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This research paper aims to examine how open innovation (OI) intermediaries facilitate knowledge collaboration between organizations and online user communities. Drawing on a Community of Practice (CoP) perspective on knowledge, the study lays out a framework of the knowledge boundary management mechanisms (and associated practices) that intermediaries deploy in enabling client organizations to engage in online community-based OI.

This research is based on an exploratory case study of an OI intermediary and 18 client organizations that engage with online user communities on the intermediary’s platform. Results incorporate both the intermediary and clients’ perspective, based on analysis of intermediary and client interviews, clients’ online community projects and other archival data.

Results reveal that OI intermediaries deploy three knowledge boundary management mechanisms – syntactic, semantic and pragmatic – each underpinned by a set of practices. Together, these mechanisms enable knowledge transfer, translation and transformation, respectively, and thus lead to cumulatively richer knowledge collaboration outcomes at the organization–community boundary. The findings show that the pragmatic mechanism reinforces both semantic and syntactic mechanisms, and is hence the most critical to achieving effective knowledge collaboration in community-based OI settings.

The findings suggest that OI intermediaries have to implement all three boundary management mechanisms to successfully enable knowledge collaboration for community-based OI. More specifically, intermediaries need to expand their focus beyond the development of digital platforms, to include nuanced efforts at building organizational commitment to community engagement.

Drawing on the CoP view, this study integrates the knowledge management literature into the OI literature to conceptualize the role of OI intermediaries in shaping knowledge collaboration between organizations and communities. In engaging with the interactive nature of knowledge exchange in such multi-actor settings, this research extends the firm-centric theorization of knowledge that currently dominates the existing OI research.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the main models of innovation intermediaries as determined by the matching mechanisms they offer as a service to organizations, and to reveal underlying limitations of each mechanism to have a better understanding of their appropriateness for organizational requests.

This paper reports an exploratory study of 51 online innovation intermediaries using semi-structured interviews, supported with direct observation, scientific papers and official documentary sources.

The overall findings suggest that innovation intermediaries are not homogeneous, are evolving and that the underlying mechanisms with which they support their operations vary substantially, depending on the size of the community, platform design (collaboration vs non-collaboration) and reward conditions. The study identifies five mechanisms on which the models are based: broadcast search (directed and undirected), brainstorming with ranking (directed and undirected), networking/connecting, expert group and licensing out. Some of the underlying tensions and limitations of these mechanisms are also explored as are the managerial implications for the choice and use of innovation intermediaries.

This paper identifies distinct models of online innovation intermediaries in significantly more depth than what has been presented so far. In addition, it discusses their limitations as a mechanism and their use to achieve a better match between innovation intermediaries and needs of solution-seeker companies.

The purpose of this paper is to answer the following research question: how can intermediaries contribute to social impact creation through their interventions at different levels of distribution networks in the base of the pyramid (BoP) markets?

The paper adopts an embedded case study of an intermediary organization. The analysis focuses on the intervention of the intermediary on the distribution stages of supply chains in four different projects in the food sector in Ethiopia, Benin, Nigeria and Bangladesh.

The embedded case study reveals essential formal and informal roles undertaken by the intermediary organization to develop decentralized distribution networks based on local micro-entrepreneurs. The study proposes that efforts undertaken by the intermediaries toward knowledge sharing and capacity building among partners can enable the adoption of pro-poor strategies across the supply chain. Moreover, hybrid intermediaries can act as “guardians” of the mutual value creation approach since one of their key roles is to advocate the needs of the BoP.

Important implications for improving nutrition and food security in the BoP markets are developed based on the empirical findings. The findings open avenues for further research into the antecedents of retention rates in distribution networks based on local micro-entrepreneurs.

Findings have implications for different types of BoP initiatives by highlighting how intermediary organizations intervene to develop distribution models with a special focus on social impact.

This paper fills an important research gap by discussing social impact aspects in BoP supply chains by adopting the perspective of intermediary organizations.

In recent years, the application of artificial intelligence and digital technology has increasingly become a priority for online retailers. It is crucial to choose a way to make use of human–computer interaction (HCI) design to exert the positive influence of intelligent technology on consumer welfare. Despite the increasing use of HCI design in online retail context, there remain limitations in their effect of consumer well-being improvement. Although there is extensive literature in the field of consumer well-being improvement, few studies have empirically examined how HCI design drives the improvement of consumer well-being in the online retail context. Therefor, this study aims to deeply and systematically analyze the psychological mechanism between HCI and consumer well-being in the online retail environment.

The empirical analysis is based on data collection of 476 samples of online shoppers through the online survey method. From the perspective of autonomy, this study deeply analyzes the influence mechanism of different dimensions of HCI perception on consumer well-being.

The results indicated that autonomy plays a positive intermediary role in the impact of perceived connectivity, perceived personalization, perceived control and perceived responsiveness on the eudaimonia and hedonic enjoyment. Also, it revealed that psychological resistance negatively regulates the impact of perceived connectivity, perceived personalization and perceived control on autonomy, while experience purchase positively regulates the impact of autonomy on hedonic enjoyment.

This paper expands the research situation of consumer well-being by making integration of the dual structure of subjective well-being and psychological well-being to define the psychological mechanism and boundary conditions of the impact of HCI perception on consumer well-being. The main contribution of this study is to provide enlightenment for online retail enterprises to improve HCI design and help consumers enhance long-term well-being.

This paper aims to understand the relationship between the National Innovation Demonstration Zone policy and city innovation capability and the underlying mechanisms.

This paper collects panel data of 283 Chinese cities from 2006 to 2018 for the quasi-natural experiment of National Independent Demonstration Zone (NIDZ) policy. It applies the difference-in-difference (DID) method to study the impact of NIDZ policy on city innovation capability and its underlying mechanism to enhance it.

The empirical result indicates that the establishment of NIDZ significantly enhances the city's innovation capability, which was verified through a series of robustness tests. The mechanism analysis shows that the NIDZ promote the inflow and outflow of knowledge, which implies NIDZ enhances the innovation capability of cities by facilitating the innovation sharing impact. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the higher degree of digitalization, the higher the government service level induce a more favourable policy effect. The policy effect is more significant in the cities with a higher marketization or the eastern developed region.

This study’s empirical findings suggest that it is essential to improve the digital infrastructure to accomplish the digital transformation and upgrading of NIDZ. The government should improve the service efficiency and reshape the city market environment to ensure the fair competition of science and technology enterprises.

The paper first proposed and empirically tested that innovation sharing is an important mechanism that can significantly enhance the city innovation capability. The authors analyse the heterogeneity of NIDZ from four aspects: digitalization level, marketization level, government service level, and regional development and expanded research boundaries.

Value co-creation is a new initiative for enterprises to form a competitive advantage, and user engagement is the basis for achieving value co-creation; nevertheless, few studies have discussed the influence mechanisms of user engagement on value co-creation behavior. In this study, the authors aim to reveal the influence mechanisms of online fitness user engagement on value co-creation behavior by considering emotional resonance and immersive experience as mediating variables.

The authors proposed and empirically tested a research model based on a survey involving 461 Chinese respondents through partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The results of this study confirm that consumer engagement, contributing engagement and social engagement are important drives of value co-creation behavior among online fitness users. Furthermore, emotional resonance and immersive experience have been revealed as important mediating mechanisms to explain why user engagement drives value co-creation behavior.

The results of this study suggest that practitioners need to focus on the social engagement and consumer engagement of users in online fitness communities and to provide the appropriate environment and conditions for online fitness user to achieve mutual value co-creation.

This study makes two main contributions. It examines user engagement in an online fitness community context and helps to understand its applicability in other contexts. It explains the influence mechanisms of online fitness user engagement on value co-creation behavior and enriches the studies related to the drivers of value co-creation behavior.

The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 has become a major public health emergency of global concern. Studying the Internet public opinion dissemination mechanism of public health emergencies is of great significance for creating a legalized network environment, and it is also helpful for managers to make scientific decisions when encountering Internet public opinion crisis.

Based on the analysis of the process of spreading the Internet public opinion in major epidemics, a dynamic model of the Internet public opinion spread system was constructed to study the interactive relationship among the public opinion events, network media, netizens and government and the spread of epidemic public opinion. The Shuanghuanglian event in COVID-19 in China was taken as a typical example to make simulation analysis.

Research results show three points: (1) the government credibility plays a decisive role in the spread of Internet public opinion; (2) it is the best time to intervene when Internet public opinion occurred at first time; (3) the management and control of social media are the key to public opinion governance. Besides, specific countermeasures are proposed to assist control of Internet public opinion dissemination.

The epidemic Internet public opinion risk evolution system is a complex nonlinear social system. The system dynamics model is used to carry out research to facilitate the analysis of the Internet public opinion propagation mechanism and explore the interrelationship of various factors.

This article explores how legal intermediaries facilitate or inhibit social change. We suggest the increasing complexity and ambiguity of legal rules coupled with the shift from government to governance provide legal intermediaries greater opportunities to influence law and social change. Drawing from new institutional sociology, we suggest rule-intermediaries shape legal and social change, with varying degrees of success, in two ways: (1) law is filtered through non-legal logics emanating from various organizational fields and (2) law is professionalized by non-legal professionals. We draw from case studies in the United States and France to show how intermediaries facilitate or inhibit social change.

While the literature on multitier supply chain management traditionally assumes that first-tier suppliers belong to the visible proportion of the supply base, intermediaries might limit focal firms' visible horizon already at this stage. High power asymmetries promoting centrality and complexity in the supply network are seen as a particular root cause that limits the impact of governance mechanisms for sustainability. To map the space for governance mechanisms in a network-sensitive context more comprehensively, the study analyzes supply network characteristics from a power perspective.

This research is conceptual. To better understand power imbalances and mutual dependencies from network centrality and complexity, network configurations were constructed drawing on resource dependence theory. These configurations allow deducing the impact of (non-)mediated governance mechanisms for a sustainable development in the supply network. An agenda to stimulate future empirical and model-based research is accordingly presented.

The research shows that those networks with densely interconnected first-tier suppliers promote network centrality and complexity, leading to an inverted U-shape relationship between the focal firm's exertion of coercive power and the sustainability performance in the supply network. The findings allow a more comprehensive theoretical grounding for mapping governance approaches in a network-sensitive context and provide insights on how to avoid negative effects from power asymmetries.

The findings suggest the need for accompanying, indirect governance mechanisms already at the stage of first-tier suppliers based on non-mediated forms of power, such as referent power, also promoting disintermediation. Purchasing companies may also consider using digital platform technologies that foster disintermediation, such as blockchain technology.

By studying intermediaries from a power and network perspective, the conceptualization adds to the discussion on governance in multitier sustainable supply chain networks in various industries. Furthermore, it contributes to the increasing efforts of middle-range theorizing in logistics and supply chain management. The results partially challenge previous assumptions on the moderating role of specific network characteristics.

Driven by increasing concerns for sustainable development and digitalization, intermediaries have emerged as relevant actors who can help supply chains tackle grand societal challenges. They can also trigger significant changes in structure, shape and governance models of supply chains. The goal of this research is to advance the understanding of supply chain intermediation and digital governance as coordinating mechanisms for enabling multi-level collective action to address the world's grand challenges.

This is a conceptual research paper that uses a vignette approach, where real examples are described to help question and expand theoretical insights and provide a basis for future research. The examples are drawn from past and ongoing extensive primary and secondary data collection efforts in diverse types of supply chains.

Three contexts are proposed to illustrate how intermediaries and digital governance can play a key role in helping supply chains tackle grand challenges. The first and second context highlight the differences between material and support flow intermediaries in a triadic supply chain relationship. The third context illustrates intermediation within a multi-level network which can be industry-specific or span across industries. The three contexts are evaluated on the level of intervention, the focus on material or support flows, and traditional or digital governance. The specific Sustainable Development Goals which can be tackled through intermediary intervention are also indicated.

Intermediaries are often hidden actors in global supply chains and have received limited attention in the academic literature. The conceptual foundation provided in this manuscript serves as the basis for future research opportunities. Three main avenues for further research in this domain are proposed: (1) novel forms of intermediation beyond economic and transactional arrangements; (2) novel forms of digital governance; and (3) translating multi-level collective action into sustainable development outcomes. Research on intermediation driven by sustainable development and digitalization trends can spur empirical advances in sustainable supply chain and operations management with important societal impact.