From External Relational Resources to Sustainable Entrepreneurship Practices in Emerging Markets: The Ethical Role of Dynamic Capabilities

Authors

• Duysal Warsi Askun, CUNY New York City College of TechnologyFollow
• Nihal Yazici, Yalova University
• Erhan Alam Aydin, Liverpool John Moores University
• Maria Giuseppina Akm Bruna, IPAG Business School

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-23-2026

Abstract

This paper investigates how external relational resources, namely business and political ties, drive sustainable entrepreneurship (SE) practices in Turkish SMEs operating under institutional fragility. The study applies PLS-SEM to survey data from 257 employees of sustainability-engaged firms, based on their evaluations. Results show that both business and political ties significantly strengthen dynamic capabilities, which in turn predict four dimensions of sustainable entrepreneurship: employee-friendly, social-solidarity, energy-saving, and environmentally friendly practices. Inclusive leadership, however, does not moderate these relationships, revealing a boundary condition for leadership theory in network-dependent contexts. The study contributes to SE research by showing how dynamic capabilities connect external relational resources with sustainability-oriented practices in an institutionally fragile emerging-market context, while also highlighting the ethical implications of how these resources are used.

Comments

This article was originally published in Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, available at https://doi.org/10.1111/beer.70160

This work is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).