Entrepreneurs' characteristics impact on proactive environmental strategy: Enterprise ownership as a moderator

Abstract

With the continuous development of China's economy, environmental problems are becoming more and more prominent. Since the 18th Party Congress, environmental protection has been incorporated into the national strategy, also the government has come up with development ideas of innovation, harmony, green, open and sharing during the 13th five-year period. As the microeconomic entities, companies are the main resource of environmental pollution. Therefore, enterprise have become the focus of environmental pollution control. Enterprises' choices of environmental strategy have important meanings to the whole society's economic and environmental development. It is important to take the study on the influential factors of proactive environmental strategy choice under the constant restraint of environmental rules. In this context, the external environment puts forward high requirements on the entrepreneurs. Facing the changes and demands of environmental strategies, entrepreneurs have to identify risks and opportunities and make decisions to respond in good time. However, the different characteristics and traits of entrepreneurs also influence the coping styles and strategies of entrepreneurs facing changes of environment. In addition, the differences in the nature of the entrepreneur's enterprise have an impact on the implementation of the relevant business strategy. The enterprise ownership is worth further exploration. Based on the review on the theory of upper echelons, the paper selected entrepreneurs from 6 kinds of industry and 126 companies as the research objects. The paper explored the education level and work experience of entrepreneurs' characteristics impact on proactive environmental strategy, and investigated the effect of enterprise ownership on the relationship between entrepreneurs' characteristics and proactive environmental strategy. The paper considered the enterprise ownership as state-owned and non-state-owned. The results showed that entrepreneurs' environmental education level and environmental work experience have a positive impact on proactive environmental strategy. The results of the regression analysis of the moderating variables show that the different ownership of the enterprise will have different moderating effects on the influence of entrepreneurs' characteristics on proactive environmental strategy. That is to say, the regulation effect of non-state-owned enterprises on the relationship between entrepreneurs' characteristics on proactive environmental strategy is greater than that of state-owned enterprises. On this basis, this paper puts forward suggestion as follows: at the entrepreneurial level, entrepreneurs should pay attention to practical knowledge and ability, to accumulate environmental experience, to respond to changes in the environment effectively. At the same time, not only should the entrepreneur have a correct understanding of the environmental protection, but also they have a strong sense of responsibility and mission to transform the concept of environmental protection for practical action, taking environmental protection as a long-term strategic mission. At the government level, they need to help and support enterprises to enhance their experience and innovative ability to cope with external challenges actively. Also, the government should formulate strict and reasonable environmental rules and truly implement environmental strategies.