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The purpose of this study is shed light on the underlying forces behind entrepreneurship within a regional innovation system (RIS) in a remote rural region. The authors examine the following questions: Which are the main underlying forces behind the entrepreneurial process in a rural RIS characterized by traditionally low-tech, small-scale businesses? How can the development of a low-tech regional innovation system be conceptualized?

The design of the study is based on entrepreneurship theory. Data analysis followed practices used in phenomenography, a research approach used to analyse and identify commonalities and variations in populations' perceptions of a certain phenomenon. Data are composed using semi-structured interviews and a database composed of company information of all firms in the population.

A proactive mobilization of regional stakeholders and resources can be an important driving force behind the entrepreneurial process and generation of a rural RIS. Innovation can be generated within low-tech industries turning the rural context into an asset. An RIS in a remote rural context can be initiated and orchestrated by regional authorities, but knowledge brokering and orchestration can also be managed by networks of small-scale businesses brought together by mutual benefit and common interests.

Regional innovation systems theory is most often used to study high-tech industries. But by combining regional innovation systems with rural entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship context theory is a fruitful avenue to understand the role of rural entrepreneurship in regional development, even in remote and peripheral regions. Innovation does not need to entail high-tech international environments; it can appear as the result of efforts in low-tech industries in rural and remote environments. The authors’ findings need to be scrutinized; therefore, the authors call for more research on regional innovation systems in rural environments.

It is possible for regional authorities to orchestrate a development process through the actions of a strong regional agent but also by supporting the creation of networks of small businesses that are built on trust and common interests.

This study contributes to the literature with a new perspective to the study of entrepreneurship and of regional innovation systems. Entrepreneurship research with focus on rural contexts most often highlight limits to entrepreneurship and see entrepreneurship as “just running a business”. A perspective that starts from innovation and innovative behaviour, despite the rural context and embedded resources, helps to generate new knowledge that can enrich the understanding of entrepreneurship and also be the foundation for more precise business development policies in rural settings.

Entrepreneurs are generally considered to be committed in order to strive for highly desirable goals, such as growth or commercial success. However, commitment is a multidimensional concept and may have asymmetric relationships with positive or negative entrepreneurial outcomes. This paper aims to provide a nuanced perspective to show under what conditions commitment may be detrimental for entrepreneurs and lead to overinvestment.

Using a sample of entrepreneurs from incubators in France (N = 437), this study employs a configurational perspective, fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), to identify which commitment profiles lead entrepreneurs to overinvest different resources in their entrepreneurial projects.

The paper exposes combinations of conditions that lead to overinvestment and identifies five different commitment profiles: an “Affective profile”, a “Project committed profile”, a “Profession committed profile”, an “Instrumental profile”, and an “Affective project profile”.

The results show that affective commitment is a necessary condition for entrepreneurs to conduct overinvesting behaviors. This complements previous linear research on the interdependence between affect and commitment in fostering detrimental outcomes for nascent entrepreneurs.

The transition to green growth goals requires the concerted efforts of the whole society. Enterprises, as important players in the market, play a key role in promoting green and sustainable development. The rise of the concept of sustainable development has enabled more enterprises to disclose environmental, social and governance (ESG) information, and ESG behaviour is regarded as a positive strategic behaviour to implement the new development concept. This paper aims to explore the influence of ESG performance on enterprise green innovation.

This study applies a fixed effect model and the regulation effect of empirical analysis to explore the influence of ESG performance on enterprise green innovation. The object of investigation is 2014–2021 Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies.

The results of an empirical analysis outline the following conclusions: (1) ESG performance has a significant effect on enterprise green innovation, mainly by easing the pressure of the financing enterprise, fitting stakeholders’ environmental protection concept and obtaining employee organizational identity that influences enterprise green innovation. (2) Government regulation positively regulates the role of ESG performance in promoting the green innovation of enterprises. (3) Heterogeneity analysis found that the strengthening role of ESG performance on the green innovation of enterprises is stronger in green invention patents, state-owned enterprises and nonheavily polluting industries.

Despite the valuable findings, this study has a few limitations. Thus, it is necessary to extend the object of investigation by adding other Asian countries, which allows for comparison analysis and allocating best practices for promoting green innovation. Besides, innovation and ESG performance depend on the quality of institutions. In this case, the future study should incorporate the indicators that reveal the quality of institutions (corruption, transparency, digitalisation, voice, accountability, etc.).

According to the above conclusions, this paper proposes suggestions at the level of enterprises, government and investors. At the enterprise level, ESG responsibility should be strengthened, ESG information should be consciously disclosed and the quality of ESG disclosure should be improved. Government departments should play the role of supervisors, improve the construction of ESG information disclosure systems and promote the formation of ESG systems. At the social level, investors should improve the ESG information status and pay more attention to the ESG performance of enterprises.

This study fills the scientific gaps in the analysis impact of ESG performance on the green innovation of enterprises. This paper contributes to the theoretical landscape of ESG efficiency by developing approaches based on two empirical models: testing the impact of enterprise ESG performance on green innovation and testing whether government regulation plays a regulatory role in the relationship between ESG performance and green innovation. Besides, this study analysed the ESG performance and green innovation within the following categories: heavy and nonheavy polluter industries; state and nonstate-owned enterprise groups.