The effect of entrepreneurial motivation to sustainable entrepreneurship among online sellers in the Philippines

While entrepreneurial motivation is widely studied in the field of entrepreneurship, sustainable entrepreneurship can be considered a developing concept in this field. Sustainable entrepreneurship is when an entrepreneur makes an effort to align his business activities towards sustainable development. This concept of entrepreneurship comprises three dimensions: environmental, economic, and socio-political. In relation to entrepreneurial motivation, this study’s main problem is concerned whether the push and pull entrepreneurial motivating factors have an effect on sustainable entrepreneurship of online sellers in the Philippines. This study also addresses the following problems: (1) how does push motivation influence sustainable entrepreneurship, and (2) how does pull motivation influence sustainable entrepreneurship. This study analyses the push and pull motivating factors of online entrepreneurs with the objective of learning about its influence in enabling an entrepreneur to achieve sustainability within his business. This paper reviews current literature on entrepreneurial motivation, also from which the hypotheses are established, and contributes to current knowledge by using and applying the push-pull theory in the context of entrepreneurship. This study was descriptive, utilizing an online survey questionnaire tailored specifically with questions pertaining to entrepreneurial motivation and sustainable entrepreneurship, with the respondents being online multi-platform sellers in the Philippines whose headquarters of operations are in Metro Manila. The statistical analysis used in this research is the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) through the SmartPLS software. Findings indicate that the respondents are both push and pull motivated into achieving sustainability, suggesting that among online sellers in the Philippines, they are equally driven by necessity and opportunity to achieve sustainability within their businesses. The researcher strongly recommends further research in a broader context, possibly with a larger sample size and questionnaire item development to avoid bias and improve clarity on the questionnaire items pertaining to entrepreneurial motivation