Educating for self‐interest or ‐transcendence? An empirical approach to investigating the role of moral competencies in opportunity recognition for sustainable development
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/beer.12214 |
| Author | Onno Omta,Thomas Lans,Vincent Blok,Lisa Ploum |
| Published date | 01 April 2019 |
| Date | 01 April 2019 |
Business Ethics: A Eur Rev. 2019;28:243–260.
|
243
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/beer
1 | INTRODUCTION
Sustainabl e development has b ecome one of the mos t prominent
challenges of our t ime, and entrep reneurial act ion is increasing ly
seen as a promisin g way to preserve ecosys tems, counteract clima te
change, reduce environmental degradation and maintain biodiver‐
sity (Dean & McMu llen, 2007; Patzelt & Shepherd , 2011). The term
“sustainable entrepreneurship” can therefore be seen as an overar‐
ching way of lookin g at the contribution of entrepre neurship to so‐
cial, ecologic al and economic issues an d has gained importa nce over
the years (Schaltegger & Wagner, 2011). Nevertheless, entrepre‐
neurship edu cation is still mostly t ailored towards a profit‐firs t men‐
tality, in which so cial and environm ental outcomes a re subordinate
to economic gains ( Lackéus, 2015). As a response t o criticism of the
“profit‐first” me ntality of busin ess schools and i ncreased atte ntion
to sustainabl e entrepreneurs as th e change agents of our time, m ore
and more higher education institutes are introducing sustainable en‐
trepreneurship educational programmes in their curricula (Lackéus,
2015; Lourenço, Jon es, & Jayawarna, 2013).
Whereas the focus in “traditional” entrepreneurship educa‐
tion (EE) is on the development of entrepreneurial intentions,
competence, behaviour and culture, sustainable entrepreneurship
seems to go furt her by also takin g into considerati on other effec ts
and the complex ity of behaviour and decisions in a f uture‐oriented
and global per spective of res ponsibility (R ieckmann, 2012). B ut
what exactly m akes “traditional ” EE different from EE th at integrates
sustainabl e development? One d istinct dif ference lies in th e type
of learning outco mes it aspires to; in oth er words, the comp eten‐
cies—that is, the integ ration of knowledge, skills an d attitudes—that
are central in suc h programmes or c urricula. The key t hing is that
the concept of sust ainability i s value‐oriente d and normative sin ce
it addresses t he question of how s ocial‐ecologic al systems ought
to be developed in o rder to achieve a bala nce between eco nomic,
social and enviro nmental aspects in (b usiness) practices (Rock ström
et al., 2009; Swa rt, Raskin, & Robinson, 20 04). The development of
individual (eth ical) values and norm s related to others (eithe r socially
or environmentally oriented) is therefore considered as an essential
outcome of EE that integrates sustainab le development.
Nevertheless, there seems to be an inherent paradox when it
comes to educating for sustainable entrepreneurship. Sustainable
entrepreneurship requires individuals to be focused on gains that
are oriented towards others (i.e., self‐transcendence) while also
Received:3Janu ary2018
|
Revised:3Oct ober2018
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Accepted:18Oct ober2018
DOI: 10 .1111/bee r.12214
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Educating for self‐interest or ‐transcendence? An empirical
approach to investigating the role of moral competencies in
opportunity recognition for sustainable development
Lisa Ploum1 | Vincent Blok2 | Thomas Lans1 | Onno Omta2
This is an open ac cess article und er the terms of the Crea tive Commons Attr ibution License, w hich permits use , distribution an d reproduction i n any medium,
provided the o riginal work is prop erly cited.
© 2018 The Author s. Business Ethics: A Eu ropean Review pub lished by John Wiley & So ns Ltd
1Education an d Learning Scienc e, School
of Social Scien ces, Wageningen Univ ersity,
Wageningen, The Netherlands
2Management St udies Group, Scho ol of
Social Sciences, Wageningen University,
Wageningen, The Netherlands
Correspondence
Lisa Ploum, Ed ucation and Lear ning Science,
School of Soci al Sciences, Wagenin gen
Universit y, Hollandseweg 1, 6707 KN
Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Emails: lisa.ploum@wur.nl, lisa.ploum@gmail.
com
Abstract
Entrepreneurshi p education with a foc us on sustainable development primaril y
teaches student s to develop a profit‐driven mentality. As sust ainable development is
a value‐oriented and n ormative concept, the role of individ ual ethical norms and val‐
ues in entrepreneurial processes has been receiving increased attention. Therefore,
this study addre sses the role of moral competence in the pro cess of idea generation
for sustainable d evelopment. A mixed method de sign was developed in which would‐
be entrepreneur s were subjected to a que stionnaire (n = 398) and to real‐life deci‐
sion‐making processe s in a case assignment (n = 96). The results provide ste pping
stones for impleme nting (moral) competen cies in entrepreneu rship education as a
possible avenue to move away from a so le focus on a profit‐driven mentality.
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PLOUM et al.
being oriented to g ains for themse lves (i.e., self‐interes t) (Blok,
2018; Lourenço et al. , 2013). Although rece nt studies sugg est that
it is worthwhile i ntroducing sus tainable devel opment content into
entrepreneurship education programmes (Hall, Daneke, & Lenox,
2010; Kuckertz & Wagn er, 2010), it is not clear how entrepreneu rial
learners (e.g ., students) manage bot h interests related to su stainabil‐
ity and entrep reneurship (G ibb, 2002). This s tudy will addre ss the
tension between self‐transcendence and self‐interest in the early
stages of the ent repreneurial processe s. One way of doing this is to
take a competence p erspective. In this stre am of literature, there is
increasing interest in competencies that emphasize reflection and
tap into value sy stems (Delamare Le Deist & Winte rton, 2005) a nd
are often descr ibed and labelled as mor al or ethical competence. A s
it is not clear how the se moral competencie s manifest themselves i n
the early st ages of the entrepr eneurial proce ss, a competence p er‐
spective is use d to investigate th e role of moral comp etence in an
activity t hat is characteristi c for this early stage, nam ely that of idea
generation for sustainable development.
The main resear ch question of this art icle is therefore as follow s:
“What role doe s moral competence play in the pro cess of opportu‐
nity recognition for sustainable development?”
To answer the main resea rch question, a m ixed method st udy
design was developed and implemented at two different higher edu‐
cation instit utions in the Netherl ands. The first st udy addresses self‐
perceived levels of m oral competence by means of a sur vey and the
second study a ddresses the role of mor al competence in the pro cess
of idea generati on for sustainable develo pment by means of a prob‐
lem‐based case assignment.
This is one of the fir st studies that empiricall y shows the signifi‐
cant role mora l competencies pl ay in the process of idea generation
for sustainable development. Therefore, the outcomes of this study
fuel the theo retical discus sion on the stron g need for higher ed uca‐
tion institut ions to make a transition a profit‐first me ntality, towards
a new logic in which su stainability is not seen a s a loss. Furthermore,
the mixed metho d study design can be seen as one of t he contribu‐
tions to the field of entrepreneurship education as well. Competence
research most ly focuses on eit her conceptual co ntributions or o n
quantitative empirical work. By both quantitatively and qualitatively
showing how the t wo moral compete ncies are employe d within the
opportuni ty recognition process, a uniq ue insight into these compe‐
tencies is reveale d. For practice, bett er insight into the entrepren eur‐
ial process provides teachers with evidence‐informed stepping stones
for teaching, facilitating and developing sustainable entrepreneurship
among latent, early stage and nascent entrepreneurs. The case study
developed for th is research could be us ed in different educ ational set‐
tings to bring re al‐life decision‐making pr ocesses into the classroo m.
2 | THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.1 | Entrepreneurship education
Although ent repreneursh ip education has b een around for a lo ng
time (according to so me its intellectual u nderpinnings are more t han
100 years old), the rese arch field is ver y young (Kuratko, 20 05).
What is clear is that t he offerings of EE worldwide have incr eased
enormously ove r the last decades (in the USA , there were approxi‐
mately 250 entrep reneurship p rogrammes in 1985; in 20 08, there
were already over 5, 000 progr ammes, with th e numbers sti ll in‐
creasing each yea r [Morelix, 2015]). O verall, prac titioners, p olicy
makers and also sc ientists seem to be convinced a bout the positive
impact of EE; EE see ms to be beneficial f or the developme nt of all
sorts of early stage entrepreneurial outcomes, for instance entre‐
preneurial inte ntions, skills a nd attitudes ( Bae, Qian, Miao, & F iet,
2014; Martin, McNal ly, & Kay, 2013). However, meta‐analyses an d
systematic reviews also highlight methodological weaknesses (e.g.,
lack of control grou ps) in EE studies and , from an educat ional sci‐
ences point of view, lac k of detailed repor ting on alignment bet ween
teaching/learning objectives, delivery mode and impact assess‐
ment mode (Kamov ich & Foss, 2017). Moreover, Kamovich an d Foss
(2017) clearly conc lude in their sys tematic review th at research on
the impact of EE ha s raced ahead of the t heory nece ssary to con‐
firm and expla in it. One area—which info rms EE on a practical a s well
as theoretic al level—in which much p rogress has bee n made dur‐
ing the last 5 to 10 years is t hat of the development of compete nce
frameworks . Such frameworks have been deve loped for general EE
(e.g., Man, Lau , & Chan, 2002; Mitchelm ore & Rowley, 2010; Morris,
Webb, Fu, & Singhal, 2013) as we ll as for adjacent or mo re specific
fields like intr apreneurship (Hayto n & Kelley, 2006), corporate soc ial
responsibilit y (Osagie, Blok, Wess elink, & Mulder, 2016) and susta in‐
able entrepre neurship (Lans, Blok, & Wess elink, 2014; Ploum, Blok,
Lans, & Omta , 2017). What is impor tant to note is that th ese com‐
petence frameworks stem from modern, integrative, comprehensive
approaches to co mpetence (Delamare Le Deist & W interton, 2005;
Mulder, 2014). “Integrated” r efers to a cohesive a nd complex set
of knowledge, ski lls, attitud es and their embe ddedness wit hin the
context in which s uccessful performance h as to take place (Mulder,
2014). Within these mo dern competenc e frameworks, t here is in‐
creasing intere st in competencies that emph asize reflection and tap
into value syste ms (Delamare Le De ist & Winterto n, 2005) and in
such studies ar e often describ ed and labelle d as moral or ethic al
competencies.
2.2 | The concept of moral co mpetence
Moral compete nce, used interchangeably i n the literature with ethi‐
cal competence , has its roots in t he business eth ics literature (c f.
Jones, 1991; O’Fallon & Bu tterfiel d, 2005). From this p erspective ,
moral compete nce is described a s “the sensitiv ity of managers a nd
professionals to m oral issues in th eir organizati onal struct ures fol‐
lowed by moral judg ment and actions” (Pohli ng, Bzdok, Eigenstette r,
Stumpf, & Strobel, 2016, p. 2) . Specifical ly, it means the abilit y to
consistently be have according to accepted ethica l principles (Kim &
Kim, 2013). Moral com petence can help leaders gai n a competitive
advantage by mot ivating employees (Lennick & K iel, 2005) because
it enhances emp loyees’ perceptions of ju stice (Folger, 1998). Dopper,
Interface an d Impossible Foods In c. (among many other s) are positive
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