Abstract: Individuals pursuing sustainable ventures tend to be motivated to preserve the natural environment and are often celebrated by society for their efforts.  However, the extant research offers little recognition that efforts to clean up environmental degradation may require rolling up one’s sleeves and getting into the dirt.  People engaged in such dirty work can be stigmatized by others even when they are generating a public benefit. Indeed, the stigma of dirty work might mark entrepreneurs more heavily (than employees) because their identity is tightly entwined with the business. In this inductive study, we explore entrepreneurs’ dirty businesses based on a sample of entrepreneurs engaged in plastic recycling located in the slum of Dharavi, India. Our model generates various new insights into how: (1) despite acknowledging that their business and home are mired in dirt, the entrepreneurs have an uncomplicated relationship with their work, experiencing high positive and low negative affect; (2) the co-location of dirty businesses eliminates entrepreneurs’ experience of stigmatization; and (3) a collective of entrepreneurs can generate environmental benefits without any members explicitly intending to do so. We hope this study generates new research into the dirty businesses of sustainable entrepreneurship.

 

Co-authors: Vinit Parida | Lulea Technical University & Joakim Wincent | Hanken School of Economics and St Gallen University