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This study aims to investigate the importance and effect of asymmetric technological collaborations’ key success factors in developing countries. The number of collaborations between large enterprises and SMEs, known as asymmetric technological collaborations (ATC) is growing considerably. But this asymmetry in itself can increase the number and intensity of collaboration challenges. So far, limited studies have been conducted on the stability of ATCs, and most of them have been in the context of developed countries. Meanwhile, studying the strength and stability of collaboration in the nano industry with growing market value and increasing newcomers is of particular importance.

Here, with bionic engineering approach, we used chemistry for the first time to identify the main stability factors of ATCs and build our hypotheses and research model. To this end, we introduced the factors affecting the stability of the dative chemical bond as a bionic counterpart of corporate venture capital (CVC), which is a type of ATC, and proposed 4 hypotheses. We used structural equation modeling (SEM) with partial least squares (PLS) method to examine the hypothesized relationships.

The analysis of survey questionnaire data from 26 asymmetric collaborations in Iran’s nanotechnology industry shows that “learning of the acceptor company” with a negative effect, “network ties” and “development of the collaboration host region” with a positive effect and “diversity in the collaboration portfolio” with an inverted U-shaped effect are the most influential factors in the stability and continuity of CVCs, respectively.

The findings of this research can be the beginning of a broad path leading to exploring and getting inspiration from chemistry to analyze management issues.

This research aims to investigate how organisational and contextual factors affect supply chain collaboration and how that, in turn, influences firms' competitive advantage in the garment industry in the context of Vietnam, a developing country.

Following a qualitative research design, in-depth interviews were conducted with senior managers who are involved in supply chain collaboration in twelve garment companies in Vietnam. The data were recorded, transcribed and analysed using NVivo 12. Based on the literature and interview findings, a research model underpinned by the relational view (RV) and institutional theories, with organisational and contextual factors being the antecedents and competitive advantage as the outcome of supply chain collaboration, was proposed.

The findings showed that organisational and contextual factors induce both internal, supplier and customer supply chain collaboration. There is also a positive relationship between supply chain collaboration and competitive advantage. Based on these findings, a strategy matrix for supply chain collaboration is also put forward.

This is one of the first empirical attempts to investigate the role of organisational and contextual factors as potential antecedents of supply chain collaboration and its effects on competitive advantage in the garment industry. The research is expected to enrich both the literature and management practices on supply chain collaboration in the context of developing countries.

There is a growing body of literature discussing the green logistics practices (GLPs) that companies could introduce to reduce the logistics environmental impact. Current approaches also identify several influencing factors within firms that could serve as barriers to, or enablers of, GLPs. However, less is known about the role of extra-firm stakeholders, even though these are crucial to operationalizing green logistics effectively. This study merges current theoretical understanding with empirical evidence to provide a detailed stakeholder analysis of GLPs.

Using stakeholder theory as a theoretical lens, the authors aimed at offering a mid-range contribution by conducting multiple embedded case studies examining Italian logistics service providers and shippers. GLPs and the related influencing factors were examined as sub-units of analysis within broader companies' environmental sustainability strategies.

The authors identified cascading effects among factors influencing the adoption of GLPs (e.g. key economic factors are affected by external factors which also influence organizational and collaboration factors). These effects are moderated by interdependencies between primary and secondary stakeholders, and the study highlights the prominent involvement of secondary stakeholders, such as final consumers.

This paper contributes to better understanding how and why companies adopt GLPs, emphasizing the wide set of stakeholders involved and illustrating how different stakeholders impact on GLPs adoption by affecting a set of influencing factors. By combining insights from the available literature with contemporary empirical data, the authors emphasize how Logistics Service Providers (LSPs) and shippers can no longer address the adoption of GLPs as “focal companies”, but only as part of a “focal network of interconnected stakeholders”, all of them influencing GLPs adoption.

The organization of services can affect the adoption of sustainable practices within the relationship between a buyer (e.g. a shipper) and a supplier (e.g. a logistics service provider–LSP). The purpose of this paper is to analyse, within this relationship, the mechanisms affecting collaboration between shippers and LSPs towards adopting green logistics practices to reduce the negative environmental effects of logistics processes. The authors take the perspective of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which represent – although less investigated than large enterprises – a relevant field of investigation given their impact on the environmental sustainability of logistics processes.

The authors conducted a multiple case-study investigation on a set of dyads involving shippers and LSPs. The authors explored the antecedents shaping the approach to sustainability in logistics and, adopting the absorptive capacity (AC) theory, the learning and knowledge transfer processes leading to the adoption of green practices.

Collaboration between shippers and LSPs for better sustainability in logistics seems not to work when relationships are limited to simple annual (or pluriannual) contracts, and when shippers do not show ambition to improve the level of sustainability of their logistics processes (regardless of whether they show an interest in general sustainability matters). On the other hand, successful cases show higher commitment in the dyadic relationship with respect to improving logistics sustainability, good levels of communication and a more structured process of knowledge sharing, enabled by IT integration, shared performance monitoring, and creation of inter-organizational teams.

While most of the existing research focuses on the perspective of shippers or LSPs, this work is original since it explores collaborative mechanisms within a buyer-supplier relationship simultaneously taking the perspective of both parties, according to the lens of the AC. It identifies directions for improving collaboration within the shipper-LSP relationship in the context of SMEs to foster the adoption of collaborative green logistics practices to impact sustainability positively.

A digital servitization ecosystem (DSE) is a cooperation model based on the concept of value cocreation. However, capability asymmetry among enterprises can lead to unfair benefit distribution and hinder value cocreation and digital service transformation. This paper aims to investigate the impact of the varying capabilities of enterprises (manufacturers, service providers and digital technology providers) on revenue distribution when these enterprises collaborate on digital servitization transformation. This analysis is performed from an ecosystem perspective to facilitate the stable development of DSEs.

The rise of DSEs has engendered extensive literature, and the distribution of benefits within DSEs is in dire need of new mechanisms to adapt to the new competitive environment. The importance of investment contribution, digital servitization level, digitalization level, risk-taking ability, digital servitization effort level and brand awareness is determined by combining the expert scoring method and the entropy value method to determine different weights for manufacturers, service providers and digital technology providers. The Shapley value is used to design the benefit distribution mechanism for stable cooperation among DSE enterprises, thus providing a more scientific basis for the development of cooperative relationships.

Digital servitization is a collaborative process that involves multienterprise activities, and it is significantly affected by digital servitization level and digitalization level. Moreover, constructing the modified Shapley value benefit distribution mechanism according to the relevant capabilities of digital servitization can promote the stable development of DSEs and value cocreation among members.

The main contributions of this study are as follows: First, it summarizes the stability-influencing factors of DSEs on the basis of empirical and literature research on the demand for enterprise digital servitization capabilities and transformation difficulties, delves deeper into the capability composition and cooperative relationship of DSE members and combines the expert scoring method and the entropy value method to determine the weighting to design the benefit distribution mechanism. Second, it reflects system stability and development by studying the revenue distribution of DSE members, thereby expanding the ecosystem construction and business model transformation of digital servitization in the existing research.

Supply chain collaboration is increasingly important in today’s competitive business environment. While prior research has acknowledged the role of relationships in facilitating collaboration, few studies have considered inter-personal and inter-organisational attributes simultaneously. This study addresses this gap by investigating these two levels of the manufacturer-supplier relationship in Vietnam’s fishery industry and their impacts on supply chain collaboration.

The study employed a quantitative approach. A questionnaire was distributed to 635 fishery manufacturers in Vietnam by the drop-and-collect method. EFA and CFA were used to assess the reliability and validity of the measurement model, while CB-SEM was employed for structural model assessment and hypothesis testing.

Supply chain collaboration encompasses incentive alignment, collaborative communication, decision synchronisation, and information sharing. All antecedents, including commitment, inter-organisational trust, reciprocity, and inter-personal trust, positively affect collaboration. Inter-personal trust positively influences the other antecedents, and inter-organisational trust enhances commitment. Furthermore, there are partial mediating effects among these relationship attributes. However, no significant moderating effect regarding firm size is observed.

The study extends the social exchange theory to encompass both inter-personal and inter-organisational relationship attributes. Additionally, it pioneers in investigating the interrelatedness of these antecedents. By addressing the research gap in the Vietnamese fishery supply chain, it offers valuable insights for both academics and practitioners, contributing to theoretical understanding and practical implications in supply chain collaboration.

This study aims to investigate the influence of inventors’ abilities to acquire external knowledge, provide broad and professional knowledge and patenting output (i.e. different types of inventors) on the formation of structural holes.

The authors collected 59,798 patents applied for and granted in the USA by 33 of the largest firms worldwide in the pharmaceutical industry between 1975 and 2014. A random-effects tobit model was used to test the hypotheses.

The inventors’ ability to acquire external knowledge contributes to the formation of structural holes. While inventors’ ability to provide broad knowledge positively affects the formation of structural holes, their ability to provide professional knowledge works otherwise. In addition, key inventors and industrious inventors are more likely to form structural holes than talents.

The results identify individual factors that affect the formation of structural holes and improve the understanding of structural hole theory. This study is unique in that most scholars have studied the consequences of structural hole formation rather than their antecedents. Studies on the origin of structural holes neglect the effect of inventors’ knowledge abilities and patenting output. By addressing this gap, this study contributes to a more comprehensive theoretical understanding of structural holes. The results can guide managers in managing structural holes in accordance with inventors’ knowledge abilities and patenting outputs, which optimize the allocation of network resources.

It is important to understand the factors that are significant in supply chain (SC) collaboration decision making and whether supply chain collaborative factors that are considered in the literature are still valid. To date, SC collaboration has not been extensively studied in the literature with supply chain finance (SCF) factors to evaluate SCF performance. Therefore, in this paper, the authors investigate the interrelationships between SCF and supply chain collaborative (SCC) factors for achieving SCF performance. The authors identified the most important factors from the literature on SCF and SCC and with inputs from experts in the textile industry in Pakistan.

The authors employed the Gray-Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory approach to help examine the cause-and-effect relationship between the factors and identify the influence of each factor on the others.

The findings showed that the most prominent factors of the study are “level of digitalization”, “information sharing”, and “collaborative communication”, and “most effect factors of this study are incentive alignment” and “information quality”. Furthermore, the “Level of digitalization” was identified as the factor with the central role and most significant correlation with other factors.

The major implication of the study is that textile industries should effectively develop their supply chain decisions after analyzing their internal and external factors, which will help in developing strategies that will facilitate better management of SCF relationships. The limitations of the study are that only 15 SCF and supply chain collaborative factors were considered, and time and scope are also limited. This study is only applied in the textile industry, so generalization may be limited.

To date, this study is the only one that has taken into consideration SCC with SCF factors to evaluate supply chain performance. This paper therefore makes this initial attempt and original contribution to this discussion, which can be helpful for those working to enhance supply chain performance, such as practitioners and policymakers.

This study identifies three main CSR motivations (i.e. strategic benefits, altruism and greenwashing) and explores the relationship between CSR motivations and environmental collaboration by considering the mediating role of environmental commitment and the moderating role of team autonomy.

The data collected from 336 respondents in the construction industry, structural equation modeling and bootstrapping were used to test hypotheses.

The findings show that altruistic CSR enhances environmental collaboration through enhancing environmental commitment, whereas greenwashing CSR damages environmental collaboration through reducing environmental commitment. Although there is no direct association between strategic CSR and environmental collaboration, environmental commitment mediates the effects of strategic CSR on environmental collaboration. Moreover, the positive effect of strategic CSR and altruistic CSR on environment commitment is stronger when team autonomy is stronger, whereas the negative effect of greenwashing CSR on environment commitment is weaker when team autonomy is stronger.

The findings contribute to the understanding of how CSR motivations can act as catalysts for collaborative efforts in addressing environmental issues within construction projects and offer theoretical understanding of team autonomy by illustrating its role in shaping organizational responses to CSR motivations. The findings can provide insights into why and how participating teams can collaborate better on environmental management, enriching the knowledge of environmental management practices in construction projects.

In the past decade, financial austerity has brought significant pressure upon emergency services in the UK. For the British Government, one approach to alleviate this pressure was to increase collaborative efforts in core functions (e.g. information systems and technology) between multiple organisations. Despite the consensus that collaborations are key in addressing complex problems, the majority fail or become discontinued. This research explores the development of collaborative information infrastructures between one Police Force and two Fire and Rescue Services in the UK, with a specific focus on how the difference in culture, identities and rules and norms, can work in a collaborative emergency service environment.

This study investigated an example of successful development of a collaborative information infrastructure within the context of public safety and, specifically, the technology-based structures that underpin information management. A case study approach was taken, combining semi-structured interviews, document analysis and site visits. The study used activity theory as a theoretical and analytical framework.

The research revealed that creating a shared identity is not essential in emergency services collaboration, and organisations may maintain their separate identity, given they address other elements of the activity system (e.g. leadership, motivated subjects). However, pursuing this strategy will create multiple tensions throughout the collaboration process.

The study contributes to the information systems literature concerning inter-organisational collaborations in the public sector providing a novel view to the implications of maintaining separate identities, and the significance of misalignment between interacting activity systems.