Cristina Santini - The Good Entrepreneur: Mapping the Role of Entrepreneurship in Society

Cover credit: Pattern Melisa Hasan

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Over the years, we have seen that ethical components have gained relevancy in the decision-making process. Social motives, green and ecological awareness , and sustainable orientation have inspired new start-ups or have reshaped existing businesses. Some questions emerge in entrepreneurship and deal with doing well by doing good, or doing well and doing good. The concept of entrepreneurship and entrepreneur has evolved since its introduction. New issues have attracted scholarly interest and new topics and research questions have emerged. The concepts of doing well and the idea of good have changed.

New types of entrepreneurs have emerged and research niches were born; they aim to explore the relationship between personal commitment , ethical motives and traditional traits of entrepreneurship. This book focuses on the good entrepreneur: it explores the relationship between entrepreneurs and the pursuit of good and it examines the evolution of research in the field.

The book starts with the evolution of entrepreneurship . The first chapter explores how the research field on entrepreneurship has evolved since the introduction of the theme.

It highlights the drivers that promote research in entrepreneurship, and the steps and features that characterise its development, from the debate to the legitimacy of the field to the progressive fragmentation of research. The chapter introduces the topic of research niche development within entrepreneurship: this introduces to further exploration of different types of entrepreneurs, social, green, environmental, sustainable entrepreneur and ecopreneur , in the following chapters.

The second chapter focuses on the issue of good and the pursuit of good by entrepreneurs. It explores what it means for an entrepreneur to pursue the good and it shows how the relationship entrepreneur-good has evolved over the years. Initially, the pursuit of good was an element far from the business culture ; today, with the advent of new business models, and the changing of markets and society , managers and entrepreneurs show a growing interest for what is good. We discuss the concept of good in entrepreneurship and what it means to be a good entrepreneur. We explore the motivation that fosters an interest for doing good in entrepreneurs; we highlight the role of environmental factors and personal motivations .

Chapters focus on the types of good entrepreneurs. We talk about some emerging research niches , and we explore the typologies of social entrepreneur , green, environmental, sustainable and ecopreneur . Here, we aim to highlight the dynamics that lead to the birth of niches and to explore what are the features of these selected types of entrepreneurs.

The last chapter proposes a reflection with a mainly academic perspective: our aim is to find out the phases of a research niche and publications trends. We provide an overview of strengths and weaknesses of the bibliometric approach in the evaluation of the literature. After having discussed the role of grey literature for the birth of research niches , we provide an analysis of research trends of the selected types of entrepreneurs.

This book aims to stimulate questions about entrepreneurship: What does it mean today for an entrepreneur to be good and to pursue the good? What will be the future scenario for scholars who deal with the issue of good entrepreneur and entrepreneurship in general?

The study of the evolution of entrepreneurship has attracted many scholars from different disciplines. The entrepreneurship field is most dynamic in management and social science (Audretsch, : 755).

From a first analysis of the distribution of theoretical contributions to the field, we can say that the issue has attracted scholars from business, management, economics and environmental studies.

A sort of dualism characterises entrepreneurship: on one side the individualistic pressure and on the other the need for the development of a scientific field (Aldrich & Howard, ).

Academicians in the entrepreneurial field have been able to establish a long career in many prestigious universities (Aldrich & Howard, ) and to create groups of scholars that have focused on some specific issues.