| dc.description.abstract | Global warming, resulting from escalating greenhouse gas emissions, affects human populations and ecosystems and adversely affects economic development. The commercial activities undertaken by businesses are currently implicated in exacerbating global warming due to their use of unsustainable business practices. Consequently, enterprises bear a responsibility to actively engage in the adoption of sustainable practices within their operational frameworks. Incorporating ecological and societal considerations has become widely acknowledged as a necessary component of corporate social responsibility for large corporations. SMMEs have exhibited a lack of enthusiasm for integrating sustainability practices inside their business operations. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are no longer accessible from the imperative of sustainability. Consequently, it is incumbent upon them to embrace sustainable entrepreneurship to mitigate their ecological footprint.
The aim was to explore the strategies, motivation, challenges and opportunities for sustainable entrepreneurship through the lived experience of SMMEs. The study indicated many determinants and motivational factors for adopting sustainable entrepreneurship by SMMEs. The interviewees viewed environmental and social concerns as the driving force behind the formation and exploitation of opportunities, focusing on sustainability. The results also showed that SMMEs place non-economic aims (environment and social concerns) on par with economic objectives. The analysis concludes that SMMEs in the agricultural sector balance all three dimensions of the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) in their sustainable business ventures. Sustainable entrepreneurship is advantageous to the economy, society, and environment. Adopting it reduces poverty, increases food production, protects the environment, creates jobs, improves livelihoods, and boosts the nation's economic development. Multiple recommendations were provided to four groups: legislators, SMMEs, the general populace and the business world.
The present study employed a qualitative methodology to gather data, employing purposive sampling to pick initial participants and utilising the snowball sampling technique until data saturation was attained. The study used epistemological and
ontological assumptions. This study is situated within the interpretivism and postmodernism research paradigm. Both deductive and inductive reasoning were employed in theory creation, along with a qualitative methodological approach, to generate novel and more comprehensive insights and interpretations of sustainable business. Using a methodology involving various descriptive case studies, data was gathered from sixteen SMMEs that operate sustainably. This data was acquired through semi-structured interviews. Other methods, such as observations, document analysis, and field notes, were employed to validate the findings from the interview. Subsequently, a manual thematic analysis was conducted to examine the collected data. The investigation yielded seven distinct themes.
The study theoretically fills a conceptual vacuum in the literature because there has been relatively little research on sustainable entrepreneurship among small and medium-sized firms in the agricultural sector. Understanding this aspect of sustainable entrepreneurship will be a foundation for future research in this sector. This study's findings substantially contribute to current theories and significantly improve the practice of sustainable entrepreneurship in Zimbabwe. Based on the literature, the lived experience and the sustainable practices adopted by the participating SMMEs, a framework for explaining how sustainable entrepreneurship can be adopted among SMMEs was developed. The framework highlighted several determinants, motivational factors, challenges, sustainability outcomes, and benefits and made several recommendations. It guides how to contribute to implementing sustainable practises and assists SMMEs in recognising sustainable opportunities and comprehending that they can engage in sustainability entrepreneurship. The framework for sustainable entrepreneurship from the study can be used to develop a policy that will increase the adoption of sustainable entrepreneurship among SMMEs operating in the agriculture sector. | en_US |
