How to Improve New Generation Migrant Workers’ Entrepreneurial Willingness—A Moderated Mediation Examination from the Sustainable Perspective

Abstract

Drawing on government service quality theory, we examined the impact of government service quality on new generation migrant workers’ entrepreneurial willingness. This paper proposed that government trust mediates the relationship between government service quality and new generation migrant workers’ entrepreneurial willingness, and the entrepreneurial climate plays a positive moderating role. Using the survey data of 472 new generation migrants, empirical results support the hypotheses. This research reveals that government trust plays an important role in the relationship between government service quality and migrant workers’ entrepreneurial willingness, which has important theory contribution, but also practical implications for effectively constructing government trust and managing migrant workers’ entrepreneurial willingness.

1. Introduction

The transformation and sustainable development of China’s social economy cannot be separated from the support of the group of migrant workers. According to the statistics reports of the National Bureau of statistics, the total number of migrant workers in China nearly 287 million in 2017, which increased by 1.77 percent compared with 2016, and the total number of migrant workers who left their hometowns to find a job increased by nearly 180 million (0.4 percent).

Table 1. The growth of migrant workers from 2013 to 2017.

Year	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017
Amount (million)	269 1	274 2	277 3	282 4	287 5
Growth rates (%)	-	1.85	1.09	1.84	1.77

¹ http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/zxfb/201405/t20140512_551585.html; ² http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/zxfb/201504/t20150429_797821.html; ³ http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/zxfb/201604/t20160428_1349713.html; ⁴ http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/zxfb/201704/t20170428_1489334.html; ⁵ http://www.ddsb.cn/news/20180503/23302156762.html.

presents the growth trend of migrant workers. Due to the impact of the international financial crisis and economic transformation and upgrading of China, the current overall employment demand of enterprises has significantly decreased, resulting in more difficult for migrant workers to find a job [1]. Guiding and encouraging migrant workers to return to their hometowns to engage in entrepreneurial actives is an important and effective approach to promote employment and economic transformation. Recently, a series of policies promulgated by the Central Committee and relevant ministries and commissions emphasized that focal government should encourage and support migrant workers to enthuse and motivate them to return to their hometowns to start their own businesses. Under the environment that the government pays for efforts to guide and support migrant workers to return to their hometowns to start their own business, a study on the factors and mechanisms that influence the entrepreneurial willingness of migrant workers to return to their hometowns can help the government understand how to improve the entrepreneurial willingness of migrant workers, which has great practical significance for the socio-economic development of urban and rural areas.

In recent years, scholars have investigated the relationship between government policy and entrepreneurship from two perspectives. First, some research has focused on the impact of policy support on entrepreneurship. Such as Fonseca et al. (2001) found that government policies and laws have a positive impact on entrepreneurs’ entrepreneurial willingness and behavior [2]. Blanchflow (2000) [3], Gordon and Cullen (2002) [4], and Keuschnigg et al. (2004) [5] argued that preferential tax policies can stimulate entrepreneurial willingness so as to encourage more potential entrepreneurs to choose to start a business. The results of Black and Strahan (2002) [6] and Klappera et al. (2006) [7] show that a sound credit market and sufficient credit support will help to promote entrepreneurship and the growth of enterprises. Hawkins (1993) [8] found that management and entrepreneurship training courses and the provision of consulting services can encourage people to start a business. Klapper et al. (2010) argued that bureaucratic regulations have an inhibitory effect on entrepreneurial willingness [9]. Wennekers and Thurik (1999) proposed that in countries with economies in transition, the government’s reform and opening policies will increase entrepreneurial opportunities through economic growth and market change [10]. Batjargal and Liu (2004) found that the more institutional capital private entrepreneurs have, the greater the chances of enterprise development or success [11].

Second, researchers have studied the impact of government policies on migrant workers’ entrepreneurship. Ács et al. (2014) believe that a support policy system (e.g., entrepreneurial counseling, financial support, and entrepreneurial services, etc.) can encourage land-losing farmers to start their own businesses [12]. Guo (2006) has argued that the “double- dual structure” existing in China’s social economy and the resulting land system, household registration system, and education system will affect the opportunities for migrant workers to start a business [13]. Zhao et al. (2006) found that a lack of venture capital, entrepreneurial experience, policy support, entrepreneurial environment, and other factors decrease farmers’ entrepreneurial willingness [14]. Kodithuwakku and Rosa (2002) found that the level of policy support is an important factor that affects the willingness of migrant workers to return home to start a business [15]. Carter and Olinto (2003) conducted an empirical study and found that credit constraints will not directly affect farmers’ entrepreneurial choices [16]. However, it will affect the structure of resource allocation and the level of entrepreneurship in the process of farmers’ entrepreneurship. Busenitz et al. (2000) found that the quality of government management has an impact on the entrepreneurial tendency of returnees, and argued that the government can stimulate entrepreneurial activities through reducing corruption and improving efficiency [17]. Wahba and Zenou (2012) studied the relationship between the dynamic development of social capital and start-up performance in rural micro-entrepreneurs [18]. The results show that business network embedding is an important factor affecting the performance of rural micro-entrepreneurs.

In sum, existing research has investigated the relationship between government policies and entrepreneurship, but there are some still research gaps. For example, first, the existing research results are mainly based on the relationship between government policies and general individual entrepreneurship, and lack an investigation of migrant workers’ entrepreneurship. Secondly, in terms of research methods, scholars have effectively discussed the impact of government policies on farmers’ entrepreneurship, due to the lack of policy resources to study the performance of migrant workers returning to their hometowns. But some research has proposed that the government, policy makers, and public service providers, are critical factors impacting the entrepreneurial willingness of migrant workers [19]. The government can shape the business environment not only with the legislation framework, but also through diversified entrepreneurship policies by actively servicing new business entities [20]. Therefore, this paper conducts a field study to quantitatively analyze the impact of government service quality on the entrepreneurial willingness of migrant workers returning to their hometowns, and then puts forward some policy recommendations to improve the entrepreneurial willingness of migrant workers returning to their hometowns so as to bring vitality to the regional economy and drive its sustainable development.

In the next section, we will discuss the theoretical background and propose our hypotheses. Following this, we will describe the data collection and information of the sample. Then, we will report the results of correlation analysis, reliability and validity analysis, and regression analysis. Finally, we will discuss our findings and practical implications, as well as the limitations of this study.

2. Theory and Hypothesis

2.1. New Generation of Migrant Workers

A new generation of migrant workers refers to those who are born in the 1980s and rural household registration records, but do not engage in agricultural activities in rural areas. The All-China Federation of Trade Union (ACFTU, 2010) reported that the new generation of migrant workers live in urban areas for a long time; however, the environment they live in is rather harsh, and they are vulnerable to unequal treatment from external social groups [21]. Compared to traditional migrant workers, the living environment of the new generation of migrant workers is different because the parents of the new generation of migrant workers are also working in the cities. Traditional migrant workers are mainly engaged in physical jobs, and most of them are employed in the manufacturing industry and construction industry. They are highly capable of confronting stress, are very willing to work hard, have a strong local feeling, and are unwilling to try and explorer new ideas. The new generation of migrant workers always has a higher level of education than traditional migrant workers. They are more inclined to choose jobs that need more brain labor and engage in the third service industry. In contrast to traditional migrant workers, the new generation of migrant workers have a clear plan for their personal future career, a strong adventurous spirit, a strong willingness to try different and new useful things, and pay attention to the satisfaction of spiritual needs, but they also have a low capability to resist pressure and are unwilling to endure hardship. Individuals that try and explore new useful ideas are an important force of driving the sustainable development of organizations or social groups [22,23]. The new generation of migrant workers, accounting for 60% of the total migrant workers, has become a major part of the existing migrant workers in China. This type of migrant worker has adapted to city life, and has a wealth of work experience and extensive personal connections to city. Therefore, the new generation of migrant workers can use their existing knowledge and experience to start a business after returning to their hometown [24]. As an important part of the migrant workers, the entrepreneurial actives of the new generation of migrant workers have rapidly attracted attention from the government and other social aspects. The local government has also begun to provide many kinds of help and support through establishing a government support system that can solve various problems for entrepreneurship of the new generation of migrant workers.

2.2. Migrant Workers Returning Hometown to Start Businesses

The new generation of migrant workers has lived in the city for a long time, and has similar lifestyle and thinking pattern to urban residents. These migrants have worked in urban areas and can bring their personal work experience and social ties back to their hometowns. Through their return to their hometowns to pioneer enterprises, they can develop their individual role and functions in the sustainable development of society. Murphy (2000) pointed out that the migrant workers returning to their hometown to be an entrepreneur refers to the migrant workers returning to their place of residence and engaging in entrepreneurial actives to solve problems of survival and development [25]. The typical entrepreneurial form of most migrant workers is investing hundreds of yuan to start a business. Therefore, the business scale is relatively small when migrant workers start to engage in business in their hometown. The new-generation migrant workers return to their original place of residence and engage in various creative activities based on their own work experience and human resources. Such activities are mainly business activities and setting up shops, but some migrant workers with better funds can also invest in listed companies. All these activities that refer to a new generation of migrant workers who return to their original place of residence to conduct various operations and management can be called entrepreneurship of returning hometown [21].

2.3. Government Service Quality

Zhao (2002) pointed out that migrant workers returning to their hometowns to work in agriculture will be assisted by the government, providing all kinds of unpaid services for migrant workers to meet the entrepreneurial needs of migrant workers, and ensuring that enterprises can achieve smooth entrepreneurship [26]. In addition, some scholars point out that the quality of government public services can promote the better fulfillment of entrepreneurial needs [27]. Secondly, from the perspective of public satisfaction, Davies and Ramia (2008) pointed out that the quality of services provided by the government refers to the means and attitude of the government in providing various services to migrant workers [28]. Therefore, we can investigate the managerial ability of the government through analyzing of government work, which can increase the satisfaction of the public. Welch et al. (2004) argued that the quality of service provided by the government will directly affect the public satisfaction and recognition [29]. Through the analysis of public products provided by the government, we can understand the degree of satisfaction of individual needs of the public service, in turn also analyzing the gap between social public service quality and the public perception of service so as to better promote the construction of social public services. Brandsen and Pestoff (2006) argue that all kinds of public services provided by the public sector or the third sector are important components of the quality of public service, and the quality of public service also involves the satisfaction of the public [30].

In a review of Bovaird and Löffler (2003), they pointed out that the quality of public service is the satisfaction of the public with the social public service. Through the analysis of the quality of public services, we can understand the public’s acceptance of the various services provided by the government. Only when the services provided by the government meet the needs of the public can they be trusted and identified by the public [31]. Third, from the perspective of public cognition, previous research has indicated that the quality of government services is affected by their staff. Therefore, individuals and units worked in the government must consider the needs of the public as the prerequisite in the process of providing various public services to improve the level of service quality, because the degree of public evaluation of the government service is an important indicator of government public service quality [32]. From a macro perspective, Perry et al. (2010) investigated the different factors that can affect the quality of social public services, and proposed that various services and public goods provided by each level of government must be in line with actual public needs [33]. They believe that providing a high quality government service for the public can promote social and economic development. Therefore, the degree of satisfaction of public needs is the standard for measuring the quality of government public services. The government can realize their ability to provide public services through investing to increase in public satisfaction, so that they can add value to their role.

2.4. Government Service Quality and Migrant Workers’ Entrepreneurial Willingness of Returning Hometown

In the optimization and upgrading of China’s industrial structure, the government plays a leading role in the process of talent aggregation [28]. The level of regional government service will directly determine the actual situation of the aggregation of regional talents. In addition, the process of talent agglomeration will be affected by the supply of various public service products, including the information platform and various infrastructure. We can realize the quality and economic efficiency of various public products provided by the government from the perspective of economics, and the various types of public services that the government provide can affect talent accumulation to some extent [29]. In the process of economic development, the government must pay attention to the accumulation of talents, and create a favorable external environment for the improvement of innovation or entrepreneurship, solve various human intellectual problems in the process of regional entrepreneurship, promote the establishment of network information support systems, and optimize the allocation and utilization of human resources. These represent the government service quality and will directly affect the development of the regional economy and the maximization of innovation benefits [30], including the entrepreneurial willingness of migrant workers to return to their hometown. Combining relevant literature on public management, if the government provides citizens with convenience and a fair service, it can improve citizens’ satisfaction and willingness to go back to work in their hometown for migrant workers [31]. In practice, the quality of government services will directly affect the satisfaction of migrant workers’ psychological needs. If the government can give full play to their roles of improving service quality, they will be able to provide migrant workers with more entrepreneurial resources, in turn encouraging the new generation of migrant workers to return home to start businesses. Based on what we have talked about above, we propose the following hypothesis.

Hypothesis 1.

There is a positive correlation between the quality of government services and the entrepreneurial willingness of migrant workers to return to their hometown.

2.5. Mediating Role of Government Trust

Compared with our country, western developed countries pay much attention to the analysis and research of government trust. The new public management theory emphasizes the role of the government and demands an improvement in the quality of government work [33], but the trust of the public in the government is different, so the quality of government work is different [34]. Cleary and Stokes (2006) argue that increasing individual trust is the core of the government’s work. With the continuous development of government trust, institutional trust begins to replace the trust of the individual. In the process of using power, the government must strictly abide by rules and regulations to ensure their behaviors are normative. From a social public management perspective, the government must pay attention to construct the system that can ensure that the government maintains close ties with the public, and continuously gain their trust. Only in this way can the government fully play its own role in improving the capacity and level of public services [35].

The trust of the government must be based on the interaction between the government and the citizens. Continuously strengthening the interaction between the government and the citizens can allow the public have a better understanding of government work, enhance public satisfaction with their work, and identify the government’s work model [36]. Citrin and Mustei (1999) argued that the government’s response speed of appeal is an important driver of government trust. Government agencies can promote public generate trust in the government through paying attention to the improvement of work efficiency, thus strengthening the links between various departments [37]. Millern (1974) proposed that the core of government trust is the emotional interaction between the public and the government. Therefore, the scholar believes that the government can fully play its role and enhance its value (e.g., providing qualified service) according to the needs of the society to maintain public trust in the government [38].

Swindell and Kelly conducted a field study and found that government service performance and citizen satisfaction complement and impact each other [39]. If the government can strengthen its ties with its citizens, it can increase public satisfaction with its work, increase their trust in the government, encourage citizens to actively abide by government norms, and be more willing to support government actions to achieve goals [40]. The higher the quality of government services, the greater the trust of migrant workers in the local government, and in turn, the greater the willingness to return home to start a business.

Hypothesis 2.

Government trust mediates the relationship between government service quality and the entrepreneurial willingness to return to one’s hometown.

2.6. Moderating Role of Entrepreneurial Climate

Regional entrepreneurial climate refers to individuals’ common values on entrepreneurship within a focal region [41]. The regional entrepreneurial climate includes public tolerance for failures of entrepreneurship, respect for entrepreneurs, and encouraging and supporting new ideas. Previous studies have found that entrepreneurial climate can moderate the relationship between individual traits and entrepreneurial willingness, such as Zhang and Zhao (2014), who found that entrepreneurial climate moderates the impact of proactive personality on entrepreneurial willingness. Specifically, when individual perceived entrepreneurial climate is favorable, the individual’s proactive personality has a stronger impact on entrepreneurial willingness [42]. Hu and Xu (2015) also found that the effect of individual competency on entrepreneurial willingness is stronger in the climate with stronger entrepreneurship [43]. Some scholars believe that the entrepreneurial climate perceived by individuals will have an impact on the relationship between individual psychology, attitude, and entrepreneurial willingness, for example, a study found that individual risk-taking tendency has a stronger impact on entrepreneurial willingness in a favorable entrepreneurial climate [23,44]. The results of previous scholars’ research on entrepreneurial climate prove that regional entrepreneurial climate is an important moderating variable of individual trait and entrepreneurial intention. When entrepreneurial climate perceived by migrant workers is stronger, migrant workers trust more in the government and will engage in more entrepreneurial activities. Therefore, we proposed the following hypothesis.

Hypothesis 3.

Regional entrepreneurial climate moderates the relationship between government trust and entrepreneurial willingness to return home.

Finally, we propose that the regional entrepreneurial climate not only moderates the relationship between government trust and migrant workers’ entrepreneurial willingness to return to their hometowns, but also moderates the mediating effect of government trust in the relationship between the quality of government services and migrant workers’ entrepreneurial willingness to return to their hometown. Integrating the theoretical logic of the mediating effect and moderating effect in this study, the government trust explains the mediating mechanism of the impact of government service quality on the entrepreneurial willingness to return home, and the impact of government trust on entrepreneurial willingness to return home is stronger when the perceived regional entrepreneurial climate is stronger. Therefore, based on what we have discussed above, we propose the following hypothesis.

Hypothesis 4.

The regional entrepreneurial climate positively moderates the indirect effect of government service quality on migrant workers’ entrepreneurial willingness to return to their hometown via the government; that is, when the regional entrepreneurial climate perceived by migrant workers is high, the government service quality has a stronger indirect effect on the entrepreneurial willingness to return home through government trust.

3. Methods

3.1. Sampling and Data Collection

We collected data from the new generation of migrant workers in the Yangtze River Delta region. In this survey, six townships were randomly selected in a city located in the southern province of China from November 2016 to March 2017. There are 11 cities and about 57 million people in this province. The survey was supported by the Civil Affairs Bureau of this city. After the towns had been chosen, eight villages were randomly selected from each town. Then, we contacted the head of the village and 10–15 migrant workers were recommended to participate in the survey. A total of 545 questionnaires were distributed to migrant workers, and 472 valid questionnaires were collected, which is a valid response rate of 86.61%. Of the 472 migrant workers, women accounted for 42.28% and men accounted for 57.72%; in terms of age, ages 20 and below accounted for 8.26%, 21–25 years accounted for 71.82%, 25–30 years accounted for 16.95%, and 31 years and above accounted for 2.97%; in terms of education, migrant workers who completed junior high school or below education accounted for 9.74%, those who received high school or vocational secondary school education accounted for 45.55%, and those who received a college education or above accounted for 44.70%; in terms of job teneur years, three years and below accounted for 12.71%, 4–6 years accounted for 32.42%, 7–9 years accounted for 35.17%, 10–12 years accounted for 9.32%, and 13 years and more for 10.48%.

3.2. Measure

Following the translation and back-translation procedure suggested by Brislin (1970) [45], we created a Chinese version of measures based on original scales published in English. All scales were measured by a five-point scale that ranges from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

Government service quality: We used five dimensions developed by Parasuraman et al. (1988) [46] to measure government service quality. Sample items are “government staff respond to public requests in time” and “government staff provide services within the promised time”. Cronbach alpha coefficient of this scale is 0.769.

Government trust: The four-item scale developed by Rui and Song (2012) [47] was used to measure trust in the government. Sample items are “the government takes decisions and actions from the benefits of the majority” and “Government departments rarely waste taxpayers’ money”. Cronbach alpha coefficient of this scale is 0.924.

Entrepreneurial Climate: We used three items developed by Beugelsdijk and Noorderhaven (2004) [48] to measure entrepreneurial climate. Sample items are “public’s tolerance for failure is high” and “public respects entrepreneurs”. Cronbach alpha coefficient of this scale is 0.842.

Entrepreneurial willing of return hometown: we used the three-item scale developed by Zhang et al. (2016) [1] to measure the entrepreneurial willingness to return to one’s hometown. A sample item is “I’m willing to return hometown to start a business now”. Cronbach alpha coefficient of this scale is 0.903.

Descriptions of the key variables are presented in

Table 2. Descriptions of variables.

Abbreviation	Full Name	Definitions	Measures
GSQ	Government Service Quality	Means, attitude, and effectiveness of the government in providing various services to migrant workers	Parasuraman et al. (1988) [46]
GT	Government Trust	Psychology belongness and evaluation attitude of the public to the operation of the government.	Rui and Song (2012) [47]
REC	Regional Entrepreneurial Climate	Individual common values on entrepreneurship within a focal region.	Beugelsdijk and Noorderhaven (2004) [48]
EWRH	Entrepreneurial Willingness of Returning Hometown	Intentions of migrant workers returning to their place of residence and engaging in entrepreneurial actives	Zhang et al. (2016) [1]

.

4. Results

4.1. Descriptive Analysis

The mean, standard deviation, and correlation coefficients are shown in

Table 3. Descriptive statistics and correlations among the study variables.

	Mean	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1. Gender	0.427	0.432
2. Age	37.401	6.042	−0.031
3. Education	2.270	0.600	−0.137 **	−0.163 ***
4. Tenure	11.660	6.333	0.030	0.800 ***	−0.154 ***
5. GSQ	3.259	0.620	−0.058	0.018	0.013	0.074	(0.787)
6. GT	3.602	0.702	−0.055	0.027	0.058	0.091 *	0.598 ***	(0.875)
7. REC	3.502	0.571	−0.027	0.027	0.005	0.117 *	0.613 ***	0.720 ***	(0.857)
8. EWRH	3.450	0.654	−0.074	−0.047	0.060	0.025	0.538 ***	0.743 ***	0.744 ***	(0.779)

Note: *: p < 0.05; **: p < 0.01; ***: p < 0.001; Square root of AVE is in brackets at diagonal, GSQ = Government Service Quality, GT = Government Trust, REC = Regional Entrepreneurial Climate, EWRH = Entrepreneurial Willingness of Returning Hometown.

. We found that government service quality was positively related to trust in government (r = 0.598, p < 0.001) and entrepreneurial willingness to return to one’s hometown (r = 0.538, p < 0.001). We also found that trust in government was positively related to entrepreneurial willingness to return to one’s hometown (r = 0.743, p < 0.001). These results provide initial evidence for supporting H1–H3.

4.2. Validity Test

Before examining our hypotheses, we first conducted a set of CFAs with AMOS 21.0 to test the validity of the four constructs. The baseline model included four variables: role conflict, innovative climate, learning orientation, and innovative behavior, and the result showed that the data fit the measurement model well (${\chi }^2/df$ = 2.980, RAMSE = 0.065, CFI = 0.977, TFI = 0.968, IFI = 0.977, NFI = 0.965). We also proposed five alternative models: Model 1: entrepreneurial climate combined with government trust; Model 2: entrepreneurial climate combined with entrepreneurial willingness to return to one’s hometown; Model 3: government trust combined with entrepreneurial willingness to return to one’s hometown; Model 4: government service quality, government trust, and entrepreneurial willingness to return to one’s hometown; and Model 5: the four variables were combined as one factor. The CFA results show that the baseline model provided the best fit of the data. It provided evidence that the four variables had a satisfactory construct validity.

Furthermore, according to the recommendation of Fornell and Larcker (1981) [49], we calculated the average variance extracted (AVE) to test the convergent validity and discriminant validity of the four constructs. The results of AVEs are shown in Table 1 (value at diagonal parenthesis is square root of AVE), which indicated the convergent validity of the government service quality, trust in government, entrepreneurial climate, and entrepreneurial willingness are acceptable because each AVE is larger than 0.50 (0.620, 0.766, 0.735, and 0.607, respectively). Additionally, the square root value of each variable is larger than the correlation coefficient between any two variables, which means that the discriminant validity of the four constructs is acceptable.

4.3. Hypotheses Test

We conducted a serial regression analysis with STATA 12.0 to test Hypothesis 1–3. In order to test Hypothesis 1, the four control variables, gender, age, education, and tenure, and the independent variable (government service quality), were entered into a regression equation, for which the entrepreneurial willingness to return to one’s hometown was the dependent variable, and the results are shown in

Table 4. Results of hierarchical regression analysis for the hypothesized relationships.

	GT	EWRH
	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4	Model 5	Model 6
Gender	−0.018	−0.044	−0.037	−0.033	−0.037	−0.044
Age	−0.057	−0.128	−0.097	−0.090	−0.054	−0.044
Education	0.054	0.040	0.002	0.005	0.016	0.029
Tenure	0.101	0.095	0.026	0.028	−0.019	−0.036
GSQ	0.590 ***	0.530 ***		0.143 ***
GT			0.740 ***	0.655 ***	0.427 ***	0.435 ***
REC					0.439 ***	0.418 ***
GT*REC						0.132 ***
R2	0.365 ***	0.299 ***	0.558 ***	0.571 ***	0.650 ***	0.666 ***
ΔR2			0.536 ***		0.092 ***	0.016 *
	N = 472	N = 472	N = 472	N = 472	N = 472	N = 472

Note: *: p < 0.05;**: p < 0.01;***: p < 0.001, GSQ = Government Service Quality, GT = Government Trust, REC = Regional Entrepreneurial Climate, EWRH = Entrepreneurial Willingness of Returning Hometown.

. Model 2 showed that government service quality was significantly related to entrepreneurial willingness to return to one’s hometown ($\mathsf{\beta }=0.530,p<0.001$), which indicated that there was a positive relationship between government service quality and entrepreneurial willingness to return to one’s hometown. Hence, Hypothesis 1 was supported.

To test Hypothesis 2, we followed the three-step procedure proposed by Baron and Kenny (1987) [50] to examine the mediating effect of trust in the government. Because we have tested the effect of government service quality on entrepreneurial will (Model 2), we first tested the relationship between government service quality and trust in the government. The results showed that government service quality has a positive impact on trust in the government ($\mathsf{\beta }=0.590,p<0.001, \mathrm{Model} 1$), and we also found that there is a positive relationship between trust in government and entrepreneurial willingness to return to one’s hometown ($\mathsf{\beta }=0.530,p<0.001, \mathrm{Model} 3$). Second, we entered government service quality and trust in the government into the regression equation simultaneously, and the results show that the impact coefficient of government service quality on entrepreneurial willingness to return to one’s hometown was reduced from 0.530 (p < 0.001) to 0.143 (p < 0.001), and the trust in the government coefficient was also positively related to entrepreneurial willingness (r = 0.655, p < 0.001), indicating that trust in the government mediates the relationship between government service quality and entrepreneurial willingness to return to one’s hometown. Hence, Hypothesis 2 is supported.

To test Hypothesis 3, we examined whether the entrepreneurial climate moderated the relationship between trust in the government and entrepreneurial willingness to return to one’s hometown. We first centralized the trust in government and entrepreneurial climate, and then constructed an interactive term by which trust in government multiplies entrepreneurial climate. According to moderating effect testing procedure recommended by Aiken and West (1991) [51], we entered trust in government, entrepreneurial climate, and the interactive term of the two variables into the regression equation simultaneously, and the regression results showed that entrepreneurial climate has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between trust in the government and entrepreneurial willingness to return to one’s hometown ($\mathsf{\beta }=0.132,p<0.001$, $\Delta {\mathrm{R}}^2=0.016,p<0.05$). Furthermore, we plotted the interactive effect following the method recommended by Stone and Hollenbeck (1989) [52]. Figure 1 shows that the positive relationship between government trust and entrepreneurial willingness to return home is stronger when the migrant worker perceived the regional entrepreneurial climate as being stronger; hence Hypothesis 3 was supported.

We used the Moderated Path Analysis in the general analytical framework proposed by Edwards and Lambert (2007) [53] to test Hypothesis 4. Edwards and Lambert [53] noted that when the confidence interval excludes zero, the moderated mediating effect is significant. We found that the indirect effect of government service quality on entrepreneurial willingness via trust in government is 0.081 (p < 0.001) when the entrepreneurial climate is low, and the indirect effect of government service quality on entrepreneurial willingness via trust in government is 0.142 (p < 0.001) when the entrepreneurial climate is high. The difference between the two indirect effects is 0.061 (p < 0.05), which indicated that entrepreneurial climate moderates the mediating effect of trust in government on the relationship between government service quality and entrepreneurial willingness to return to one’ hometown; hence Hypothesis 4 was supported.

5. Conclusions, Practical Implications, and Limitations

5.1. Conclusions

First of all, the empirical results of this study found that government service quality has a significant positive impact on government trust and entrepreneurial willingness of migrant workers to return to their hometown. It means that government service quality can both improve government trust and entrepreneurial willingness of migrant workers to return to their hometown, which is consistent with the findings of Chanley et al. [40], that increasing government trust will allow the public to commit themselves to the goals set by the government [31]. This study provides empirical results to support the relationship between the quality of service government, government trust, and entrepreneurial willingness to return to one’s hometown, and provides theoretical guidance on how to assess the value of migrant workers.

Secondly, the present study reveals that government trust plays an important role in the relationship between the quality of government service and entrepreneurial willingness of migrant workers to return to their hometowns. The conclusion of this study effectively expands the research on the impact of service quality, because previous studies mainly investigated the main effect of government service quality on entrepreneurial willingness (e.g., Yang, 2010) [17]. We further tested the mediating mechanism between government service quality and entrepreneurial willingness of migrant workers to return to their hometown, which is also one of the main contributions of this study.

Finally, the research reveals that the regional entrepreneurial climate moderates the relationship between government trust and entrepreneurial willingness of migrant workers to return to their hometown. Although some studies have found that regional entrepreneurial climate can be viewed as a moderating variable to influence the relationship between individual traits and entrepreneurial willingness, such as Zhang and Zhao [42] and Hu and Xu [43], our study explores an important boundary condition that can drive government trust that increases the entrepreneurial willingness to return to one’s hometown. This means that we need to recognize the fact that migrant workers who trust their local government have stronger entrepreneurial willingness if the perceived external environment is favorable (e.g., norms, practices and resources supporting entrepreneurship).

5.2. Management Implications

The empirical results show that government service quality is the key antecedent factor to determine the entrepreneurial willingness of migrant workers to return to their hometowns, which can be viewed as an important driving force for social sustainable development. Therefore, how to promote migrant workers returning hometown to start a business is a key issue for the government to consider as our findings indicate that the local government should improve the quality of service for migrant workers by improving the quality of public services, constructing high-quality service channels, information disclosure, and system construction, etc., which in turn promote migrant workers’ trust in their local government, so migrant workers are more willing to return home to start their own businesses. Simultaneously, when constructing a service-oriented government, it is also necessary to pay attention to the creation of a local entrepreneurial climate, such as entrepreneurial propaganda and the tendency of entrepreneurial policies, in order to strengthen the effect that the role of migrant workers having trust in the government has on entrepreneurial willingness.

5.3. Limitations

There are several limitations of this research. First, government service quality, government trust, entrepreneurial climate, and entrepreneurial willingness were rated by migrant workers at the same time, and therefore the common method variance proposed by Podsakoff et al. (2013) might exist [54]. Future researches can use the multi-waves approach to collect data, which allows migrant workers to answer questions at different times so as to reduce common method bias. Second, we used cross-sectional data to analyse the relationship among the four variables. The relationship tested by cross-sectional research does not represent the causal relationship; neither does it answer such a dynamic problem: whether the subjective perception of government trust and entrepreneurial climate can change over time. Therefore, it is necessary for future research to adopt a longitudinal design to expand our understanding of the causal relationship between these variables. Thirdly, we did not consider the number of towns when designing data collecting and randomly selected six towns to conduct this survey. This may lead to a sampling error, which drives us to conduct other sampling designs to collect data, such as systematic sampling and stratified sampling.