Distributed innovation, digital entrepreneurial opportunity, IT-enabled capabilities, and enterprises' digital innovation performance: a moderated mediating model
European Journal of Innovation Management
ISSN: 1460-1060
Article publication date: 20 January 2022
Issue publication date: 8 June 2023
Abstract
Purpose
As an important driving factor of digital innovation, distributed innovation has received extensive attention from academia and business circles in recent years. However, extant works lack a discussion on the influence of distributed innovation on digital innovation performance. Drawing on the opportunity perspective, the study constructs a moderated mediating model to address how distributed innovation directly affects enterprises' digital innovation performance. Particularly, it investigates the moderating and mediating effects of IT-enabled capabilities and digital entrepreneurial opportunities on the above correlation.
Design/methodology/approach
With a survey data set of 399 Chinese science and technology enterprises, the study conducts hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) and bootstrap to test the study’s hypotheses.
Findings
Results demonstrate that (1) distributed innovation positively enhances enterprises' digital innovation performance; (2) digital entrepreneurial opportunities partially mediate the positive relationship between distributed innovation and digital innovation performance; (3) IT-enabled capabilities positively moderate the relationship between distributed innovation and digital entrepreneurial opportunities; (4) IT-enabled capabilities positively moderate the mediating role of digital entrepreneurial opportunities in the relationship between distributed innovation and digital innovation performance.
Originality/value
This is an empirical study on the impact mechanism of IT-enabled capabilities and digital entrepreneurial opportunities on the relationship between distributed innovation and digital innovation performance in China. It advances theories related to distributed innovation, digital innovation and digital entrepreneurial opportunities, and provides decision-making references for the enhancement of digital innovation capabilities of science and technology enterprises.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Editor, Dr. Carlo Giglio, and the anonymous reviewers for their efforts to help us to improve this paper. This paper was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 72172021, 71772021).
Citation
Tang, H., Yao, Q., Boadu, F. and Xie, Y. (2023), "Distributed innovation, digital entrepreneurial opportunity, IT-enabled capabilities, and enterprises' digital innovation performance: a moderated mediating model", European Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 26 No. 4, pp. 1106-1128. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJIM-08-2021-0431
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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