Sustainable entrepreneurship as a community of practice.

Sustainable entrepreneurship literature at the micro-level of individual enterprises identifies several issues hampering their growth, such as lack of funding and other resources, and psychological and/or geographical isolation. Macro-level research identifies attempts at supportive policy, such as new enterprise funding and incubation hubs; however, sustainable entrepreneurs often find these resources inaccessible or insufficient. There is very limited research, however, examining the impact of the meso-level context of sustainable entrepreneurs, and whether this level can help address their challenges. This study’s motivating objective is therefore: To examine the phenomenon of sustainable entrepreneurship at the meso-level, in order to better understand how it can be enabled. Initial field immersion in an EU-funded research project led abductively to the observation that actors in the sustainable entrepreneurship field appear to interact at the meso-level to address issues collaboratively. This led to the overarching research question: Does a community of practice form around sustainable entrepreneurship, and if so, what does it look like? Three more specific questions were: RQ1: What drives the formation of a sustainable entrepreneurship community of practice? RQ2: What shared practices does the sustainable entrepreneurship community of practice enact? And RQ3: What outcomes arise from these practices, and for whom? These questions were explored through analysis of data-collection episodes over a three-year period that the author attended as a participant observer alongside sustainable entrepreneurs and allied stakeholders. A key finding is that a sustainable-entrepreneurship community of practice exists: actors with a shared commitment to the domain of sustainable entrepreneurship collaborate as part of a community to solve problems by sharing practice and learning from one another. Four drivers for this community of practice are identified: perceived isolation, a lack of resources, reduced government, and prosocial motivation. The community participates in four high-level practices: network building, resource sharing, evolving business models, and re-shaping the sustainable entrepreneurship infrastructure. Four categories of outcome from the community of practice emerge: individual empowerment, enterprise scaling and proliferating, civil society strengthening, and mainstreaming sustainable entrepreneurship. Collectively, these practices can reduce some of the issues facing sustainable entrepreneurs, such as limited funding and resources. This thesis contributes to communities of practice theory by demonstrating that the feature of situated learning (Lave and Wenger, 2011) via the four shared practices creates social capital, highlighted in the entrepreneurship literature as a key factor for success (Honig and Davidsson, 2003). In this way, this thesis provides a novel contribution to theory by indicating how participation in the community of practice can help sustainable entrepreneurs address the issues identified and thereby develop, scale and replicate triple-bottom-line business models. They do so, not just solving problems but supporting the wider multistakeholder members to maximise opportunities and positively influence the societal and political environment for SE. It also shows how situated learning about the domain more widely is both a motivation and desired outcome of CoP membership. Through the social capital generated, this community can influence the macro-level and thereby further mainstream the phenomenon of sustainable entrepreneurship.