Who are the green entrepreneurs in China? The relationship between entrepreneurs’ characteristics, green entrepreneurship orientation, and corporate financial performance

With the development of green industries worldwide, more and more attention has been paid to the performance output and formation of green entrepreneurship. Based on upper echelons theory and social capital theory, this paper studies the relationship between green entrepreneurs’ characteristics, their enterprises’ green orientation, and corporate financial performance. The hypotheses are tested using an empirical analysis of 173 Chinese companies in the new energy sector during the period from 2015 to 2017. Empirical results indicate that entrepreneurs’ gender, age, educational background, and professional background all have significant effects on green entrepreneurship orientation. Furthermore, the educational background of entrepreneurs has a negative influence on social orientation and environmental orientation. Further, social orientation and proactive orientation have a significant positive impact on business performance. These findings are helpful to enrich and develop the theory of green entrepreneurship and have guiding significance for green entrepreneurship activities more broadly.