As a combination of innovation and environmental development concepts, green innovation is of great significance to sustainable development. This article takes supply chain learning as an intermediary to examine the direct and indirect effects of green entrepreneurial orientation (GEO) on green innovation. This study builds a theoretical model among GEO, green incremental innovation, and green radical innovation, and uses empirical data from 416 enterprises in China for testing. The results show that corporate GEO has a positive impact on green incremental innovation and radical innovation. Supply chain learning has a significant positive effect on green incremental and radical innovation. In addition, corporate supply chain learning plays a mediating role in the relationship between GEO and green radical innovation, as well as plays a mediating role in the relationship between GEO and green incremental innovation. This study has an important contribution to enrich the theory of entrepreneurial orientation, green innovation, and supply chain learning, and is of great significance for managers to understand how to use GEO in the process of green innovation development.

In response to the deterioration of the global environment, more and more firms are adopting eco-friendly strategies such as an environmental entrepreneurial orientation. We use the resource-based view of the firm and stakeholder theory to examine how environmental entrepreneurial orientation improves firm performance. We construct and test a moderated mediation model using survey data from 416 Chinese firms and find that environmental innovation mediates the positive effect of environmental entrepreneurial orientation on firm performance, stakeholder pressure positively moderates the influence of environmental entrepreneurial orientation on environmental innovation, and environmental entrepreneurial orientation influences firm performance through environmental innovation. This study makes theoretical contributions to the literature and provides management insights.

Open innovation theory believes that external knowledge acquisition is the key to gaining competitive advantage. This research aimed to examine the relationship between external knowledge acquisition, environmental innovation, and performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This study divides the external knowledge acquisition of enterprises into external technical knowledge acquisition and external market knowledge acquisition, and examines this theoretical framework with environmental innovation as a mediator. Using a sample of 416 Chinese SMEs, empirical results revealed that high levels of technical knowledge acquisition and market knowledge acquisition were positively related to SMEs’ performance. The positive impact of technical knowledge acquisition is mainly embodied through economic performance; the positive impact of market knowledge acquisition is mainly embodied through environment performance. Meanwhile, environmental innovation plays a significant mediating role in the relationship between external knowledge acquisition and enterprise performance; environmental performance plays a significant mediating role in the relationship between environmental innovation and economic performance. This paper provides several managerial implications for managers and policy makers to improve SMEs’ performance.

Within the context of low-carbon development and drawing on the resource-based and dynamic capability theories, this paper provides a conceptual model of the relationship between external knowledge acquisition, green dynamic capability and corporate green innovation. Then, using 416 samples of firms in China collected from January 2018 to September 2018, the model was tested using the hierarchical regression analyses. The empirical results show that external technical knowledge acquisition and market knowledge acquisition have a positive influence on corporate green innovation. Additionally, the results show that green integration capability and green dynamic configuration capability positively moderate the relationship between technical knowledge acquisition and green innovation. The results also show that green learning capability, green integration capability and green dynamic configuration capability positively moderate the relationship between market knowledge acquisition and green innovation. This study supports the resource-based view, enriches the application of external knowledge acquisition in sustainable development, and extends the theory of green dynamic capability from causal prediction to situational factors. This paper provides theoretical support and practical guidance for firms seeking to effectively conduct open innovation, implement green innovation, and realize low-carbon development.

As a combination of both concepts of innovation and environmental development, green innovation is of great significance to the sustainable development of the country and industry. Previous literatures have found the separate roles of green entrepreneurial orientation and inter-organizational learning in understanding green innovation issues. However, few studies have done a comprehensive analysis of integrating three streams of research: green entrepreneurial orientation, green innovation and supply chain learning capability. Based on the resource-based view and dynamic capability theory, we examine the direct of green entrepreneurial orientation on green innovation as well as indirect effect through the mediation of supply chain learning capability. Meanwhile, an empirical data set of 228 manufacturing companies in China (Shaanxi, Guangdong, Hebei, Jiangsu, and Shandong) was used to test our hypotheses. Findings from our empirical study suggest that supply chain learning capability partially mediates the positive relationships between green entrepreneurial orientation and its two consequences—green incremental innovation and green radical innovation. In addition, this research implies that when enterprise has a strong green entrepreneurial orientation, the enterprise should make an effort to enhance the level of supply chain learning capability so as to fully develop their green innovation.

Although research acknowledges the role of digital entrepreneurship in driving corporate innovation, digital entrepreneurial orientation (DEO) remains limitedly explored. Based on resource-based view (RBV) and social network theory (SNT), we developed a model to examine the role of cross-organizational improvisation (COI) and social ties (specifically, business and political ties) in the relationship between DEO and green innovation (GI). Survey data from 217 start-ups support the findings that (a) DEO positively influences green innovation, (b) COI mediates the link between DEO and GI, and (c) business ties (BT) moderate the relationship between DEO and GI; however, the role of political ties (PT) requires further investigation. This study not only contributes to the research on digital entrepreneurship and green innovation, but also enhances our understanding of the path from digital strategy to GI. The insights gained hold significant value for managers seeking to leverage a digital entrepreneurship orientation to foster GI.