Enterprise-level sustainable entrepreneurship index construction and its applications

As the concept of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) coincides with the direction of enterprises’ sustainable development goals, this study measures sustainable entrepreneurship at the enterprise level by extending ESG measures. A time-varying measure was constructed using state-space models, and the entropy weight method was applied to obtain the final index. We selected annual data of 318 A-share listed companies for 2011–2020 and established a two-way fixed-effects model of time and individuals by applying the constructed sustainable entrepreneurship index. This study examines the impact of sustainable entrepreneurship on corporate value and discusses the moderating effects of financing constraints and government subsidies. The empirical results reveal the following aspects. First, sustainable entrepreneurship has a significant positive effect on corporate value. Second, the greater the degree of financing constraints faced by enterprises, the weaker the role of sustainable entrepreneurship in promoting corporate value. Third, the greater the government subsidies received by enterprises, the stronger the promotion.