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This paper aims to promote the higher quality development of high-tech enterprises in China. While science and technology have greatly promoted human civilization, resources have been excessively consumed and the environment has been sharply polluted. Therefore, it is particularly important for current enterprises to make use of scientific and technological innovation to maximize the benefits of mankind, minimize the loss of nature, and promote the sustainable development of our country.

By using DEA-Banker-Charnes-Cooper (BCC) model and DEA-Malmquist model, this paper comprehensively examines the innovation efficiency of high-tech enterprises from both static and dynamic perspectives, and conducts a provincial comparative study with the panel data of ten representative provinces from 2011 to 2020.

The research findings are as follows: the rapid number increase of high-tech enterprises in most provinces (cities) is accompanied by an ineffective input–output efficiency; the quality of high-tech enterprises needs to comprehensively examine both input–output efficiency and total factor productivity; and there is not a positive correlation between element investment and innovation performance.

Because the DEA model used in this paper assumes that the improvement direction of invalid units is to ensure that the input ratio of various production factors remains unchanged but sometimes the proportion of scientific and technological activities personnel and the total research and development investment is not constant. In the future, the nonradial DEA model can be considered for further research. Due to historical data statistics, more provinces, cities and longer panel data are difficult to obtain. The samples studied in this paper mainly refer to the provinces and cities that ranked first in the number of national high-tech enterprises in 2020. Limited by the number of samples, DEA analysis failed to select more input and output indicators. In the future, with the accumulation of statistical data, the existing efficiency analysis will be further optimized.

Aiming at the misunderstanding of emphasizing quantity and neglecting quality in the cultivation of high-tech enterprises, this paper comprehensively uses DEA-BCC model and DEA Malmquist index decomposition method to make a comprehensive comparative study on the development of high-tech enterprises in ten representative provinces (cities) from two aspects of static efficiency evaluation and dynamic efficiency evaluation.

This study aims to quantify the concept of Industry 5.0, with a focus on human-centricity in the manufacturing sector.

The panel nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag method is applied to assess asymmetry and vulnerability in the food, textile, chemical manufacturing, high-tech and transportation sectors. The robustness of the results is tested using a panel Granger non-causality test and panel vector autoregressive models.

This study finds that financial unions, fair internal markets, gender and youth participation are significant factors for human centricity in the manufacturing sectors. The NARDL results suggest that both the chemical and high-tech industries human participation are insignificant in both the long run and short run. The results of the food industry are significant in both the sort run and the long run.

Manufacturing sectors need to create sustainable employment strategies that lead to stable, enduring and satisfying jobs in order to achieve human centricity. Involve skilled workers in important decision-making processes and empower them with technology.

This study differed from prior research in several ways. Firstly, it incorporates the social dimension as a control variable in the pursuit of I5.0 implementation across various manufacturing sectors. Secondly, it quantifies the human-centricity aspect of I5.0 within these sectors.

Climate change has led to a rise in the frequency, intensity and scope of droughts, posing significant implications for businesses. This study examines the impact of local community drought levels on audit pricing. Additionally, it explores the moderating effects of high-tech industries, auditor busyness and the level of local community concern regarding the drought crisis.

This study employs a mixed-methods approach to rigorously test the research hypotheses. The quantitative phase of the study utilizes a sample of 1,278 firm-year observations from Iran’s capital market. For the analysis of the quantitative data, ordinary least squares regression with clustered robust standard errors is used. Additionally, this research supplements its quantitative findings with qualitative evidence obtained through semi-structured interviews with 19 Iranian audit partners.

The results suggest that firms operating in provinces facing severe droughts experience notably higher audit fees. Furthermore, the positive relationship between drought and audit fees is weakened when auditors are busy, local community concern regarding the drought crisis is high or the firm operates within high-tech industries. These findings are supported by a range of robustness checks and qualitative evidence gathered from the field.

This research contributes to the growing literature on climate change by examining the influence of local community drought levels on audit pricing within an Iranian context. Additionally, our study sheds light on how high-tech industries, auditor workload and the level of local community concern regarding the drought crisis moderate the relationship between drought and audit fees. Importantly, our study pioneers in providing mixed-methods evidence of the association between drought severity and audit fees.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between absorptive capacity, relational capital and interorganizational relationship performance and examine the moderating effect of contractual governance on this relationship.

This study used a quantitative design, analyzing data collected through a survey questionnaire. The sampling frame consisted of 111 cross-industry, small and medium-sized manufacturers in Malaysia. The research model was analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The results show that interorganizational relationship performance is positively influenced by relational capital and absorptive capacity. While absorptive capacity has a positive effect on relational capital, this study finds empirical evidence that contractual governance weakens the effect of absorptive capacity on relational capital. Furthermore, this study also examines the hitherto under-researched moderating effect of contractual government on absorptive capacity and relational capital and their relationship with interorganizational relationship performance.

This study provides insights into the interorganizational relationship among SMEs and explains the nature of knowledge management in this context. This study shows the potential role of absorptive capacity in building close cross-border interorganizational relationships.

In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak understanding the behavioral dynamics and role of knowledge-oriented leadership (KOL) in driving knowledge worker performance (KWP) is paramount for organizations striving to adapt and thrive in the post-pandemic era. Drawing on the path-goal theory, this study explores the impact of KOL on KWP. In addition, this study seeks to examine both the direct and indirect influences of KOL on KWP via digital orientation (DO) and digital citizenship practices (DCP), especially for higher education institutions (HEIs) located in China.

The sample consisted of 319 academic staff from HEIs in China. The study used Smart-PLS 4.0 for analytical examination.

The results indicate that the impact of knowledge-oriented leadership on KWP is negligible. Furthermore, DCP and DO partially mediate the relationship between KOL and KWP. The findings of this research have practical implications for Chinese HEIs and organizations across industries, providing insights into how to navigate the complexities of the post-pandemic work environment and effectively harness digitalization to optimize the KWP.

The implications of this research extend beyond the HEIs, providing organizations in various industries with evidence-based strategies to promote effective leadership, foster digital skills, and cultivate a culture of digital citizenship in the post-pandemic work landscape.

Despite the increasing significance of KOL in the higher education sector, there is a dearth of studies establishing a relationship between KOL and KWP in HEIs. The present study seeks to fill this gap by examining the association among KOL, KWP, DO, and DCP in HEIs during the post-pandemic. This research provides significant contributions to the existing literature on the topic by scientifically exploring the association between KOL and KWP by examining the intervention mechanism of both digital citizenship practices and digital orientation.

High-tech enterprises, as the national innovation powerhouses, have garnered considerable interest, particularly regarding their technological innovation capabilities. Nevertheless, prevalent research tends to spotlight the impact of individual factors on innovative behavior, with only a fraction adopting a comprehensive viewpoint, scrutinizing the causal amalgamations of precursor conditions influencing the overall innovation proficiency of high-tech enterprises.

This paper employs a hybrid approach integrating necessary condition analysis (NCA) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to examine the combinatorial effects of antecedent factors on high-tech enterprises' innovation output. Our analysis draws upon data from 46 listed Chinese high-tech enterprises. To promote technological innovation within high-tech enterprises, we introduce a novel perspective that emphasizes technological innovation networks, grounded in a network agents-structure-environment framework. These antecedents are government subsidy, tax benefits, customer concentration, purchase concentration rate, market-oriented index and innovation environment.

The findings delineate four configurational pathways leading to high innovative output and three pathways resulting in low production.

This study thereby enriches the body of knowledge around technological innovation and provides actionable policy recommendations.

Based on the density dependence theory, this paper attempts to explore how two types of interdependence among firms located in the same national high-tech zones (NHTZs) – mutualism and competition – affect entrepreneurship in the NHTZs. The authors suggest that increasing firm density can help enhance legitimacy and form mutual networks. However, as the competition becomes fierce, the above positive relationship will weaken when the firm density exceeds a certain level. In addition, the authors are interested in whether the age of NHTZs would affect their sensitivity to legitimacy and competition and whether firm density affects entrepreneurship.

This article formulates two hypotheses from the theoretical deduction. The hypotheses are examined using the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression with a unique, unbalanced panel dataset of Chinese NHTZs spanning from 2014 to 2021. Considering potential endogeneity risk among the variables, the authors attempt to lag variables and ultimately find the results are still robust.

Drawing upon the density dependence theory, the empirical results show firm density is conducive to promoting entrepreneurship, while the positive relationship between community density and NHTZs' entrepreneurship gradually weakens as the firm density surpasses a certain level. The dynamics between mutualism and competition have different impacts on NHTZs' entrepreneurship. In addition, the results demonstrate that the linkage between firm interdependence and entrepreneurship is stronger for younger NHTZs. Firm density has an impact on entrepreneurship through legitimacy and excessive competition effects.

On the one hand, the research period of this paper is 2014–2021, as the China Torch Statistical Yearbook only started to publish operating revenues in 2014, so the data period of this paper is relatively short. More research can be done in the future when more data is disclosed. On the other hand, the qualitative analysis cannot be conducted because of the limited data and materials. In future research, the qualitative analysis of entrepreneurial activities in NHTZs, such as questionnaires or case studies, needs to be supplemented, which will be an interesting direction.

Most existing research has not distinguished the differences between NHTZs (Wang et al., 2019), especially the differences in legitimacy and access to resources caused by the age of NHTZs. This article considers the heterogeneity between NHTZs, which helps to provide theoretical and practical evidence for a transition economy like China to make trade-off decisions on balancing absorbing new entrants with promoting the efficient allocation of resources based on the density and age of NHTZs.

Drawing upon density dependency theory, this paper enriches the literature on agglomeration and entrepreneurship with a new perspective and extends the study to NHTZs.

First, this paper provides new evidence on how agglomeration affects entrepreneurship from an ecological perspective with the help of mutualism and competition interdependence. Most studies have explored the role of agglomeration in entrepreneurship, focussing on social networks, knowledge spillovers or resource endowments (Acs et al., 2013; Capozza et al., 2018; Yu, 2020). Drawing upon density dependency theory, this paper enriches the literature on agglomeration and entrepreneurship with a new perspective and extends the study to NHTZs. Second, the emphasis of science parks has been primarily on qualitative or case studies (Salvador et al., 2013; Guo and Verdini, 2015; Xie et al., 2018). We have diversified the quantitative research between agglomeration and entrepreneurship by using panel data from Chinese NHTZs from 2014 to 2021. Third, most existing research has not distinguished the differences between NHTZs (Wang et al., 2019), especially the differences in legitimacy and access to resources caused by the age of NHTZs. This article considers the heterogeneity between NHTZs, which helps to provide theoretical and practical evidence for a transition economy like China to make trade-off decisions on balancing absorbing new entrants with promoting the efficient allocation of resources based on the density and age of NHTZs. Finally, this paper meticulously investigates the profound influence and underlying mechanisms of firm density within NHTZs on entrepreneurship. It discerns two distinct mechanisms at play: the legitimacy effect and the impact of excessive competition resulting from firm density. This comprehensive analysis significantly contributes to our comprehension of the intricate interplay between firm density and entrepreneurship, shedding light on the dynamics of competition and mutual benefits.

This paper aims to investigate the direct and combined impacts of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and conservative orientation (CO) on perceived business performance (PBP) of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) under strategic-hybrid orientation (SHO) theory.

The data collected from the SABI NEO international database has 90 companies in 13 medium-to-high and high-tech activity sectors. The authors used partial least squares structural equation modelling to test the research model.

Business strategies match a SHO that includes both orientations, i.e. EO and CO. Moreover, as expected, the authors found evidence that each orientation produces performance-related sign-opposite significant impacts. Finally, the hypothesis regarding the positive synergistic effect of both orientations (EO and CO) on PBP was also supported.

One stems from the study’s cross-sectional nature, requiring a longitudinal approach. Another one resides in the absence of further examinations concerning multigroup analysis. Another restraint is the limitedness of data, focused on firms with med/high-tech intensity. For last, while the use of results in the initial stages of theory development can be beneficial, it is important to note that such results cannot be simply extrapolated or generalized to other industrial sectors without careful consideration of the contextual factors at play.

This study humbly endeavours to contribute to the finality of SMEs’ more steady and prosperous existence concerning the consciousness of the need to improve labour stability and wage fairness, conditions such as requiring a continuous commitment.

In this study, the authors aimed to investigate the impact of SHO on SMEs’ PBP. To this end, the authors simultaneously used two different strategic orientations (SOs): EO, which is widely studied in the literature, and CO, which has been less researched. The authors also examined their synergistic effects on PBP. The authors’ approach is based on Venkatraman’s strategic orientation of business enterprises model and the comparative paradigm of SOs.

The aim of this study is to analyse the factors that contribute to the disclosure of relational liabilities (RLs) of the US companies.

The study uses content analysis to examine the disclosure of RLs in annual reports of the US companies listed on the Nasdaq-100 index from 2013 to 2015.

The study finds a positive correlation between the disclosure of RLs and gender diversity of the board of directors as well as the education level of the CEO. By contrast, the disclosure of RLs is negatively associated with the age of the CEO. Companies in knowledge-intensive industries also tend to disclose more information about their RLs than those in other industries.

This study focuses on the determinants of RLs, whereas previous research has mainly examined the positive impact of voluntary disclosure of intellectual capital on financial performance. The main objective of this study is to shed light on the factors that influence the disclosure of RLs.

While previous research has demonstrated the positive effects of digital business strategies on operational efficiency, financial performance and value creation, little is known about how such strategies influence innovation performance. To address the gap, this paper aims to investigate the impact of a firm’s digital business strategy on its innovation performance.

Drawing on the dynamic capability view, this study examines the mechanism through which a digital business strategy affects innovation performance. Data were collected from 215 firms in China and analyzed using multiple regression and structural equation modeling.

The empirical analysis reveals that a firm’s digital business strategy has positive impacts on both product and process innovation performance. These impacts are partially mediated by knowledge-based dynamic capability. Additionally, a firm’s digital business strategy interacts positively with its entrepreneurial orientation in facilitating knowledge-based dynamic capability. Moreover, market turbulence enhances the strength of this interaction effect. Therefore, entrepreneurial-oriented firms operating in turbulent markets can benefit more from digital business strategies to enhance their knowledge-based dynamic capabilities and consequently improve their innovation performance.

This study contributes to the understanding of how a firm’s digital business strategy interacts with entrepreneurial orientation in turbulent markets to shape knowledge-based dynamic capability, which in turn enhances the firm’s innovation performance.