Seminar - Matilde Ruiz-Arroyo

Matilde Ruiz-Arroyo (Universidad de Granada) will present her paper “Symbolic and substantive commitment to sustainability in new ventures: The role of opportunity perception and organizational growth,” along with Ana Maria Bojica (Universidad de Granada). 

Abstract

In this paper we theorize and empirically analyze the factors that explain new ventures’ voluntary adoption of behaviors that promote social and/or environmental sustainability in response to normative pressures. Specifically, we propose that (1) the adoption of symbolic sustainable behaviors in response to normative pressures depends on entrepreneur’s capacity to identify business opportunities (2) the adoption of symbolic behaviors is associated with the development of substantive sustainable behaviors in new ventures and (3) this relationship is further moderated by new venture organizational growth. The results obtained in a sample of 1588 Spanish new ventures (aged less than three and a half years), statistically representative at the national level, show partial support for these hypotheses. We find that entrepreneurs who identify more business opportunities are also more likely to respond to normative pressures by adopting symbolic sustainable behavior which, in turn, are associated with the adoption of substantive sustainable behaviors.