Green entrepreneurship and SME performance: the moderating effect of firm age

Abstract

Green entrepreneurship has been increasing with growing attention to environment protection by a variety of stakeholders. Green innovation, as the essence of green entrepreneurship, has attracted a broad range of scholarly attention with yet inconclusive findings regarding its effect on firm performance. According to our analyses of 1667 firms listed on SME board and GEM in China during the period from 2010 to 2019, we find interesting results regarding the type of green innovation involved and the moderating effect of firm age on the link between green innovation and SME performance. More precisely, we find green utility-model innovation positively influences firm performance for SMEs, whereas green invention innovation does not contribute to firm performance overall. More interesting, our empirical results suggest that older firms benefit more from both green invention innovation and green utility-model innovation than younger firms. This research contributes to the literature on green entrepreneurship as well as green innovation.