RESPONSIBLE ENTREPRENEURSHIP VISION DEVELOPMENT AND ETHICS

Quintuple Helix co-creation as a pillar for responsible (environmentally and socially)… 383
try in order to boost women’ management skills (Lindberg et al., 2011). Moreover, this model
was extended to the development of knowledge environment by involving the civil society
in the business world (Lindberg et al., 2011). The quadruple helix model is basically an update
of the triple helix model. It is crucial to include society within the development of any business
strategy. Furthermore, using this model will boost entrepreneurs’ innovation skills and
will give an important advantage to the industry comparing to competitors and will thus result
into “social policies and practices” (Carayannis & Campbell, 2011). Since the related literature
realized that society is a crucial aspect of the business environment, it will bring the
quadruple helix model to focus more on these aspects which are core pillars to the knowledge
based society (Carayannis & Campbell, 2009).
Still, the quadruple helix approach did not manage to properly leverage the importance
of environmental sustainability in societal growth engines. To this end, the quintuple helix
model is an update of the quadruple helix model with the same elements and the addition of
natural environments (Carayannis et al., 2012b). This model focuses on the responsibility that
one has for the ecosystem. The environment concern became a core concern for entrepreneurs
that want to start a business especially due to increased customer pressure and regulatory conformance
– which means that the quintuple helix approach is critical for responsible
entrepreneurs. The quintuple helix model has to be followed in order to achieve success in
the business world as environmental sustainability is with no doubt one of the core drivers
of nowadays business environment (Al-Hallaj et al., 2015). Good examples of companies that
use the quintuple helix model are the Swedish Forest Industries. Sweden is the second biggest
wood exporter after Canada (Bustamante, 2014). Europe has a strong strategy when it comes
to green business. Since the forest sector is important for the Sweden economy, systems have
been developed in order to boost innovation and knowledge by improving green systems (Bustamante,
2014). The forest industries have as goal to decrease the pollution by using the quintuple
helix model that will boost the economy and by considering the environment.
Nevertheless, it is of core importance to transcend/replicate such practices (besides developing
new ones) from the existing industries/corporations. For example, one global project
relevant to this research is the REINVEST project (EU-India Collaboration for Advancing
Sustainable Freight Transportation Across Both Continents) which operates in this quintuple
helix context but focuses an already existing (transportation) industries. Throughout this project,
a number of workshops with all the quintuple helix stakeholders at various locations (in
EU and India) have been organized in order to help industries become more responsible (both
environmentally and socially). These best practices emerged from REINVEST can easily be
incorporated by future entrepreneurs (through proper scalability and more focused sector targeting).
The EU market is highly dependent on start-ups to fulfil the regional gaps and thus,
responsible practice replication can become a true enabler of responsible entrepreneurship.
Key findings from REINVEST that can be replicated to start-ups are:
– Mechanisms for quintuple helix co-creation and dialog towards better interaction and
effective policies.
– Environmental sustainability practices/techniques (focused on transportation mostly) that
can be adopted in the business models of responsible start-ups.
– Inclusion of society in the decision making factors (and enabling an open dialog with
society).
– Access to a global network of quintuple helix actors interested in responsible businesses.