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This study aims to investigate the complex relationship between digitalization capability (DC) and radical innovation performance (RIP). In particular, this study sheds new light on the results of previous studies on the effects of DC on firm innovation.

The authors obtained questionnaire data from 271 IT managers of randomly selected high-tech Chinese firms. The data was used to empirically test the proposed hypotheses using hierarchical regression analysis.

The findings of this study reveal that DC has an inverted U-shaped effect on RIP. Knowledge accumulation (KA) has a partial mediating effect on the DC–RIP link. Knowledge integration capability (KIC) was found to moderate the DC–RIP relationship: the higher a firm’s KIC, the flatter the DC–RIP curve. Moreover, there is empirical evidence of the shape-flip phenomenon of the DC–RIP curve: when KIC > 1.82, the DC–RIP relationship is no longer an inverted U-shaped but presents as a U-shaped curve.

This study explores the DC–RIP relationship from the perspective of knowledge management, deepens the research scope of digitalization and lays the foundation for subsequent research.

This study provides potential explanations for contradictory views of the effect of DC on innovation in the existing literature by revealing the nonlinear relationship of DC and RIP and the important roles of KA and KIC in that relationship. The new insights into the role of KIC as a threshold for the DC–RIP link provide a direction for firms to control the pace of digital transformation.

This chapter presents the outcome of an empirical study titled ‘Knowledge Sharing and Transfer (KST) that Really Works: An exploration of KST in Sub-Saharan South African Public Sector Institutions’. Enablers of KST were explored through the lens of lived experiences of managers working at Gautrain Management Agency (GMA), a rail transport public sector operator in South Africa. Qualitative data were collected from 15 managers and analysed using Thematic and Trans Positional Cognition Approach (TPCA) qualitative analytical tools. Four themes, essential originating antecedent factors, complementary people enabling factors, organisational enabling factors and effective KST implementing factors emerged. Rahman’s KST model was adopted as a theoretical framework and used to better understand the study findings. The current study affirms two elements within the theoretical framework, namely, complementary people enabling factors and organisational enabling factors, while the remaining two, essential originating antecedent factors and effective KST implementing factors, were not affirmed. This study contributes a new KST framework that helps business managers understand KST from the South African public sector practitioners’ perspectives, which represents this study’s contribution to the business performance measurement body of knowledge and practice.

Network embeddedness has been widely considered in enterprise innovation as an effective means of overcoming resource dilemmas. However, while focussing on acquiring external innovation resources, the existing research often ignores the vital role of internal routine updates. Therefore, this study explores the mechanism by which network embeddedness affects innovation performance of enterprises from the perspective of organisational routine updating.

This paper proposes a theoretical model based on social network theory and organisational routines–immune response theory. A total of 328 pieces of research data on high-tech enterprises in China were collected, and the hypotheses were verified using hierarchical regression analysis.

The results show that the two forms of network embeddedness – structural embeddedness and relational embeddedness, have a positive effect on enterprise innovation performance and a significant positive effect on organisational routine revision and organisational routine creation. Both organisational routine revision and organisational routine creation positively affect enterprise innovation performance and partially mediate the relationship between network embeddedness and enterprise innovation performance.

This conclusion provides a new perspective on the impact of network embeddedness on enterprise innovation performance and expands the related research on organisational routine updating. This study provides a theoretical reference for high-tech enterprises to improve their competitiveness and innovation performance through network embeddedness and organisational routine updating.

This study aims to investigate the potential influence of organisational responses to conflicting institutional demands towards barriers to environmental performance (EP) monitoring of government green procurement (GGP) in Malaysia.

The paper used a qualitative methodology based on a single case study involving policymakers, procurement officials and a monitoring authority. The study data were analysed drawing on the perspectives of organisational responses to conflicting institutional demands.

The three key challenges that hindered EP monitoring of GGP in Malaysia were policy irregularities, knowledge asymmetry and communication gaps. These challenges are likely the consequences of the acquiescence, avoidance, compromise and defiance strategies commonly used in dealing with the institutional complexity faced in Malaysia’s public policy arena.

The government, at various institutional levels, may benefit from the theoretical and empirical findings of the case study. Knowledge of barriers can facilitate the policymakers in designing the monitoring process meticulously. Meanwhile, awareness of the influence of organisational responses to institutional complexity on GGP barriers can help redefine field actors’ interests and values in improving policy monitoring. In addition, reporting of the monitored EP bridges the institutional gaps between the macro-state level and the micro-organisational level of GGP, besides increasing the government’s transparency and accountability regarding green procurement.

Fewer challenges in the EP monitoring system contribute to an improved GGP policy. In turn, an improved policy may enhance public health and reduce environmental degradation.

The study contributes to the GGP monitoring and institutional theory by showing that barriers to EP monitoring culminate from the organisational response to the institutional demands faced in the policy environment. The authors argue that this is one of the few studies that have examined the barriers to EP monitoring of public policy explicated in the context of organisational responses to institutional demands.

Servitization of products is becoming increasingly prevalent among manufacturing enterprises. Existing research has primarily focused on exploring whether the direct impact of servitization on manufacturer performance follows a linear or a curvilinear relationship. However, the understanding of the underlying mechanisms between servitization and manufacturer financial performance remains limited. This paper aims to examine the non-linear relationship between servitization and manufacturer performance as well as the mediating process and boundary condition associated with this relationship.

Drawing on resource-advantage theory, this paper proposes a theoretical model of the U-shaped relationship between servitization and the financial performance of equipment manufacturers. Panel data of 248 listed equipment manufacturers in China during the period of 2010–2020 are used to test each hypothesis through the ordinary least square method.

The empirical results indicate that servitization follows a U-shaped relationship with service business focus and the financial performance of equipment manufacturers. Service business focus mediates this U-shaped relationship between servitization and financial performance, and digital technology application moderates this relationship.

This paper pioneers the unraveling of the potential mechanism that can explain the curvilinear relationship between servitization of manufacturers and financial performance. This mechanism is the focus of the service business, which is theoretically delineated and empirically tested. Furthermore, digital technology application enables manufacturers to achieve service business focus more effectively in the process of servitization. Thus, this study addresses the call for research on digital servitization.

This study aims to examine the phenomenon of the risk–return paradox from the resources side of the firm. The authors emphasize the moderating role of risk-taking capabilities in investigating the relationship between risk-taking and performance.

Building on the disciplines of the resource-based view, the moderating effects of risk-taking capabilities on performance were tested by using Taiwan listed companies' data from information technology and electronics industries. Based on the data from 216 firms for periods from 2003 to 2007, this study runs a hierarchical moderated regression analysis to test the hypotheses in the context of diversification.

The results of this study emphasize that risk-taking and its relationship with performance are context-specific. Significantly, it is contingent on the firm's risk-taking capabilities endowment. The findings also indicate that some aspects of risk-taking capabilities moderate the relationship between risk-taking and performance.

This paper emphasizes that risk-taking capability is an essential factor in investigating the risk–return paradox. It constructs the dimensions of risk-taking capability in terms of absorptive capacity, network resources and organizational slack. Firms equipped with a high level of risk-taking capabilities benefit from risk-taking activities and should, therefore, embrace risk.

This study focuses on resolving empirical inconsistencies in the relationship between external search breadth and innovation performance. Based on research on the knowledge-based view and innovation barriers, three internal barriers that weaken the effectiveness of external search breadth are discerned: information, rigidity and financial barriers.

For empirical analysis, the Korean Innovation Survey 2016 of manufacturing firms was utilized. This study defines innovation performance as the number of patent applications and new product introduction that are analyzed through zero-inflated negative binomial and logistic regressions, respectively.

The empirical analysis showed three findings. First, external search breadth has a positive relationship with the number of patent applications but not with new product introduction. Second, financial barrier weakens the positive association of external search breadth with the number of patent applications. Third, the interactions of external search breadth with the three internal barriers are negatively related to new product introduction.

This study makes two theoretical contributions. First, by examining barriers to external knowledge search, this research helps identify potential bottlenecks in this search. Second, the study reveals that the effectiveness of external search breadth may have a boundary in firm innovation by showing that this search affects patent application and new product introduction differently.

This study aims to explore the effect of digitalization on the promotion of enterprise R&D cooperation, and it analyzes the microimpact mechanism and boundary conditions of enterprise digitalization on enterprise R&D cooperation.

Based on survey data sourced from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys of the business environment of Chinese enterprises in 2012, this study applies multiple regression methods to test theoretical hypotheses.

Enterprise digitalization positively affects the breadth and intensity of enterprise R&D cooperation. Employees’ digital literacy plays an intermediary role between enterprise digitalization and enterprise R&D cooperation. The subordinate attributes of enterprises weaken the positive relationship between enterprise digitalization and the breadth and intensity of enterprise R&D cooperation. The shareholding of state-owned enterprises reinforces the positive relationship between digitalization and the intensity of enterprise R&D cooperation. However, such shareholding shows no significant regulatory effect on digitalization and the breadth of enterprise R&D cooperation.

Focusing on the digital transformation of the enterprise, this study discusses its impact mechanism on enterprise R&D cooperation, including the impact on the intensity and breadth of R&D cooperation. The study further examines the regulatory effect of organizational inertia on enterprise digital and R&D cooperation from two aspects: resource rigidity and routine rigidity. It emphasizes the significance of the digital literacy of employees in enterprise digitalization and discusses the micromechanism of enterprise digitalization and enterprise R&D cooperation.

Although strategic scholars have made great effects to exploring the moderating roles of team interaction in explaining the effect of top management team (TMT) diversity, they have adopted seemingly conflicting theoretical perspectives to explain how it works. Drawing on ideas from the threat rigidity theory, the authors integrated these perspectives by proposing a contingency model in which the relationships between TMT diversity and adaptive firm performance depend on the matching between the internal context (i.e. overlapping team tenure) and external context (i.e. severity of threat).

This study sampled 579 Chinese A-share listed companies that have been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and multilevel linear regression analysis was used to test the hypothesis.

Results provided support for this hypothesis. Specifically, the interaction between TMT age/tenure diversity and overlapping team tenure is significant only when the severity of threat is high, while the interaction between TMT functional diversity and overlapping team tenure is significant only when the severity of threat is low.

The results of this study provide a comprehensive perspective to predict the performance impact of team diversity and contribute to diversity research and practice.

Introduction: Organisations all over the world are experiencing skill gaps. One of the key factors contributing to the shortage of competent workers is the inability to find candidates that fit the profile. Most of the time, the market does not offer what organisations require.

Purpose: This research focuses on skill shortages and labour market rigidity in the information technology (IT) sector. It discusses the impact of labour shortage and strategies to overcome these challenges.

Need of the Study: The study is required to reduce the skill shortage in the IT sector and inflexibility in the labour market.

Methodology: The data are collected from secondary sources, that is, books, journals and other internet sources.

Findings: The labour market volatility is impacted by several external factors leading to rigidity and talent shortages. Different forecasts within the IT industry, manufacturing, media and telecommunications indicate large-scale labour shortages. The growing influence of digitalisation further creates challenges for organisations during the hiring process as the identified skill gaps for IT professionals are also identified.

Practical Implications: Labour market rigidity affects the labour market. Shifts in labour supply and demand do not always impact wages. Methods are suggested on how to reduce the rigidity in the labour market and, in turn, decrease the skill gaps.