The role of humane entrepreneurship for sustainability: Evidence from tourism digital start-ups

In the face of current complex environmental, social and economic challenges, this study aims to provide comprehensive empirical evidence about the influences of external and internal factors on the three dimensions of Humane Entrepreneurship and the inderdependences between them. To do so, we explore Entrepreneurial Orientation, Sustainability Orientation, and Human Resource Orientation in 10 Italian start-ups in the tourism sector adopting a combination of digital technologies, offering new and sustainable solutions. Preliminary results identify courage and collaborative networks as main factors influencing the strategic posture of human-centered investigated start-ups, with effects on sustainability. We propose an investigation of Humane Entrepreneurship in the tourism sector, widely acknowledged as a factor of sustainable development. Moreover, we focus on early entrepreneurship, still scarcely analysed in Humane Entrepreneurship in general, and in tourism in particular. We thus provide useful insights on how to incorporate not only Entrepreneurial Orientation, but also Sustainability Orientation, and Human Resource Orientation within digital start-ups entering the tourism sector.