Sustainable development and well-being: a philosophical challenge

This paper aims at gaining a better understanding of the inherent paradoxes within sustainability discourses by investigating its basic assumptions. Drawing on a study of the metaphoric references operative in moral language, we reveal the predominance of the 'well-being = wealth' construct, which may explain the dominance of the 'business case' cognitive frame in sustainability discourses (Hahn et al. in Acad Manag Rev 4015:18–42, 2015a). We incorporate economic well-being variables within a philosophical model of becoming well (Küpers in Cult Organ 11(3):221–231, 2005), highlighting the way in which these variables consistently articulate a combination of 'objective' and 'subjective' concerns. We then compare this broad understanding of well-being with the metaphors operative in the sustainable development discourse and argue that the sustainability discourse has fallen prey to an overemphasis on the 'business case'. We proceed to draw on Georges Bataille to challenge the predominance of these value priorities and to explore which mindshifts are required to develop a more comprehensive understanding of what is needed to enable 'sustainable development'

Entrepreneurial processes and the social construction of opportunity

In contrast to structurally-determinist and cognitive/agency oriented views of opportunity recognition, it is argued that opportunity formation is relationally and communally constituted - an insight that is not recognised in descriptive or linear process models of opportunity recognition. To arrive at this claim, use is made of social constructionist ideas. These ideas have been frequently applied in entrepreneurship studies but less attention has been given to the relational aspects of social constructionist thinking particularly with regard to opportunity formation processes. To aid this line of inquiry an analysis is undertaken of a sibling-autobiographical account of a high profile business venture, Coffee Republic. This account has been crafted by the sibling partnership with a particular audience in mind (the would-be entrepreneur) with guidelines and principles on how ‘anyone can do it’. However, it is not utilised here as a good specimen of business venturing to be probed for particular (hidden) meanings. Instead, the account is evaluated in order to illustrate how individualistic statements about opportunity discovery can be reconceptualised as relationally and communally constituted - an emphasis which is important for widening our theoretical understanding of the activities we label entrepreneurship