Entrepreneurial Architecture and Enterprise Sustainability in Volatile Emerging Economies: Developing the Ndoro Enterprise Sustainability Architecture (NESA)

Abstract

This study develops the Ndoro Enterprise Sustainability Architecture (NESA), a multi-layered conceptual framework explaining enterprise sustainability in volatile and resource-constrained environments. Building on prior empirical research on client concentration risk and structural vulnerability in Zimbabwe’s clearing and forwarding sector, the study extends these insights into a systems-based model of enterprise resilience. NESA conceptualizes sustainability as an emergent outcome of alignment across six interdependent layers: entrepreneurial cognition, structural legitimacy, market intelligence, financial governance, capital formation strategy, and institutional adaptation. Adopting an inductive, theory-building approach, the study integrates practice-based insights with established theoretical perspectives, including entrepreneurial cognition, institutional theory, market orientation, financial management, and dynamic capabilities. The findings suggest that enterprise sustainability is not driven by isolated capabilities, but by vertical coherence across multiple organizational dimensions under conditions of macro-environmental volatility. The study contributes to theory by advancing a systems-based perspective on sustainability, centralizing entrepreneurial cognition, and contextualizing firm behavior within volatile emerging economies. Practically, it provides a diagnostic and strategic framework for managers and policymakers. While conceptual in nature, the model establishes a foundation for future empirical validation across sectors and contexts.