Ecopreneurship, Generative AI, Digital Green Orientation and Environmental Performance in Software Houses

This paper is grounded in the natural resource-based view to investigate the role of ecopreneurship in enhancing the environmental performance of software firms. It examines the mediating effect of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in translating ecopreneurial activities into enhanced environmental performance and assesses how digital green technology orientation (DGTO) strengthens the relationship between GenAI and environmental performance. Data were collected from 145 managers working in software companies. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the proposed relationships. The results show that ecopreneurship plays a significant role in improving software firms’ environmental performance. Additionally, GenAI mediates the relationship between ecopreneurship and environmental outcomes, while DGTO moderates the relationship between GenAI and environmental performance. This is one of the first studies to jointly examine the mediating effect of GenAI and the moderating role of DGTO in this context. It also extends the ecopreneurship literature to the under-researched context of software firms in developing economies, providing novel evidence on how digital and green orientations influence environmental performance.