Challenges and Problems of Ecopreneurs

Abstract

Introduction: Ecopreneurship, or ecological entrepreneurship, has emerged as a sustainable approach to addressing environmental challenges while fostering economic growth, and in India it presents both significant opportunities and hurdles such as regulatory hurdles, financial constraints and cultural barriers. In literature, theorists characterizing managerial decision processes usually adopt the normative (rational theory) or descriptive (bounded-rational theory) approach. The paper examines whether managers, when making loosely-structured decisions, typically assume guesses and focus only on intuitive and judgemental thinking rather than on informational sources supporting conscious decisions.

Methodology: In the process of collecting empirical data, an internet questionnaire survey was used; before the measurement instrument was posted on the website it was checked in an offline pilot study (N = 50). A direct link to the questionnaire was sent via personal emails to respondents working in enterprises located in the area of southern India, invited through LinkedIn and Golden Line. The research was conducted between June 1 and December 31 in 2017, using judgmental and snowball sampling. For 1100 invitations sent, 289 responded, and after eliminating companies that did not conduct marketing research projects the sample equalled N = 213, mainly medium and large firms from FMCG, finance and insurance, retail and wholesale, and media. Two ordinal dependent variables, “Intuition” and “Information”, measured on a 5-point Likert scale, were analysed with ordinal regression models using the predictors “Position” and “Education”.

Results & Discussion: Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk tests indicated large deviations from normality (Information 0,21 and 0,89; Intuition 0,29 and 0,77; all Sig. 0,00), so the variables were verified on non-parametric principles. “Intuition” was strongly skewed towards categories 1 and 2 and a negative log-log function was applied, whereas “Information” was evenly distributed and estimated by a logit function. For “Intuition”, the chi-square statistics for the negative log-log (4,34) and complementary log-log (4,44) functions are larger than that with the logit function (1,80). Both regression models exceeded the level of p = 0,05 and proved adequacy, with Pearson chi-square values of 24,97, 16,27 and 22,65 for “Intuition” and 13,01, 16,27 and 12,55 for “Information”. Parameter estimates for “Intuition” were all positive and larger (Pos.=1: 3,92, Wald 28,35; Pos.=2: 3,62, Wald 32,48; both Sig. 0,00) than for “Information” (Pos.=1: 0,88, Sig. 0,28; Pos.=2: 0,72, Sig. 0,13). Only product managers and respondents with a master degree displayed significant relationships with the “Information” variable.

Conclusion: The results indicate that decision makers are more inclined towards intuition or gut-feeling than information, and that functional managers pay more attention to information and the market research than their colleagues from higher levels in the company hierarchy. Intuition helps to reduce the time needed to undertake prompt decisions, but its frequent use is not a panacea for all the managerial problems and may needlessly facilitate the decision problems at the expense of their accuracy, since biases committed by managers can largely be avoided with objective information. Although intuition can be practiced in many decision processes, it cannot completely replace information; managers balancing between these two spheres would behave more reasonably.