Ecopreneurship

: assessing what we know and what the future will bring

Abstract

As the world grapples with urgent environmental concerns, ecopreneurs have emerged as key players in the transition to more sustainable systems. Due to the rising demand for environmental awareness and sustainable development, entrepreneurs have started green enterprises that deal with both social and environmental concerns. As a result, academia has recognized the need to research many dimensions of green entrepreneurship, giving rise to the ecopreneurship field, to create effective ways to promote sustainable development and social responsibility. This thesis examines the increasing scholarly attention toward the ecopreneurship research field, providing a systematic literature review of 58 top journal manuscripts that enrich the understanding of the scope and conceptualize the ecopreneurship construct. This thesis sheds light on several constraints that ecopreneurship researchers need to address, such as access to financing, complex regulatory barriers, limited market demand, a lack of technical expertise, and limited resources. In addition, by performing a bibliometric analysis, including citation, co citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, and co-word analysis, this study underlines the necessity of building an enabling environment for ecopreneurship by addressing institutional barriers that stifle the expansion of venture creation. Ultimately, this dissertation contributes to the existing literature by clarifying the major challenges and opportunities in the field of ecopreneurship research, which could be used to guide future research and policy development in this area.

Date of Award	14 Jul 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Božidar Vlačić (Supervisor)