Reliability and validity analysis of variables.

In the era of the green economy, the Chinese government has advocated for natural environmental protection and innovation in rural areas, making the sustainable development of small rural businesses into a focal point. Currently, whether natural environmental protection promotes the sustainable development of small rural businesses remains debatable, and the roles of regional innovation climate, entrepreneurs’ cognition of green development, and technological innovation in production on the sustainable development of small rural businesses are often overlooked. Addressing this gap, this study draws inspiration from Upper Echelons Theory and Sustainable Development Theory to construct a structural equation model (SEM) and proposes 10 hypotheses. Primary data was collected from rural entrepreneurs across 17 provinces in China, yielding 439 valid samples. The data were analyzed using AMOS 28.0, SMARTPLS 4.0, and SPSS 28.0. The findings revealed that natural environmental protection did not positively influence the sustainable development of small rural businesses (β = 0.104, p > 0.05). In contrast, the regional innovation climate (β = 0.189, p = 0.001) and rural small business entrepreneurs’ cognition of green development (β = 0.261, p

绿色经济时代下，中国政府倡导乡村地区的自然环境保护与创新发展，使得乡村小微企业的可持续发展成为重点议题。当前，自然环境保护是否能够推动乡村小微企业的可持续发展仍存在争议，而区域创新氛围、企业家绿色发展认知以及生产技术创新对乡村小微企业可持续发展的作用往往被忽视。针对这一研究空白，本研究基于高阶理论（Upper Echelons Theory）与可持续发展理论构建结构方程模型（Structural Equation Model, SEM），并提出10项研究假设。本研究从中国17个省份的乡村企业家处收集一手数据，最终得到439份有效样本。研究采用AMOS 28.0、SMARTPLS 4.0以及SPSS 28.0对数据进行分析。研究结果显示，自然环境保护并未对乡村小微企业的可持续发展产生显著正向影响（标准化回归系数β=0.104，p>0.05）。与之相反，区域创新氛围（β=0.189，p=0.001）以及乡村小微企业企业家的绿色发展认知（β=0.261，p