• Acs, Z. (2006). How is entrepreneurship good for economic growth?. Innovations: technology, governance, globalization, 1(1), 97-107.
• Aruba Chamber of Commerce (2015). Aruba Business Environment: Economic Reality and Potential.
• Aruba Chamber of Commerce (2018). Incubator Survey.
• Arubaeconomicaffairs.aw. (2018). Aruba Economic Affairs - Iniciativa pa Desaroyo di Empresa Arubano (IDEA). [online] Available at: http://www.
arubaeconomicaffairs.aw/index.php?option=com_con tent&task=view&id=84&Itemid=194
• Aruba Huis. (2012). Aruba en Carbon War Room kondigen samenwerking aan. Retrieved from Aruba Huis Persberichten: https://www.arubahuis.nl/
prvoorlichting/persberichten/360-aruba-en- carbon-war-room-kondigen-samenwerking-aan
• ATECH (2018). ATECH* Conference 2017, Caribbean developments, such as the availability of starter capital,
education, incubators and other support programs are continued to be pursued, the first generations of Aruban sustainable entrepreneurs will be able to effectively exploit the opportunities that are present on the island.
This will inspire a whole new generation of sustainable entrepreneurs, thereby constantly reinforcing attributes that will make Aruba the sustainable hub it desires to be.
Furthermore, these findings are subject to certain limitations. Firstly, due to utilizing a purposive maximum variation sampling technique, the interviewed actors were selected for their relevance, which was determined by the researcher. Therefore, there was a certain degree of selection bias involved in selecting interviewees, which may have influenced the results. Furthermore, interviewees were asked questions concerning their view and practices on sustainability, relationships with and opinions about other actors, and their experienced barriers and drivers.
Since these concern personal opinions about the self and other, there is a social desirability bias present, signifying that some actors will respond in a way that is viewed positively by others through emphasizing ‘good’ behaviour and downplaying ‘bad’ behaviour. This could possibly have had an effect on the answers reported by the interviewees, thereby influencing the results.
Moreover, only sparse research concerning sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystem theories has been executed. For example, the only model that specifically focussed on the barriers and drivers of sustainable entrepreneurship was created by Cohen (2006), which was exploratory in nature and therefore limited. This research is the first that combines Spigel (2015) and Cohen’s (2006) models in order to assess the attributes of a sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystem.
In general, this synergy proved to useful, since it efficiently exposed the underlying drivers and barriers for Aruban sustainable entrepreneurs. However, interviewees named constraints that were not present in these models, such as
UAUCUStudent Research Exchange Collected Papers 2018
48
public policies, Journal of Business Venturing, 4, issue 1, 11-26,
• Elkington, J. (2004) Enter the triple bottom line, in Henriques, A. and Richardson, J. (Eds.): The
• Triple Bottom Line, Does it All Add Up?, pp.1–16, Earthscan Publications, London.
• Emas, R. (2015) The Concept of Sustainable Development: Definition and Defining Principles
• Galindo, M. Á., & Méndez-Picazo, M. T. (2013).
Innovation, entrepreneurship and economic growth.
Management Decision, 51(3), 501-514
• Gartner, W. (1985). A Conceptual Framework for Describing the Phenomenon of New Venture Creation.
The Academy of Management Review, 10(4), 696-706.
• Government of Aruba (2011). Green Gateway:
Economic Vision and Policy 2011-2013. Oranjestad, Aruba
• Government of Aruba. (2017). Opportunities Ahead:
Government Initiatives, Investment Opportunities, and Economic Prospects. Oranjestad.
• Greco, A., and de Jong, G. (2017). Sustainable entrepreneurship: definitions, themes and research gaps. (17ed.) (Working paper series ).
• Greenscool.org. (2018). GreenSCool. [online]
Available at: http://greenscool.org/pages/ [Accessed 12 Apr. 2018].
• International Monetary Fund. (2010). Kingdom of the Netherlands-Aruba: 2015 Article IV Consultation Discussions- Sta Report, and Press Release.
Washington, D.C. : IMF Publication Services
• International Monetary Fund. (2013). Kingdom of the Netherlands-Aruba: 2015 Article IV Consultation Discussions- Sta Report, and Press Release.
Washington, D.C. : IMF Publication Services
• International Monetary Fund. (2015). Kingdom of the Netherlands-Aruba: 2015 Article IV Consultation Discussions- Sta Report, and Press Release.
Washington, D.C. : IMF Publication Services
• Kelman, I., & West, J. J. (2009). Climate change hottest tech conference. [online] ATECH* Conference.
Available at: https://www.atechconference.com/
• Audretsch, D. B. and A. R. Thurik, (1999). Capitalism and Democracy in the 21st Century: From the Managed to the Entrepreneurial Economy’, Journal of Evolutionary Economics.
• Bernstein, L., Bosch, P., Canziani, O., Chen, Z., Christ, R., Davidson, O., ... & Kundzewicz, Z. (2007).
IPCC, 2007: climate change 2007: synthesis report.
Contribution of working groups I. II and III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Geneva.
• Central Bank of Aruba (2018). Isla Innovativo.
• Cia.gov. (2018). The World Factbook — Central Intelligence Agency. [online] Available at: https://www.
cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/
rankorder/2004rank.html [Accessed 12 Apr. 2018].
• COSME Program. (n.d.). Retrieved April 12, 2018, from http://www.cosmeprogramme.org/about-cosme.
• Blundel and Smith (2001). Business networks SMEs html and inter-firm collaboration: a review of the research literature with implications for policy. The Small Business Service, Sheffield.
• Briguglio, L. (1995). Small Island Developing States and their Economic Vulnerabilities. World Development, 23(9), 1615-1632.
• Cohen, B. (2006). Sustainable valley entrepreneurial ecosystems. Business Strategy and the Environment, 15(1), 1-14.
• Cohen, B. and M. I. Winn, (2007). Market Imperfections, Opportunity and Sustainable Entrepreneurship, Journal of Business Venturing 22(1), 29–49
• Cropper, M.L and Oates, W.E, (1992). Environmental Economics: A Survey. Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(2), 675-740
• Dubini, P. (1989), The influence of motivations and environment on business start-ups: Some hints for
• Spilling, O. R. (1996). The entrepreneurial system: On entrepreneurship in the context of a
• mega-event. Journal of Business Research, 36, p.
91-• Stam, F. C., & Spigel, B. (2016). Entrepreneurial 103 ecosystems. USE Discussion paper series, 16(13).
• University of Aruba (2016). The Academic Foundation Year. [online] Available at: http://www.ua.aw/
academic-foundation-year/ [Accessed 13 Apr. 2018].
• Vanegas, M., & Croes, R. (2000). Evaluation of Demand: US Tourists to Aruba. Annals of Tourism Research, 27(4), 946-963.
• Wennekers, S., and Thurik, R. (1999). Linking entrepreneurship and economic growth. Small
• Business Economics 13:27-55.
• Wong, P. P. (2011). Small island developing states.
Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 2(1), 1-6.
• World Commission on Environment and Development (1987). Our Common Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 27
• World Economic Forum (2013). Entrepreneurial Ecosystems Around the Globe and Early-Stage Company Growth Dynamics
and small island developing states: a critical review.
Ecological and Environmental Anthropology, 5(1), 1-16.
• Kirzner, I. M. (1974). Competition and entrepreneurship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Majid, I.A., and Koe, W.L. (2012). Sustainable Entrepreneurship (SE): A Revised Model Based on Triple Bottom Line (TBL). International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 2(6), 293-310.
• Nambisan, S., & Baron, R. A. (2013). Entrepreneurship in innovation ecosystems: entrepreneurs’ self‐
regulatory processes and their implications for new venture success. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 37(5), 1071-1097.
• NUFFIC (2016). Evaluation of foreign degrees and qualifications in the Netherlands
• Patton, M. Q. (1990). Qualitative evaluation and research methods. SAGE Publications, inc.
• Pelling, M., & Uitto, J. I. (2001). Small island developing states: natural disaster vulnerability and global change.
Global Environmental Change Part B: Environmental Hazards, 3(2), 49-62.
• Rohrbeck, R., Hölzle, K., & Gemünden, H. G. (2009).
Opening up for competitive advantage–How Deutsche Telekom creates an open innovation ecosystem. R&d Management, 39(4), 420-430.
• Ridderstaat, J. (2007). the Lago Story, the Compelling Story of an Oil Company on the Island of Aruba.
• Schumpeter, J. A. (1934). The theory of economic development – An inquiry into profits, capital, credit, interest, and the business cycle. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press
• Schumpeter, J. (1947). Capitalism, socialism, and democracy. New York: Harper & Brothers.
• Spigel, B. (2017). The relational organization of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 41(1), 49-72.
The UAUCU project has been a unique opportunity for me as an Aruban student studying in the Netherlands, coming back to my home island and experiencing the environment of eagerness to learn and to add to the body of knowledge that constitutes sustainable development for small island states. Personally, I have grown up in an atmosphere of curiosity and critical thinking that always fueled me to try and find new and exciting things to learn about my island. Aruba has a lot to offer for a small rock in the ocean and being able to come back and see how I can apply my knowledge and share with the local community in my learning process, has opened my eyes to the curiosity of other islanders like myself who are hungry for information and who are eager to be able to contribute and participate in the process of sustainable development, even if they might not know exactly what that means. I think it is funny to realize how often I find myself trying to apply theories to broader or more personal phenomena than what they
are actually intended for and then playing with them to see how they could describe these too. I say this because when I think of development now, I think in terms of transition, I think in terms of a messy process that we as (junior) researcher try to place into understandable chunks of theory and models to make sense of what is happening.
But that is the fun part, something is happening and being in an environment where there always seems to be hope for a positive outcome even in gray to pitch black situations it feels like when things are “happening” there’s always a positive outlook to take.
In this program I got the chance to see a group of multi-disciplinary students bond while gathering data on a beach and to see both local and international students feel saddened by the negative impacts of human “development”
while also be proud that they can contribute to solutions.
Xavier Boekhoudt, University of Aruba
UAUCUStudent Research Exchange Collected Papers 2018
52