This article analyses corruption, governance and entrepreneurship as interrelated dimensions of sustainable economic growth. Its central thesis is that entrepreneurship cannot contribute fully to sustainable development when institutional environments are weakened by corruption, lack of trust, poor governance and distorted incentives. Entrepreneurship requires not only individual initiative, innovation and knowledge, but also transparent institutions, ethical norms, effective governance, social trust and communicative infrastructures that enable responsible value creation.
The article integrates classical and contemporary theories of entrepreneurship, governance, knowledge management, innovation and sustainable development with empirical and theoretical studies by Marcin W. Staniewski and his co-authors. Particular attention is given to corruption as an institutional barrier to savings and development, the role of innovation, management and governance in sustainable growth, ethical aspects of entrepreneurship, socioeconomic factors influencing student entrepreneurship, family communication and entrepreneurial self-efficacy, self-esteem and achievement motivation, human resource management and innovativeness, knowledge management, and digital consumer value creation through WhatsApp.
The first part presents corruption as a structural distortion of entrepreneurial incentives. The second part discusses governance as the institutional condition of sustainable entrepreneurship. The third part analyses entrepreneurship as a form of responsible value creation requiring ethical foundations. The fourth part examines knowledge management and innovativeness as organizational responses to institutional uncertainty. The fifth part analyses socioeconomic and family determinants of entrepreneurial agency. The sixth part discusses digital communication and consumer value creation as communicative dimensions of entrepreneurial ecosystems. The article concludes that sustainable economic growth requires a governance framework that protects institutional trust, supports ethical entrepreneurship, reduces corruption and enables knowledge-based innovation.
Keywords: corruption; governance; entrepreneurship; sustainable growth; institutional trust; ethics; innovation; knowledge management; entrepreneurial self-efficacy; consumer value creation.
