The significance of green entrepreneurial self-efficacy: Mediating and moderating role of green innovation and green knowledge sharing culture

Abstract

Green entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) refers to individuals’ conviction that they can contribute to solving environmental issues and shows self-assurance in their efforts to protect the environment. The present investigation attempts to determine the role of employees’ green ESE in the green innovation (GI) of SMEs. It is also proposed that GI positively impacts organizational environmental, economic, and social performance. This study also evaluates the mediating role of GI and moderating role of the green knowledge-sharing culture. This study tested the hypothesis using a partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) by applying smart PLS software. A total of 289 employees from SMEs in China were targeted for data collection. The results confirmed that green ESE positively impacts GI. Additionally, the findings verified that GI positively enhances firms’ environmental, economic, and social performance. The results validate the mediating role of GI. The moderating results revealed that green knowledge-sharing culture does not play a moderating role in proposed relationships. This study serves the existing body of literature by providing empirical evidence on the significance of green ESE. The study outcomes highlighted the bridging role of employees’ green ESE for firms’ GI. The results also offer companies a road map for how staff members’ green ESE might help the businesses to improve their performance in terms of the environment, economy, and society.

Unleashing environmental performance: The impact of green entrepreneurial motivation on small enterprises

“…All of these factors can help to strengthen an organisation's relationship between motivation and innovation (Wang and Noe, 2010;Hung et al, 2011;Aljanabi and Kumar, 2012;Peng, 2013;Arfi et al, 2018). However, this study is not in line with one piece of previous research (Guo, 2022), which reported the nonexistence of a moderation effect of KS on GI entrepreneurial self-efficacy.…”

“…GI can be developed in businesses by identifying the key factors that contribute to its growth. Various factors, such as personal characteristics, have been identified as being responsible for the development of GI, but no definitive mechanism has been identified (Prodanova et al, 2021;Guo, 2022). GEM is thought to act as a precursor for developing green behaviour in individuals, ultimately benefiting the environment and its surroundings.…”

“…Despite some attempts to investigate the impact of personal characteristics on GI development, there has yet to be a clear answer in this regard (Prodanova et al, 2021;Guo, 2022). There have also been attempts to investigate the role of intangible resources in addressing the issue of environmental sustainability (El-Kassar and Singh, 2019;Singh et al, 2020), such as understanding how cognitive mechanisms are linked to green behaviour and green entrepreneurship (Chu et al, 2021).…”

Green entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia: shaping the landscape of the greener economy

“…GESE has a positive impact on green innovation. Moreover, the study's findings do not confirm the moderating effect of the green knowledge-sharing culture in developing the connection between GESE and green innovation in SMEs (Guo, 2022). Through GESE, country support for entrepreneurship and institutional support for developing entrepreneurship both make a positive and significant impact on green EI (Robayo-Acuña et al, 2023).…”

“…2.6 Green entrepreneurial self-efficacy (GESE) GESE refers to people's confidence that they can help to solve environmental problems and can demonstrate self-assurance in environmental protection activities. More specifically, GESE provides firms with a roadmap on how their employees' GESE may assist them in performing better in terms of the environment, economics and society (Guo, 2022). Entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) partially mediates the link between lack of premeditation and lack of perseverance and intentions to become an entrepreneur (Tran et al, 2023).…”