Title: Sustainable entrepreneurship in dialogue

Authors: Nel Hofstra

Addresses: Entrepreneurial Marketing, Economics of Business & Society and Consumer Behaviour, Faculty of Economic Sciences, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Abstract: The general mind-sets in economics do not fulfil the needs of a sustainable development of society. This article questions the dominant economic paradigms and transforms the stock resource allocation model based on the exploitation into the TIMES-model, a flow resource allocation model based on exploration. In the traditional resource allocation of the firm, natural resources are treated as commodities or even ignored, while labour and capital resources are overemphasised. The sustainable firm however will be confronted with changes that encompass: a change from profit thinking to value thinking; a change from exploitation to exploration; cooperation next to competition; and a shift to a new resource allocation model (the so-called TIMES-model). These transformations are fundamental in character and need other assumptions based on a sustainable worldview.

Keywords: sustainable entrepreneurship; resource allocation; exploitation strategies; exploration strategies; mindsets; economics; contingency theories; dialogue theories; sustainable firm; TIMES-model; paradigm shift; industrial ecology; sustainability; sustainable development.

DOI: 10.1504/PIE.2007.016356

Progress in Industrial Ecology, An International Journal, 2007 Vol.4 No.6, pp.495 - 514

Published online: 20 Dec 2007 *

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