate Professor in Business Management at the University of Turin, Department of Management. He is an active scholar in the entrepreneurship, innovation, crowdfunding, small business and management fields. He has been a visiting scholar at the QMUL. He has chaired several tracks of international conferences, attended many conferences and published over 100 publications.

Cristian Rizzo is an Assistant Professor at the University of Turin. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics, Management, and Quantitative Methods at the University of Salento, Lecce (Italy). He was a research fellow at the Department of Human Studies (University of Salento, Lecce) on a project regarding linguistics and neuromarketing. His research activity mainly focuses on consumer psychology and sustainable consumption behaviour.