Entrepreneurs and environmental sustainability in the digital era: Regional and institutional perspectives

Climate change and environmental degradation have negatively affected the sustainable development of mankind. The “green” concept has been gradually accepted by the public, thereby strongly promoting “green” business forms and social innovation. This study adopts related information and technology knowledge and experience and warm glow (altruistic value) for business initiatives as push factors, market opportunity (MO) and personal innovativeness (PI) in technology as pull factors, and institutional theory (regulatory support and normative support) as mooring factors. These factors are employed to analyze the switching intentions of individuals toward green entrepreneurship, which is a new persuasive psychological model based on Push– Pull–Mooring model (PPM). The survey questionnaires are collected from a total of 1562 respondents through WeChat in mainland China. The study findings present all variables that significantly affect individuals’ switching intentions toward green entrepreneurs. PI exhibits the most significant impact on intention of individuals toward green entrepreneurship, while the interaction between the mooring factor and MO on switching intentions to green entrepreneurship is relatively weak. Finally, the study contributes theoretical and practical implications for increasing intentions toward green entrepreneurship.