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Although scholars in strategic management have identified innovating and exit as firms’ two sequential strategic responses to long-run crisis, the potential interdependency has yet remained implicit. Specifically, in the context of Chinese Privately Owned Enterprises (POEs), this study investigates the interrelationship of these two strategic responses during long-run crisis. Building on resource redeployment perspective, the authors propose that firms tend to simultaneously leverage innovating and exit responses.

The authors use the data from the 2010 Chinese POEs survey to verify how firms in the long-term crisis made strategic responses after the 2008 financial crisis. Besides, the authors utilize Probit regressions as the basic analysis and further employ bivariate Probit regressions to conduct robustness tests.

This study provides empirical evidence confirming that firms in the long-run period of the crisis tend to adopt both exit and innovating strategies at the same time, that is, the strategy of resource redeployment. Moreover, this study further finds that government subsidies, the degree of marketization and firm’s organizational capability could all accentuate the decision-making of firms’ resource redeployment.

The authors thus contribute to the study of strategic responses to crisis in strategic management by dynamically find out the interdependency of two responses and enrich the research on resource redeployment perspective by identifying three influential positive antecedents, adding to the ongoing investigation on positive drivers of resource redeployment.

3D printing has been warmly welcomed by clothing enterprises for its customization capacity in recent years. However, such clothing enterprises have to face the digital transformation challenges brought by 3D printing. Since the business model is a competitive weapon for modern enterprises, there is a research gap between business model innovation and digital transformation challenges for 3D-printing garment enterprises. The aim of the paper is to innovate a new business model for 3D-printing garment enterprises in digital transformation.

A business model innovation canvas (BMIC), a new method for business model innovation, is used to innovate a new 3D-printing clothing enterprises business model in the context of digital transformation. The business model canvas (BMC) method is adopted to illustrate the new business model. The business model ecosystem is used to design the operating architecture and mechanism of the new business model.

First, 3D-printing clothing enterprises are facing digital transformation, and they urgently need to innovate new business models. Second, mass customization and distributed manufacturing are important ways of solving the business model problems faced by 3D-printing clothing enterprises in the process of digital transformation. Third, BMIC has proven to be an effective tool for business model innovation.

The new mass deep customization-distributed manufacturing (MDC-DM) business model is universal. As such, it can provide an important theoretical reference for other scholars to study similar problems. The digital transformation background is taken into account in the process of business model innovation. Therefore, this is the first hybrid research that has been focused on 3D printing, garment enterprises, digital transformation and business model innovation. On the other hand, business model innovation is a type of exploratory research, which means that the MDC-DM business model’s application effect cannot be immediately observed and requires further verification in the future.

The new business model MDC-DM is not only applicable to 3D-printing garment enterprises but also to some other enterprises that are either using or will use 3D printing to enhance their core competitiveness.

A new business model, MDC-DM, is created through BMIC, which allows 3D-printing garment enterprises to meet the challenges of digital transformation. In addition, the original canvas of the MDC-DM business model is designed using BMC. Moreover, the ecosystem of the MDC-DM business model is constructed, and its operation mechanisms are comprehensively designed.

Innovation is a process that enables organizations to sustain and prosper in a competitive business environment. This study aims to understand the key drivers of innovation within organizations from the lens of employees.

This study uses a grounded theory approach based on semi-structured in-depth interviews of 20 professionals working in information technology (IT) firms. Judgmental sampling was adopted to select the respondents. Open coding, inductive analysis was conducted on the interview transcripts to generate relevant themes.

Emerging themes indicate that innovation within organizations can be triggered as a response to client requirements or the employees’ inherent urge to innovate. Certain factors such as user engagement, formal organizational processes and practices, informal collaborative practices, the role played by experts and leaders and upskilling were seen to enable innovative outcomes within organizations.

Findings from this study will allow leaders to activate the identified drivers by designing suitable organizational processes and strategies to nurture a successful innovation culture within their teams.

This grounded theory-based study looks at drivers of innovation within IT organizations from the perspective of employees.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between digital competence and the capability to innovate in the service sector and examine if this relationship is mediated by human capital in the context of COVID-19 pandemic.

Using a cross-sectional survey, data were collected from 188 service sector professionals in the United Arab Emirates. Data were analyzed using partial least square-based structural equation modeling.

The findings of partial least square based structural equation modeling analysis indicate that there is a significant positive relationship between digital competence and the capacity to innovate in the service sector, which is partially mediated by human capital.

This study contributes to knowledge by offering an understanding of the relationship between digital competence and innovation capability, especially in uncertain situations. This study also notes the importance of human capital as a strategic resource for innovation.

Although microfinance (MF) has been established as an effective approach to provide access to financial services for people in low income countries, close to one-third of adults worldwide, about 2 billion people, are still without access. The purpose of this study is therefore to provide knowledge on how MF institutions (MFIs) can innovate and scale their services to improve financial inclusion for more people in need, particularly small holder farmers.

Recent research suggests that Grameen Foundation builds on well-established MF models and focuses on continuously improving the design and increasing the reach of its services. Based on a retrospective longitudinal design, this study draws on dynamic capability theory to identify important lessons in MF innovation at Grameen through analyses of seven key agricultural MF programs.

This study finds that Grameen innovated these programs by sensing country-specific needs; seizing opportunities to use existing technology; creating linkages across multisector partners; adopting a business model that enabled replicability and sustainability of innovation transfer; and 5 integrating solutions that enabled process automation and scaling of outcomes. A key theoretical finding in applying dynamic capabilities theory to studies of innovation in MF revealed the core concepts to be transferrable, valuable, imitable and nonsubstitutable resources.

Using these insights, this study discusses theoretical, practical and policy implications of MF innovation to improve financial inclusion in low-income countries. Practitioners and researchers should assess the transferability of our findings to other MFIs and economic development contexts.

Business model innovation (BMI) has been posited as essential for both new and existing digital business, as they commonly operate in competitive and fast-moving markets with limited entry barriers. However, it is highlighted within the literature that the understanding of how BMI contributes to business success and how new digital ventures develop competitive advantage is still unclear. This study aims to address this lacuna by exploring how young Chinese digital businesses develop and innovate their business models to survive in fast-moving and competitive markets.

This research adopted a multiple case study design, with qualitative data being collected from the founders of five Chinese digital businesses, to develop an understanding of the evolution of their business models and BMI from their inception.

The findings add support for the contention that BMI can play an important role and is beneficial in the success of such new digital ventures in highly competitive environments. The founders attribute their success to a willingness for continued BMI, an openness to new opportunities, developing customer relationships and continuous iteration.

This research addresses calls to further the authors’ understanding of how BMI contributes to business success and how new digital ventures develop competitive advantage by exploring the BMI of five highly successful digital businesses from their inception.

Through a juxtaposition of social capital with two other forms of intellectual capital – human capital and organizational capital – the author proposes and tests a framework that sets social capital apart as the main driver of innovations that contribute subsequent technical value to the innovating organization.

This study uses data collected from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for measurement of the key variables. Specifically, the analysis includes all 117 innovations patented under the thermal inkjet printing subclass that were issued in the twenty years following the establishment of that specific subclass in 1980. The author also collected additional data on the individuals and organizations listed on each patent.

The results of the analysis show that all intellectual capital is not the same and that social capital resulting from collaborative relationships among inventors has significantly more positive influence on the retained technical value of an innovation than organizational or human capital.

Rather than tout the primacy of individual intelligence to the generation of valuable innovation, this research suggests that it is preferable to bring together a group of inventors with narrow individual scientific expertise who instead rely on broad collaboration networks as a flexible source of diverse knowledge.

This research addresses an area of innovation research that has not been adequately explored – how do different forms of intellectual capital affect the value the resulting innovation has to the innovating organization?

Current open innovation (OI) and external knowledge search (EKS) research primarily shows a positive linear relationship between EKS and innovation at an individual level. However, organizational scholarship argues that excessive EKS may harm innovation. This study combines the knowledge-based view (KBV) and attention-based view (ABV) to articulate a nonlinear theory of EKS and innovation at the individual level.

The authors constructed a multi-sourced dataset covering 59,798 USA pharmaceutical patents spanning from 1975 to 2014 and employed negative binomial fixed-effect models to examine theoretical hypotheses.

We find a significant concave curvilinear relationship between EKS and innovation quantity as well as innovation quality at an individual level. An individual’s knowledge breadth and depth moderate the relationship between EKS and innovation, such that the threshold at which EKS has diminishing returns for individual innovation is higher for inventors with a broad range of knowledge and those with deeper expertise in the domain where they are innovating.

Managers should guide inventors toward a moderate investment of time and effort in EKS and should caution against over searching. Besides, managers should recognize that an inventor’s capacity for EKS is determined in part by their breadth of knowledge across various domains as well as the depth of knowledge they have in the knowledge domain where they are innovating.

We provide both parties with a clearer understanding of when EKS can begin to deteriorate an individual’s innovation performance why that deterioration occurs, and we also highlight two individual-level knowledge characteristics to take into consideration when deciding when to cease the EKS process.

This study provides a novel holistic understanding of OI and knowledge management for policymakers and organizations to nourish innovation dynamism and make the best of knowledge stocks in the community, which in turn will create endless power for sustainable social change and inclusive development.

This study contributes to OI theory by highlighting the non-linear nature of the relationship between EKS and innovation on an individual level. This represents a fundamental shift in theory on EKS and individual innovation by suggesting a major rethinking of how the two concepts relate, revealing the dark side of EKS in knowledge management if inventors engage in excessive EKS. Likewise, our study’s incorporation of the ABV informs KBV scholarship by highlighting the role of the limited attentional capacity of individuals in firm knowledge management.

Recent work in the economics of innovation in developing countries increasingly considers the formality of business as a determining factor of economic development. However, current knowledge on how formality determines both innovation and business performance remains mixed. This article examines this relationship by analyzing, on the one hand, the role of formality on innovation and, on the other hand, the moderating effect of formality on the relationship between innovation and the performance of business in francophone Sub-Saharan Africa.

Based on a sample of 1,369 Cameroonian and Senegalese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from the International Development Research Center (IDRC), the Crepon Duguet et Maraise (CDM) technique was used to reduce the endogeneity bias inherent in this type of analysis.

The results show that formal companies have a better capacity for innovation. In addition, formality positively moderates the relationship between innovation and the performance of businesses in the case of product and commercial innovations. On the other hand, it negatively moderates the relationship between innovation and the performance for process and organizational innovations.

These results show that the advantages of formalization widely relayed by national public institutions and international organizations can present a risk for business if the expected gains are not accompanied by innovations.

This paper contributes to research by taking into account the heterogeneity of firms because it is one of the first to study formality as a moderator in the relationship between innovation and firm performance in Sub-Saharan African economies.

As the restaurant industry is a representative service industry, long-living restaurants could carry the secrets of key factors that are needed to establish “sustainable business models” in service industry. The authors aim to answer the following question: How can restaurants innovate business model sustainably to last for more than 50 years through the era of digital transformation with open innovation dynamics?

Five long-lived restaurants from Daegu, Kyoto and Naples were selected separately by using the snowballing approach, and were analyzed through in-depth interviews and participatory observations.

Restaurants in Daegu have lived long mainly because of adding value to their recipes. Restaurants in Kyoto have lived very long, primarily by decoupling their original services, ingredients and recipes. Restaurants in Naples have enjoyed long lives by coupling or recoupling their ingredients, services and recipes.

The implication is that long-living restaurants or service firms could maintain their own sustainability by dynamically circling the following services: (1) adding and boning recipes (focusing on special menus or products), (2) coupling of ingredients (creative recoupling of original ingredients) and (3) decoupling of services (disconnecting the value chain and rebalancing it).