Sustainable Entrepreneurship

1Why is sustainable entrepreneurship so important in today's world?

Entrepreneurship - in the sense of socially responsible, goal-oriented stewardship of a business enterprise to ensure its long-term viability as a going concern - is not something that occurs as a matter of course. All businesses, whether large or small, are subject to rapidly evolving business climates, changing market related factors, caesural external environments, and limitations inherent in any innovation or other initiative that a business's leaders might decide to undertake. In order for stewardship to have the desired effect, it needs to exhibit nimble flexibility that is alert and responsive to the whole spectrum of options and possibilities. Business governance and operational management are taking on growing importance in the realms of both training and hands-on practice, especially in sectors consisting predominantly of small businesses. Although innumerable books and articles already exist containing extensive and detailed discussions of countless aspects of business management and stewardship, I strongly believe that a book is needed that addresses the practical, hands-on side of entrepreneurship, and that provides a how-to guide for strategic entrepreneurial sustainability management, particularly for small businesses.

1.1Strategic management for entrepreneurs and small businesses ? new wine in new bottles?

Although business management is a relatively new academic discipline compared to natural sciences, thousands of books and articles on the subject have already seen the light of day. My purpose in writing this book is to provide both business managers and business management students with a practical guide to strategically oriented governance of small businesses. This book targets at current and future entrepreneurs and company executives. In small businesses, such individuals know just about everything there is to know about their company's product and service portfolio, and this detailed knowledge is a key motivator. Entrepreneurs are highly skilled when it comes to the technical and hands-on dimensions of their products but sometimes lack in the managerial skills department. This applies in particular to relatively complex and intermeshed business management tasks involving strategizing, achieving and maintaining sustainability, and promoting innovation - all of which can prevent a business from achieving a harmonious and coherent organizational design and all of whose parts intermesh smoothly. This book, which is based on the real-world and empirical elements that go to make up a business enterprise, focuses on the practical side of business management - and I believe, will help you to manage your business in a more goal-oriented fashion than ever before.

Small-size enterprises are companies with fewer than 50 employees, and medium-size enterprises are ones with fewer than 250 employees. Micro-companies employ up to 10 employees. The economy of the European Union strongly depends on small and medium enterprises (SME) and EU expresses a vested interest to foster entrepreneurship: SMEs make up for 99% of the businesses and safeguard growth and innovation (Commission, 2018a). Equally, family ownership nurture welfare (Gottschalk et al., 2019): 60% of the European enterprises are family owned (Commission, 2018b)

Writing a guide on sustainable entrepreneurship targeting at leaders of small and medium enterprises (SME) can also be justified by their value creation. Small-business entrepreneurs play a pivotal role, particularly at the local level, when it comes to job creation and keeping supply chains running smoothly.

An economy in which entrepreneurship is a major force tends to come up with workable solutions to the challenges facing society, and in so doing makes a major contribution to social progress. Furthermore, an economy characterized by a robust small-business infrastructure profits of strategic diversity, this will tend to create a kind of built-in firewall against economic risk. Indeed, the actual but ongoing discussion whether for example banks should be limited in size to avoid major financial turbulence and economic crises in case of mismanagement of individual players illustrates the risks of an economy dominated by large multinationals. Social and political hazards tend to be far more prevalent so that government regulators set limits to the market dominance that may result from a proposed merger and acquisitions deal involving major players in a given industry, and sometimes prohibit such initiatives. Nevertheless, it continues to be the case in the current economic climate that advocates of government intervention in the affairs of large corporations argue that such companies are too big to fail and must be rescued at all costs. This, however, undermines the risk diversification that is held in such high esteem by so many entrepreneurs and private investors. An economy characterized by market structures comprising myriad and thus relatively small entities fosters risk diversification. Diversity in these realms, whether it be for product and service portfolios, or providers themselves, should be regarded as being in the national interest in the economy of any advanced industrialized nation. Diversity is one of the main levers of sustainability in that it fosters experimentation, improvisation, nimbleness, and capitalizing on any opportunities that may arise. For small businesses, strategic entrepreneurship is the key to the optimization of both professionalism and these companies' future prospects - especially in an era, such as ours, where all businesses, but especially small ones, face unprecedented challenges.

Press article about Swiss bank UBS taking over the rival Credit Swiss: "Too big for Switzerland? Credit Suisse rescue creates a bank twice the size of the economy. Worries that Credit Suisse's downfall would spark a broader banking meltdown left Swiss regulators with few good options. A tie-up with its larger rival, UBS (UBS), offered the best chance of restoring stability in the banking sector globally and in Switzerland, and protecting the Swiss economy in the near term. But it leaves Switzerland exposed to a single massive financial institution, even as there is still huge uncertainty over how successful the mega merger will prove to be. There are also concerns that the deal will lead to huge job losses in Switzerland and weaken competition in the country's vital financial sector, which overall employs more than 5% of the national workforce, or nearly 212,000 people." (Ziady 2023)

Many entrepreneurs and small business owners frequently find use of the tools associated with strategic management daunting and are prone to avoid using such tools altogether. If you ask a small-business owner why they tend to shy away from strategic management, they will often tell you that they simply lack the time to reflect upon, much less deal with, whatever might be coming down the pike; or they might make the argument, by which they of course mean that plans can and often do go awry. But given the ever-growing intensity of competition in today's economy small businesses have to figure out how best to (1) persuade both current and prospective customers to engage with their products; (2) communicate what makes their products special, unique and desirable; (3) convey why their products are eminently affordable; (4) persuasively argue that their products are durable and their business model sustainable. Small business owners are forced to determine the keys to lasting long term success - the essence of strategic, sustainable management. Unlike large corporates, small businesses generally lack a strategic-planning department or task force, and this in turn severely limits their risk capacity. My goal in this book is to propose tried and true business management methodologies and highly relevant practical examples to help SME owners, managers, as well as students, to acquire managerial skills that they see the process of shaping the look, feel, culture and operational aspects of their organizations as enriching, from both a personal, professional and bottom-line standpoint. In doing so, I place emphasis on the nuts and bolts of strategizing and strategy implementation, as well as efforts to render a given business as sustainable as possible.

Figure 1: Sustainable entrepreneurship - overview

The wine industry hereby serves as a kind of illustrative case industry because of certain specific facets. For instance, the German wine industry as well as other European neighbor wine sectors is composed of myriad small businesses and the attendant personnel, and the activities of these organizations create jobs, and help to sustain and support countless infrastructural and institutional elements that make life worth living, while also making a substantial contribution to landscape beautification. The indirect effects of regional wine industry activities on suppliers, tourism and the like multiply by an order of magnitude the added value generated by the industry. The wine industry - by virtue of its multifaceted production and marketing activities - has a direct effect on regional economies,...