From stigma to solution: Sanitation and sustainable entrepreneurship in emerging economies

Justin T. Canova, Sarah Nahar and Todd W. Moss

Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 2025, vol. 23, issue C

Abstract: There is a growing body of research expanding our understanding of sustainable entrepreneurship in marginalized communities beyond Western, high-income countries. However, an area that has received little attention is the highly stigmatized context of non-sewered sanitation services, and the resulting deleterious social and environmental impact on marginalized communities. Using qualitative analyses of three Kenyan sanitation-focused entrepreneurial ventures we examine the role that stigma plays in providing alternatives to traditional sewered sanitation systems. Our paper introduces three categories of sanitation-related actions—generation, collection/transport, and processing—each with their own level of stigmatization. This paper contributes to the literature by linking sustainable entrepreneurship with stigma, with propositions to lay the groundwork for further study of sustainable entrepreneurship in the sanitation sector.

Keywords: Sanitation; Stigma; Social entrepreneurship; Sustainable entrepreneurship (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352673425000198
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jobuve:v:23:y:2025:i:c:s2352673425000198

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbvi.2025.e00532

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Venturing Insights is currently edited by Dimo Dimov

More articles in Journal of Business Venturing Insights from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().