Strategic entrepreneurship for renewable transitions: Unlocking sustainable value in smart economies

This paper explores the role of strategic entrepreneurship in advancing renewable energy transitions within the context of smart economies, with a focus on Nigeria. While renewable technologies offer significant promise for addressing climate change, energy poverty, and socio-economic inequalities, their adoption in Nigeria remains constrained by financing gaps, weak institutions, and entrenched fossil fuel lock-ins. At the same time, the rise of smart economies—characterised by digital infrastructures, big data, and smart grids—presents both opportunities and risks for renewable diffusion. Drawing on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991) as a micro-foundational lens, the paper examines how entrepreneurial intentions, attitudes, and agency shape renewable innovation in fragile governance environments. Through a critical review of the literature and comparative case insights, the paper argues that while entrepreneurship has driven decentralised solar projects and digital financing models in Nigeria, these efforts remain fragmented and insufficiently integrated into broader systemic transitions. Strategic entrepreneurship, which combines opportunity-seeking with advantage-seeking, is proposed as a framework for aligning entrepreneurial innovation with systemic needs, governance reforms, and digital infrastructures. The paper contributes to scholarship on entrepreneurship and sustainability by demonstrating how strategically oriented entrepreneurial practices can transform renewable transitions from isolated initiatives into drivers of inclusive and sustainable smart economies.