Search results

This study aims to focus on a key unanswered question about how digitalization and the knowledge processes it enables affect firms’ strategies in the international arena.

The authors conduct a systematic literature review of relevant theoretical and empirical studies covering over 20 years of research (from 2000 to 2023) and including 73 journal papers.

This review allows us to highlight a relationship between firms’ international strategies and the knowledge processes enabled by applying digital technologies. Specifically, the authors discuss the characteristics of patterns of knowledge flows and knowledge processes (their origin, the type of knowledge they carry on and their directionality) as determinants for the emergence of diverse international strategies embraced by single firms or by populations of firms within ecosystems, networks, global value chains or alliances.

Despite digital technologies constituting important antecedents and critical factors for the internationalization process, and international businesses in general, and operating cross borders implies the enactment of highly knowledge-intensive processes, current literature still fails to provide a holistic picture of how firms strategically use what they know and seek out what they do not know in the international environment, using the affordances of digital technologies.

To achieve business success in a competitive market, hospitality firms are urged to search for different ways to enhance the firms' innovation capabilities. Drawing on dynamic capability theory, this study examined the role of entrepreneurial leadership in promoting product and process innovation through the mediating effect of innovation strategy and the moderating effect of knowledge acquisition.

Data were collected through a time-lagged (two waves, two months apart) survey from 137 managers and 322 employees working in 103 Vietnamese hotels. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the proposed hypotheses in our conceptual model.

The findings revealed that entrepreneurial leadership is positively associated with both product and process innovation. In addition, these relationships are mediated by innovation strategy. While the relationship between innovation strategy and product innovation is moderated by knowledge acquisition, evidence was not obtained for the moderation effect of knowledge acquisition on the link between innovation strategy and process innovation.

The findings advance innovation and leadership literature by identifying the roles of entrepreneurial leaders in managing an organization as a dynamic system and developing appropriate innovation strategy to adapt to rapidly changing environments. In addition, this study offers important implications for hospitality firms that are investing in innovation activities and are seeking ways to promote the firms' innovation of products and processes.

This paper aims to analyze unexplored connections between economic, environmental and social dimensions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and knowledge management (KM) strategies (exploration, exploitation), also considering environmental dynamism as an influencing variable on these connections. The predicted CSR-KM interplay suggests, from stakeholder and knowledge-based views of the firm, the existence of ideal configurations between CSR and KM strategies that generate differentiated impacts on companies’ innovation capabilities, especially in dynamic environments.

Structural equation modeling by means of the partial least squares technique was used to test the study’s hypotheses after collecting survey data from Spanish companies of the renewable energy sector.

The study findings show that in highly dynamic environments, companies will tend to commit prominently in CSR, although their orientation (economic, environmental, social) and effects on innovation capabilities will depend mainly on the selected KM strategies. Social and environmental CSR are found to be highly related to KM exploration, whereas economic CSR is highly related to KM exploitation. Nevertheless, while a significant indirect effect of economic CSR by means of the KM exploitation strategy on innovation capabilities is found, the proposed indirect effect of both environmental and social CSR through the KM exploration strategy on innovation capabilities is not significant.

The results suggest that company managers should be aware of the advantages of following specific paths of investment in KM and CSR initiatives in highly dynamic environments, as there is a potential payoff in terms of innovation capability improvement. The results also suggest that “good” relationships with stakeholders, built from specific CSR investments, make firms able to get valuable knowledge that it is useful to develop KM strategies for innovation capability development.

Previous studies do not consider the interplay between KM strategies and CSR as a catalyzer for developing a firm’s innovation capabilities. This paper contributes to the KM and innovation literatures by introducing CSR into the conversation about how to improve innovation capabilities in dynamic and sustainable industries by using configurations of KM strategies and specific CSR investments in economic, social and environmental areas.

Synthesizing from the institutional theory and social network theory, this study investigates factors influencing green innovation performance in new ventures.

The findings show that the dimensions of internal social network; heterogeneous network and tie strength have significant positive effects on proactive environmental strategy based on a sample of 300 new ventures in China.

The results further support the mediating role of proactive environmental strategy on internal organizational networks and green innovation performance of new ventures. The study further investigated the moderating role of the regulatory quality as a dimension of institutional environment in China. The results show that the regulatory quality positively moderates the relationship between proactive environmental strategy and green innovation performance. Policy and managerial implications are further discussed.

Over the past 20 years, green innovation has increasingly attracted the attention of policymakers and scholars. However, most studies have focused on mature ventures, and little attention has been given to how newly established ventures attain green innovation performance.

This paper aims to provide a nuanced understanding of philosophies underpinning social innovation based on the action research strategies applied in the field.

Literature review was conducted to identify action research strategies referred to in the social innovation literature. Through stratified purposive sampling, the authors then selected nonprofit organizations, each closely associated with one of the strategies. Qualitative content analysis was applied to documents published by these organizations for an in-depth exploration of how the action research strategies frame the three dimensions of social innovation, namely, the product, process and empowerment dimensions.

The authors identified four broad action research strategies referred to in the social innovation literature. Each strategy inspires four distinct narratives of social innovation centered around key concepts: prototyping, evidence, asset-building and co-creation.

The methodology used is characterized by depth rather than scope. Although diverse types of documents were used, the documents are limited to publications by four institutions. A deductive approach using the categories should be used in future empirical research.

The paper contributes to the discussion about different schools and research agendas in the field of social innovation. In particular, the authors examine the action research strategies adopted in the field, shedding light on incompatible views and strategies within certain research clusters while identifying common ground between authors belonging to different schools.

The logic of value innovation has received increased attention in the strategic marketing and innovation literature. Studies investigating how value innovation, as a firm’s strategic mindset, contributes to creating new market space through more proximal market-driven factors such as strategic decisions and customer value are still lacking, nevertheless. This study aim to investigate how the logic of value innovation influences creating new market space through quantum strategy and customer value creation.

Survey data from a sample of 204 manufacturing and service firms was used to test the conceptual model and research hypotheses. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The findings reveal the direct and indirect effect of value innovation logic on the new market space through the mediation of quantum strategy and customer value creation. Besides, this study shows that quantum strategy does not directly contribute to customer value creation. A reason is that the quantum strategy as a both/and strategy is the more dominating factor in creating new market space.

There is still a lack of a systematic understanding of how value innovation, as a firm’s strategic mindset, contribute to creating new market space through a firm’s strategic choices and superior customer value creation, as more proximal market-driven factors. This study empirically attempted to address this research problem. This study contributes to the strategic marketing literature by providing a model for the interwoven relationships between value innovation, quantum strategy, customer value and new market space.

Using the lens of crisis innovation and strategic alignment, this study explores how a segment of the restaurant sector that may be less agile than others—Michelin-starred restaurants—perceives and aligns with the challenges brought about by the COVID-19-pandemic.

The study collected data from 19 Michelin-starred restaurants in Spain using a qualitative interview method. The data were analyzed qualitatively and organized thematically.

Four key categories of strategic challenges were identified: human resources, uncertainty, control and economic challenges. In response, chefs displayed both behavioral and organizational strategies. Those organizational strategies were new human resource management, reorganization, product and service innovation and marketing. While the new human resource management actions adopted to align with the human resource challenges identified, a misalignment remains between some of the other strategic actions, such as product and service innovation, marketing and economic and uncertainty challenges.

The findings offer new insight into Michelin-starred restaurant chefs' challenges and (mis)alignment strategies, an area that has been understudied in the current literature on innovative responses in the hospitality sector post-pandemic.

This paper aims to identify the combination of innovation determinants driving the creation of innovative products amongst market leaders and market followers in food and beverage (F&B) firms.

This research is based on the case study methodology by using two types of data sources: (1) semi-structured interviews with industry experts and (2) in-depth interviews with managers. In addition, a questionnaire adapted from prior research was used to consider market and firm types.

Suggesting an integrated theoretical framework based on firm-based factors and market-based factors, this study identified a combination of determinants significantly impacting innovative products in the market. Specifically, these determinants are competition intensity and innovation capability (a combination of research and development (R&D) investment and marketing capabilities). The study also examined how these determinants vary depending on whether the firms are market leaders or market followers.

This research provides practical insights for managers working in the F&B industry by using case studies and exploring the determinants of developing innovative products. In doing so, suitable strategies can be selected according to the market and firm situations.

The originality of the study is shown by focussing on how different combinations of market and firm factors could be applied in creating successful innovative products in the food sector.

Engaging with customers and addressing unmet value have become increasingly challenging within multi-stakeholder environments of service innovation. Therefore, this paper aims to address this challenge by studying how strategic design abilities address unmet value in service engagement strategies.

The authors conducted a qualitative inductive study at a multinational corporation and interviewed marketing and design professionals on their innovation practices in service engagement strategies.

From the inductive analysis, this study identified three strategic design abilities that effectively contribute to addressing unmet value throughout the co-evolving process of service engagement: envisioning value, modelling value and engaging value. Based on this, this study proposes the emerging co-evolving loop framework of service engagement strategies.

The limitation of this emerging theory is a lack of broad generalizability with mutual exclusivity or collective exhaustiveness across industries. A theoretical implication of the framework is the integration of strategic design and services marketing towards co-created engagement strategies.

The service engagement loop framework can be of great value to service innovation processes, for which an integrated, cross-functional approach is often missing.

The findings further suggest that next to a methodological skillset, strategic design abilities consist of a distinct mindset.

This paper introduces strategic design abilities to address unmet value and proposes a novel co-evolving loop framework of service engagement strategies.

This paper aimed to explore the main strategies and approaches to innovation in professional service firms (PSFs), with a specific focus on accounting firms.

The paper relied upon a systematic literature review of previous studies to identify and reconcile the different approaches to innovation processes in accounting firms and further advance a conceptual framework for their discussion.

The findings, based on the review of 38 papers, revealed four main strategies around two main dimensions: the focus on internal/external features of the firm and the main source of innovation (technology and knowledge). The strategies may enable PSFs finding new opportunities and improving organizational performance.

The paper provides a conceptual framework in the form of a “strategy-innovation” matrix where four strategies emerged to support PSFs identifying possible approaches to innovation for new opportunities and improving their performance and services. In doing so, the paper bridges the main sources of innovation, knowledge and technology with key organizational features, considering structural/organizational aspects, cultural aspects, HR practices, collaborative behaviors, professional autonomy, service diversification and the role of professional networks and external actors.

The paper contributes to the literature by deepening understanding of innovation processes in PSFs, suggesting the need to develop a strategic orientation to innovation in these firms. In doing so, the paper also provides useful practical implications for the management of PSFs, suggesting an “innovation/strategy” matrix that might support the positioning of PSFs with reference to its approach to innovation.