Moral Intensity as Catalyst for Opportunities for Sustainable Development

How entrepreneurs develop opportunities for sustainable development represents an important question. Current conceptions based on prior knowledge tend to overlook the nature and magnitude of the sustainability problem that the entrepreneur is trying to solve. Using an experimental design, we demonstrate that the moral intensity (MI) of the sustainability issue in question plays an instrumental role in guiding perceptions and inspiring action. MI moderates the relationship between prior knowledge and opportunity intention; participants with prior knowledge intend to pursue an opportunity only to the extent that they faced high level of MI. This finding offers important insights for further theoretical development and empirical research.