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Although the prior literature has identified the relevance of dealer participation for multinational enterprises (MNEs), it is unclear whether such participation could also be an important means for local dealers to learn from MNEs. By adopting local firms’ viewpoint, our study draws on organizational learning theory to examine how local dealers benefit from their participation with foreign suppliers in Africa.

The empirical setting is a combinative dataset of secondary data and primary survey of 164 small- and medium-sized local dealers with nine subsidiaries of a Chinese motorcycle company in six countries of Sub-Saharan Africa.

This research shows that dealer participation is positively associated with dealer performance, and this positive effect is stronger when local dealers operate in regions with low government corruption and high government support. However, the positive relationship is weaker when local dealers use the local tongue extensively but becomes stronger when their foreign suppliers have a high dealer coverage.

By taking a local-participant perspective, our study extends the participation literature to show how firms from a resource-constrained region may benefit from their proactive participation with foreign counterparts. Additionally, we identify the boundary conditions of institutional factors and strategic choices of local dealers and foreign suppliers, providing a nuanced understanding of firm behaviors in complex and uncertain markets.

Digital transformation has gained particular interest among academics and policymakers in recent years. However, the empirical quantification of digital transformation stages and their impact on innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) remains understudied. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the impact of digital transformation stages on a differentiated measurement of innovation performance in SMEs.

The authors propose a simplified one-dimensional digital maturity path to estimate the stages of digital transformation in SMEs. The authors validate their approach with a cluster analysis and perform an ordered logistic regression to estimate the impact of digital transformation stages on SMEs' innovation performance.

The authors' results show that digital transformation in general has a positive impact on SMEs' innovation performance. More precisely, the authors find that the early stage of digital transformation has a detrimental effect on innovation performance, while significant and positive effects can be expected from the experimental stage onward. Furthermore, the advanced stage of digital transformation significantly increases the probability of producing radical innovations.

This study contributes to the ongoing discussion about the relationship between digital transformation and innovation in SMEs by presenting an approach to quantify digital transformation stages in SMEs. Additionally, this study provides new insights into the specific dynamics of the relationship between different stages of digital transformation and their impact on a differentiated measurement of innovation performance, including technological, non-technological and radical innovation.