Public sector development and entrepreneurial initiatives for improving circular economy performance: government policy and digital transformation initiatives as moderators

The public sector delivers essential services like healthcare, law enforcement, public transit, education, infrastructure, social services, emergency services, and environmental management. It supports innovation and digital transformation, which can be enhanced by integrating sustainable circular economy principles. Similarly, entrepreneurship intention towards circular economy could have a pivotal impact towards improving circular economy performance. Not many research studies have been conducted towards identifying how public sector development and entrepreneurial initiatives could impact circular economy performance. Also, there are fewer studies which have focused on the role of government policies and digital transformation initiatives towards improving circular economy performance. Against this background, this research study focuses on the role of public sector and entrepreneurship initiatives in enhancing circular economy performance, with government policy and digital transformation initiatives acting as moderating factors. With the support of institutional theory and resource-based view, a model has been developed conceptually which was later validated through partial least square structural equation modelling technique supported by 357 usable respondents from emerging economy respondents. The study found there is a positive corelation between public sector development and entrepreneurial intention to improve circular economy performance. Also, the study demonstrated that government policies and digital transformation initiatives play a significant role towards improving circular economy performance. This study mainly depends on data obtained from cross-sectional study. This invites causality and endogeneity defects. These defects may be addressed by conducting a longitudinal study that could be conducted by future researchers.