Into the Wild: Advancing Ecocentric Entrepreneurship Through Natural Non-Human Actors

Mainstream entrepreneurship has traditionally focused on the human behaviors involved in the exploitation, innovation, and transformation of human-centric systems. However, this anthropocentric view is inadequate in addressing today’s grand challenges. Assuming human superiority in solving Earth’s problems can be misleading. We challenge this assumption by adopting an ecocentric perspective that incorporates natural non-human actors (NNHAs). Using actor-network theory, we take a relational approach to explore how entrepreneurial behaviors can be theoretically advanced from inclusive, distributed, mutualistic, and co-creative relationships between human and NNHAs. We advance ecocentric entrepreneurship by redefining entrepreneurial agency, interactions, places, and ecosystems.