Global challenges posed by climate change and environmental deterioration are increasingly driving entrepreneurship with sustainable entrepreneurial intention as a key driver in predicting entrepreneurial activities. Together with experience, the environmental values of an entrepreneur are vital for sustainable entrepreneurial intention. However, the extent to which experience is a key factor to start up a sustainable enterprise is still rather unclear. To study the role of experience, we derive from the theory of planned behaviour three factors (personal attitude, social norm and self-efficacy) to examine their impact on environmental values and sustainable entrepreneurial intention. Based on a meta-analysis, the overall directions and effect intensity of the different factors in this relationship can be investigated. We develop a structural equation model to explore the mechanism behind the interaction between the different variables. We utilize information from 37 scientific articles using 40 empirical samples, 117 effect sizes and 192,015 observations. We found that environmental values are indeed positively related to a sustainable entrepreneurial intention. Furthermore, the relationship between environmental values and sustainable entrepreneurial intention is moderated by experience, as well as personal attitude, social norms and self-efficacy. In addition, environmental values are more positively related to the intention to set up a sustainable venture for entrepreneurs with low-experience compared to those entrepreneurs with high-experience. For policy makers and managers, it becomes important to stimulate environmental values to promote sustainable entrepreneurial intentions in order to stimulate the growth of sustainable enterprises. By enhancing these three factors, sustainable entrepreneurial behaviour can be facilitated by increasing entrepreneurs’ sustainable intention.

In the uncertain entrepreneurial ecosystem, scholarly knowledge is bounded by the sustainable growth of entrepreneurial enterprises. Moreover, there is a lack of consensus in academic circles on the relationship between entrepreneurial experience and entrepreneurial performance. In adopting the meta-analysis method, we found a significant relationship between entrepreneurial experience and entrepreneurial performance based on an investigation of 45 independent samples (N = 18,752). We also examined theoretically derived moderators of this relationship referring to firm age, industry condition and experience type to test whether the moderating effects can explain the inconsistent research results on the relationship between entrepreneurial experience and entrepreneurial performance. The relationship was stronger for the high-tech industry than for low-tech industry, for the early business stage than for late business stage and for start-up experience compared to management experience, work experience and industry experience. Our research findings are meaningful for practitioners to achieve sustainable growth by better preserving and coordinating entrepreneurial experience in a dynamic environment. Further, these findings are also important for future research to analyze the factors triggering the heterogeneity of entrepreneurial experience and to investigate the extent to which the start-up experience is more capable of promoting entrepreneurial performance.

The increasing number of successful latecomer enterprises has led to a growing research interest in the area, but there is a lack of consensus in academic circles on the relationship between imitation strategy and firm growth. While some enterprises achieved sustainable growth based on an imitation strategy, others withdrew from the market soon after their initial market entry. In this context, this meta-analysis synthesizes empirical findings including 23 independent samples (N = 66,110) to obtain evidence and explore the extent to which an imitation strategy affects firm growth. Moreover, by further examining the moderating effects of industry conditions, country-specific factors, and performance time horizons, this research also aims to address a complementary research question: in which context is imitation strategy more beneficial for the firm growth? We found that an imitation strategy is more effective in promoting firm growth in low-tech industries than in high-tech industries and in non-OECD countries than in OECD countries. It fosters the short-term performance rather than the long-term performance of a firm. Our research findings are meaningful for enterprises to choose an appropriate imitation strategy according to their unique attributes, enabling sustainable growth in a dynamic environment.

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With the advent of the “Industry 4.0” era, the outbreak of the new epidemic, and the frequent occurrence of economic crises, sustainable entrepreneurship has led to the entrepreneurial ambition of serial entrepreneurs. Although a large number of supportive policies have been recently enacted by administrations at all levels to promote sustainable entrepreneurship among serial entrepreneurs, there is a lack of policy evaluation. In addition, although academics recognize the importance of policy regulation in leading sustainable entrepreneurship, in-depth research on the entrepreneurship policy system is still lacking. Based on this, this paper applied the “policy instrument–policy target” analysis framework and selected Chinese policy texts that support the sustainable entrepreneurship of serial entrepreneurs for textual content analysis. The results of this paper suggest that the synergy of various policy instruments and the appropriateness of the policy instrument–target fit need to be improved. The findings of this paper can provide a theoretical basis and practical implications for governmental entities to guide serial entrepreneurs to prevent social, economic, and environmental risks and achieve sustainable entrepreneurship goals.