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Prior studies have suggested that organizational and environmental antecedents are influential to the development of a balance dimension of innovation ambidexterity, which are proposed to be central to superior firm performance. However, little is known about how such antecedents affect the shaping of innovation ambidexterity in small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) and how these innovations go on to shape firm performance. This paper aims to examine internal and external antecedents of SMEs' innovation ambidexterity outcomes.

The research used a survey method to investigate the 1,000 small‐and medium sized enterprises in Scotland. Firms were randomly selected from the FAME database. Of this sample, 265 firms (26.5 percent) responded to the survey.

The data analysis reveals that internal organizational structures in a highly dynamic environment stimulate the appearance of innovation ambidexterity. Moreover, it is found that the relationship between organizational and environmental forces and firm performance is partially mediated by a balance dimension of innovation ambidexterity.

The results show how dangerous the lack of adequate research of these issues at the SME level is. By contrast to larger firms, the results show how internal organizational structures and external environmental conditions affect SMEs to pursue a balance dimension of innovation ambidexterity.

Prior studies have paid little attention to the effects of internal organizational structures and external environmental conditions on the appearance of a balance dimension of innovation ambidexterity within SMEs. This paper fills some of the gaps.

The purpose of this paper is to present a new conceptual framework for service organizations to achieve sustainable business performance through strategic quality orientation and innovation capabilities on the basis of relevant literature review and integration of various innovation and business sustainability theories and models. The study tests if the strategic quality orientation enhances innovation capabilities in terms of exploitation and explorative innovation, which, in turn, can lead to sustainable business growth. Mediating impact of innovation capabilities between strategic quality orientation and sustainable business growth relationship is also examined.

A conceptual framework was developed to test and establish these relationships. Results were analyzed based on 442 questionnaires collected from five different service industries of Pakistan, and the structural equation modeling technique was used to empirically test the conceptual framework.

The results indicate that strategic quality orientation directly affects innovation capabilities and sustainable business growth and also indirectly impacts sustainable business growth through its effect on innovation capabilities.

The study suggests service organizations can jointly implement quality and innovation using a structured approach, with strategic quality orientation as the foundation. In this way, they can leverage from their strategic quality management, supplier relationship, corporate quality culture, continual improvement and people management in order to ensure innovation and sustainability in their business growth.

The study integrates strategic quality orientation and innovation capabilities, and validates a new organizational framework through empirical examination which can be used by service organizations to ensure their sustainable business growth.

While service innovation is an important issue for manufacturers, relatively little research lends empirical support to the perspective that service innovation enhanced by collaborative competence may impact the competitive advantage of original equipment manufacturing (OEM) suppliers. This study aims to advance a service-dominant logic by empirically investigating the linkage between collaborative competence, service innovation and competitive advantage for OEM suppliers.

Surveys were completed by representatives of 142 Taiwanese OEM suppliers in the electronics industry.

The results of path analysis suggest that information competence and coordination competence have positive effects on both exploitative service innovation and explorative service innovation. There only appears to be a significant relationship between joint innovation competence and explorative service innovation. Furthermore, two-pronged service innovations contribute to a supplier’s internal and external competitive advantage.

The empirical findings have important research and practical implications that help elucidate the antecedents and outcomes of OEM suppliers’ service innovation.

This paper aims to examine whether balancing exploration and exploitation rather than emphasizing one over the other leads to better performance. This study also examines the effects of different kinds of external collaboration on a firm’s performance in relation to the firm’s current innovative direction that shows firms’ internal weighting of exploration or exploitation.

Data on Korean manufacturing firms collected from the Korean Innovation Survey were used to test the hypotheses. This study suggested the concept of innovative direction (θ) to examine current innovation capabilities about how much the firms focused on exploration or exploitation. The directionality of exploration or exploitation has not been reflected in previous measures of ambidexterity. Factor analysis and hierarchical regression were used to test hypotheses.

The findings suggest that balancing exploration and exploitation is beneficial for a firm’s performance, and explorative collaboration is more beneficial for firms internally emphasizing exploitation. However, it showed that for exploration-oriented firms, exploitative collaboration does not supplement exploitative activities.

Inter-organizational collaboration helps to develop ambidexterity that leads to better performance. Because inter-organizational collaboration involves substantial costs and is time-consuming, selecting and maintaining partners has to be conducted carefully. Based on the currently pursuing innovative directions, firms can make more appropriate decision for finding external cooperative partners with much of efficiency. When firms find collaborative partners, it is the first thing to look inside themselves.

Previous studies mainly focused on the selection and balance of the partnership between exploration and exploitation without considering the role of an internal innovative strategy firms are currently pursuing. Identifying firms’ current states and finding partners that can supplement any deficiencies provides the most efficient option for the ambidextrous organization. Consideration of inter-organizational collaborations based on the analysis of internal conditions will be fruitful for the study of ambidexterity.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relations between the directors' and officers' (D&O) insurance and digital transformation of Chinese-listed companies to provide insights into triggers of digital transformation from the perspective of D&Os' incentive plan.

Based on a panel dataset of 2,590 listed manufacturing companies in China from 2017 to 2020, and using a textual analysis of annual reports, this paper empirically examines the impact of D&O insurance on digital transformation. The authors investigate the mechanism through a mediating model and apply a series of robustness tests including firm fixed effect model, propensity score matching and changing key measures.

The research shows that the digital transformation has been negatively influenced by D&O insurance. The long coverage duration of D&O insurance significantly lowers the level of digital transformation. The moral hazard problem caused by D&O insurance has hampered digital transformation through reducing explorative innovation, while there has been no significant change in innovation quantity. Under the coverage of D&O insurance, firms with worse internal governance and state-owned firms are more reluctant to invest in risky transformation than their counterparts.

Based on a textual analysis of annual reports, this paper empirically tests the influential mechanism of D&O insurance coverage on digital transformation. The authors provide insights into non-tech triggers of digital transformation and uncover how incentive plans influences D&Os' behaviors. This paper provides a new angle to the debate on governance-strengthening and governance-weakening role of D&O insurance.

Malaysian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are critical for economic development and meeting the sustainable development goals (SDGs); however, many struggle to survive in the long term. So, this study aims to present a model for sustainable growth that bridges the gap between desired growth and managerial competencies. By configuring university helix-induced crowdfunding and opportunity recognition competencies with industry helix-driven innovation, the study encourages a quadruple bottom line (QBL) strategy, helping SMEs attain competitiveness for sustainable growth.

This pilot study used a sequential mixed methods design and adhered to the pragmatic research paradigm. A survey of 52 SCORE-listed manufacturers yielded quantitative data, complemented by qualitative interviews with 7 SME decision makers. This study used NVivo 10 and SmartPLS 4.0 for the necessary analysis. In addition, an effective triangulation strategy has been implemented to explain causation among selected variables.

The findings show that opportunity recognition and crowdfunding are positively associated with SMEs’ ability to grow in a sustainable manner and that exploitative and explorative innovation also mediate those relationships. The qualitative part highlighted key insights for successfully applying this model in Malaysian SMEs. The interview results also suggest that corporate spirituality might help SMEs adopt sustainability-focused practices.

More research is required regarding both the methods and results of this pilot study. Although conducting a pilot study increases the likelihood of success in the main study, it does not ensure it.

This study equips Malaysian SMEs with a roadmap for achieving sustainable growth. The obtained findings indicate that Malaysian SMEs that develop strong crowdfunding and opportunity recognition competencies are more likely to achieve innovation-focused long-term survival. In addition, incorporating corporate spirituality can enhance their economic, social and environmental performance.

By supporting more innovation in SMEs, which can improve sustainability-oriented successes and support a healthy economic system, these findings may have a beneficial social change impact. The concept may also act as the foundation for SMEs’ promotion of the SDGs.

The study uniquely offers a holistic growth model for Malaysian SMEs founded on the helix-QBL understanding that explains a firm’s sustainability-focused competitive advantage.

How do institutional pressures influence the cluster firm’s innovation? Institutional pressure consists of regulative, normative and cognitive pressures; most scholars have only focused on the influence of regulative pressure as institutional environment on innovation. In addition, the nature of strategic cognition, as the mediator act on innovation strategy, remains underexplored in the literature. Based on institution theory and ambidextrous innovation theory, this study aims to propose a framework to examine the mechanism of institutional pressures acting on ambidextrous innovation through the moderated mediating role of strategic cognition in clusters.

Using survey data collected from 422 sampled firms in China, regression models were used to test hypotheses from the mediating role of strategic cognition between institutional pressures and cluster firm’s ambidextrous innovation.

The results showed that regulative, cognitive pressures and, especially, normative pressures have significant positive effects on cluster firms’ ambidextrous innovation. Strategic cognition presented by prospector and analyzer mediates the relationship between institutional pressure and ambidextrous innovation except defender; dynamic environment positively moderates the mediating effects of prospector cognition on explorative innovation, and negatively moderates the mediating effects of analyzer cognition on exploitative innovation.

The findings of this study have some implications that strategic cognition played a partially meditating role between the institutional pressure and ambidextrous innovation. Government should construct a dynamic innovation policy system according to the resource endowment in different regions; furthermore, classification support system to cluster firms with different strategic cognition should be built.

The high level of competition in the globalized business environment forces companies to innovate to remain competitive. Previous literature often cites information technology (IT) and supply chain collaboration as direct contributors to product innovation and IT as a direct enabler of supply chain collaboration. This suggests that IT could have an indirect effect on product innovation through supply chain collaboration, although this relationship has not been addressed yet. This paper aims to analyze empirically the direct impacts of IT and supply chain collaboration on incremental and radical product innovation and the indirect effect of IT on both types of product innovation through supply chain collaboration by using data collected from a sample of 200 manufacturing firms.

Structural equation modeling was used to check the research hypotheses with a sample of 200 manufacturing companies.

The results show supply chain collaboration has a positive effect on technological innovation, showing that the collaboration with external agents foster both incremental and radical innovations. Furthermore, results show that IT directly enhances both types of product innovation (incremental and radical) indirectly through supply chain collaboration.

This article supports the pursuit of open innovation that suggests the need to acquire external knowledge to be able to develop innovation projects. The use of tools that facilitate this transmission of knowledge becomes indispensable in environments in which companies must be involved in supply chains in which different external agents intervene and in which collaboration can promote the creation of synergies and superior competitive advantages.

Innovation requires more and more the use of knowledge management practices that capture external information to be used in the creation of new products. In this case, collaboration within a supply chain facilitates incremental and radical innovations. However, to strengthen this transfer of information and the adoption of behaviors that stimulate innovation, the company must use ITs.

This paper focus on the indirect effect of IT on product innovation through the creation of the collaborations with external agents. In spite of the importance of this relation, it has been poorly studied by previous literature. The paper’s greatest interest lies in the fact that ITs not only facilitate the transmission of knowledge but also facilitate other types of behavior among supply chain agents that invite collaboration and generate innovations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how organizations manage and integrate exploration and exploitation across the innovation project portfolio. Such ambidextrous capabilities are required for organizations to innovate and succeed in today's rapidly changing competitive environment. Understanding how exploration and exploitation projects are integrated can illustrate ways to enhance ambidexterity and boost learning for the benefit of both approaches.

A multiple-case study approach was used to explore innovation portfolio management in six large organizations that emphasize innovation in their strategies.

The findings draw upon concepts of paradox and contingency to reveal that the inherent tension between formality and flexibility in managing innovation project portfolios is aligned with the need for organizational ambidexterity that maintains effective exploitative innovation while supporting explorative innovation capabilities. Four integration mechanisms are identified that enhance ambidexterity across the innovation portfolio by embedding processes for transition from exploration to exploitation and cross-fertilizing knowledge to build innovation capability across both exploration and exploitation.

Managers may find inspiration on ways to enhance learning by bridging exploration and exploitation projects from the four types of integration mechanisms. Recognizing the paradoxical nature of the tension between formality and flexibility in project and portfolio management may also help guide organizations to effectively develop ambidextrous approaches to enhance overall innovation outcomes.

In contrast to perspectives which suggest that paradox and contingency approaches represent disparate perspectives, the authors demonstrate how they can complement each other and work together through innovation portfolio management to support ambidexterity at the portfolio and project levels.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of original equipment manufacturing suppliers’ local network embeddedness on buyers’ relative attention and joint innovation through service innovation competence.

A structural equation model was analyzed using AMOS 21 with data derived from 165 buyers in the Taiwanese electronics industry.

From the buyer perspective, suppliers with embedded network relationships in emerging markets are perceived to be service oriented and to have relative attention and joint innovation that are attractive to buyers. In addition, the findings of empirical testing conducted in this study suggest that perceived exploitative and explorative service innovation competence partially mediate the relationship between perceived network embeddedness and relative attention, while explorative service innovation competence partially mediates the influence of perceived network embeddedness on buyers’ joint innovation.

This study innovatively employed a buyer perspective to examine the servitization of manufacturing suppliers and the effects of this on the buyer–supplier relationship, providing new insights into the role of service innovation competence as well as important theoretical and managerial implications.