How owners and managers of start-ups deal with the potential trade-offs between sustainability, growth, and profitability in the early stages

Sammanfattning: Sustainability has become a major concern for society, adding pressure on companies to become more sustainability-driven, while at the same time attending to the questions of economic growth and financial performance. Although the existing literature has provided frameworks that highlight the need for balancing environmental, social, and economic impact, there is still limited knowledge about how company representatives perceive and deal with the implicit trade-offs. In this study, we approach this issue by exploring how owners and managers of start-up companies, which operate under constant resource and capital constraints, perceive and deal with the potential trade-offs between sustainability, growth, and profitability. A qualitative research design with semi-structured interviews is used to explore how in their decision-making, owners, and managers of start-ups talk about and attempt to resolve these trade-offs. The primary findings from the study are that: (1) start-up representatives have limited knowledge about sustainability concepts, (2) they do not perceive a trade-off between sustainability and growth, but (3) they do recognize and contend with the trade-off between sustainability and profitability.