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Strategic mentality is the individual ability of managers to think, decide and act strategically. This requires the ability to see an integral whole. This ability is less common than organisational and societal needs require. Strategic mentality profiles (cognitive and emotional) are presented and related to existing manager typologies. Circumstances that hamper strategic mentality are discussed and practical suggestions made on how to cope with such circumstances.

This study aims to clarify why and when digital business strategy (DBS) helps manufacturing firms generate value co-creation (VC) with different stakeholders in the digital context of China. This study considers external network capability (ENC) and internal network capability (INC) as mediation mechanism, and strategic flexibility (SF) as theoretical boundary.

Questionnaires were used and filled out by executives from manufacturing firms. The manufacturing samples from 289 different fields in China were used for hypothesis testing, and the structural equation model was the main analytical method.

This study found that DBS of manufacturing enterprises has a positive impact on VC. Specifically, DBS affects firm-partner VC and firm-consumer VC through the indirect positive effect of ENC, and affects firm-employee VC through INV. The positive effects of ENC on firm-partner VC and firm-consumer VC, as well as INC on firm-employee VC, are weak at high (or low) SF, and are strongest at moderate SF.

This study provides manufacturing firms with practical insights into why and when they can implement DBS to generate VC, with a particular emphasis on the weighted role of SF.

This study spotlights gaps in the literature on why and when manufacturing firms can reap the benefits of DBS, focusing on one important business outcome – VC. The authors clarify the mediating role of differences in ENC and INC, as well as the inverted U-shaped moderating role of SF.

This study aims to investigate whether big data enabling (BDE) and empowerment-focused human resource management (EHRM) can effectively promote employee intrapreneurship and their effects on platform enterprises’ innovation performance. The paper also examines the contexts under which employee intrapreneurship may affect business performance.

Data were collected from 155 platform enterprises in China in the form of questionnaires. Participants were mainly middle and senior managers with a comprehensive grasp of the enterprises’ information.

The results indicated that BDE, EHRM and their synergy positively influenced employee intrapreneurship, which could potentially extend to enterprise performance. Specifically, employee intrapreneurship played a partial mediating role between BDE, EHRM and performance, and a whole mediating role between synergy and performance. Finally, platform strategic flexibility played a positive moderating role between employee intrapreneurship and performance.

Platform enterprises should focus on the construction and utilization of big data and EHRM to stimulate organizational vitality. They also need to encourage employees to start businesses and build more flexible strategies to adapt to the dynamic economic environment.

This is an empirical study on the effect mechanism of big data and HRM on employee intrapreneurship and platform enterprises’ performance in China. The paper combined big data, HRM and employee intrapreneurship, which broke through the previous research on enterprise entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship. The findings guide platform enterprises to stimulate organizational vitality and achieve better performance in the digital era.

This paper aims to analyze the ethical responses of the fashion industry to the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic when the entire world was shocked by the rapid spread of the virus. The authors describe lessons from emergency ethics of care in the fashion industry during the initial months of COVID-19, which can assist fashion managers in improving ethical decisions in future operations.

Rapid qualitative research methods were employed by conducting real-time, in-depth interviews with key informants from multinational fashion companies operating in Spain, a severely affected region. A content analysis of news articles published during the first months of 2020 was conducted.

Five critical disruptions in the fashion industry were identified: (1) changes in public needs, (2) transportation and distribution backlogs, (3) defective and counterfeit supplies, (4) stakeholder relationships at stake and (5) managers' coping challenges. Additionally, five business survival responses with a strong ethics of care component were identified, implemented by some fashion companies to mitigate the damage: (1) adapting production for public well-being, (2) enhancing the flexibility of logistic networks, (3) emphasizing quality and innovation, (4) reinventing stakeholder collaborations and (5) practicing responsible leadership.

Despite the well-documented controversies surrounding unethical practices within the fashion industry, even during COVID-19, our findings inform managers of the potential and capability of fashion companies to operate more responsibly. The lessons learned can guide fashion companies' operations in a post-pandemic society. Furthermore, they can address other grand challenges, such as natural disasters, geopolitical conflicts and climate change.