Toke Bjerregaard

Sustainable entrepreneurship is attracting increasing attention in entrepreneurship literature. Social sustainable entrepreneurship is often conceived as entrepreneurial processes that generate social value. In this chapter we illuminate how small business entrepreneurs in a developing country engage in activities of importance for social sustainability and development as they undertake entrepreneurial ventures. We present the findings from an ethnographic field study that examines the strategies used by small entrepreneurs in an area of extreme resource scarcity to navigate co-existing social and market logics. The cases elucidate how the entrepreneurs cope with and exploit such co-existing logics through their sphere-straddling ventures to ensure sustainability during changes from an economy based on traditional exchange relationships to a situation with an emerging market economy. The chapter contributes to knowledge about the relatively under-explored question of how entrepreneurs in developing countries cope with and influence the societal environments that may restrict them from market participation and in this process generate both social sustainability and change.