Search results

The purpose of this paper is to provide an integrative picture of the state of the art of the literature on digitalisation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as an enabler for their internationalisation process and as a comprehensive view of the specific domains impacted by digital technologies as well as their repercussions on the international outreach.

A systematic review which leverages a descriptive analysis of extant literature and an axial coding technique has been conducted to shed light on the current knowledge and to identify primary research areas and future research lines.

The research indicates that digitalisation impacts the internationalisation of SMEs in three specific domains: (1) internationalisation through the adoption of information and communication technologies (ICT) technologies and e-commerce platforms; (2) international expansion through the digitalisation of value chain activities and (3) international outreach through knowledge acquisition on digital platforms.

The value of this study is threefold. First, the authors attempt to systematically review the literature on SMEs digitalisation and internationalisation and provide a holistic perspective on the intertwining of these two research streams. Second, the authors propose a novel conceptualisation on the dimensions of SMEs digitalisation as enablers to internationalisation. Third, the authors put forward promising future lines of research.

1. Digitalisation represents a pivotal strategy that allows companies to build new strategic capabilities and is a propeller for SMEs internationalisation.

2. Through e-commerce, SMEs could compete at the same level of multinational companies but enduring lower costs of expansion.

3. Digital platforms allow SMEs to enhance the learning processes about international markets through an immediate access to relevant information.

4. Digital entrepreneurship has enabled SMEs to develop new configurations of value chain activities, evolving their business model or reaching new markets.

5. SMEs are changing the “business as usual” paradigm offering digital tools to build modular architectures that are scalable and agile in their evolution ability.

Digitalisation represents a pivotal strategy that allows companies to build new strategic capabilities and is a propeller for SMEs internationalisation.

Through e-commerce, SMEs could compete at the same level of multinational companies but enduring lower costs of expansion.

Digital platforms allow SMEs to enhance the learning processes about international markets through an immediate access to relevant information.

Digital entrepreneurship has enabled SMEs to develop new configurations of value chain activities, evolving their business model or reaching new markets.

SMEs are changing the “business as usual” paradigm offering digital tools to build modular architectures that are scalable and agile in their evolution ability.

Engaging in international business (IB) is a particular challenge to small and medium-sized companies (SMEs), representing a condition to ensure growth and longevity. Due to their limitations of tangible resources, these companies make use of their levels of knowledge and capabilities to reach new markets. This study seeks to ascertain the role, the typologies of the knowledge and capabilities required for access to IB, and how benefits may arise for SMEs from their international experience.

To achieve these objectives, the authors ground the insights on a qualitative study that gathered data from ten semi-structured interviews with leading entrepreneurs engaged in IB. The data were analysed resorting to the QSR Nvivo software.

The results demonstrate how (1) knowledge and the development of dynamic capabilities all represent determinant facets to engaging in IB and that (2) the knowledge and learning capabilities acquired and developed in IB context also result in positive returns in domestic markets.

Despite the rising of IB studies, the interaction between knowledge and capabilities from the perspective of accessing international markets has not received attention enough from scholars. The authors argue that both constructs must act together to reach and maximize the IB of SMEs and provide evidence that engagement abroad brings several other advantages beyond economic returns.

This investigation seeks to elaborate on how proactive market orientation (MO) and responsive MO motivate firms to conduct business model innovation (BMI) through the breadth of market knowledge search (BMKS) and the depth of market knowledge search (DMKS).

Based on the survey data of 259 high-tech firms in the industrial parks of the Yangtze River Delta, this study uses multiple hierarchical regressions to examine the hypotheses and conducts Sobel and bootstrapping methods to further test the mediating effects.

The findings indicate that the positive effects of proactive and responsive MO on BMI are mediated by BMKS and DMKS. It also shows that proactive MO has a greater impact on BMKS than responsive MO, while responsive MO has a stronger impact on DMKS than proactive MO.

Firms with different MOs can choose different types of market knowledge search to promote BMI, which reminds managers to give attention to the importance of bridging MOs with knowledge search strategies in BMI.

This study introduces a constructive theoretical framework by examining the roles of MO and market knowledge search on BMI. The findings reveal that MO as a key initiating factor and market knowledge search as an important conduit play vital roles in the experimental process of BMI and identify the differential effects of proactive and responsive MO on two types of market knowledge search.

This study investigates how firms build strong dynamic marketing capability (DMC) from open innovation (OI) to enhance the performance of entrepreneurial firms. Moreover, this study unfolds DMC's mediating and moderating mechanisms underlying inbound and outbound OI and performance relationships, respectively.

To test the research model and hypotheses, this study drew a sample of 251 firms operating in Malaysia using the time-lagged survey method. Structural equation modelling was used in this study to investigate the model relationships.

The findings of this study reveal the positive interplay between inbound OI (knowledge acquisition) and DMC. The outbound OI (knowledge exploitation) in this study is found to mediate the relationship between inbound OI and firm performance. In addition, while the DMC has a mediating effect in the relationship between inbound OI and firm performance, such a capability reinforces the positive relationship between outbound OI and performance.

This study provides a noble insight into the complex interplay between OI and entrepreneurial firms' performance by developing and testing an integrated framework underpinned by a knowledge-based view and dynamic capability theory. The findings highlight the significance of taking an interdisciplinary and integrated approach to better understand the determinants of entrepreneurial firms' performance in an emerging country context.

This study aims to explore a new restaurant category’s development from birth to maturity, thereby explaining the rationale for category innovation strategies.

The authors conducted a qualitative case study analysis of the New Chinese-style Fusion Restaurant category’s development from birth to maturity. Thematic analysis was conducted on data collected from semi-structured interviews and textual information.

A new restaurant category’s maturation is determined by the formation of society’s shared knowledge about the category’s crucial attributes, which is an outcome of market participants’ category-related social practices. The authors develop a novel, four-stage framework for the socialized construction of this shared knowledge: a knowledge creation (KC), knowledge diffusion (KD), knowledge integration (KI) and knowledge structuralization (KS). This knowledge evolution along this KC–KD–KI–KS sequence can holistically describe the category maturation process. This framework can help understand the rationale for a restaurant category’s maturation by analyzing the interrelationships among market participants’ social practices, knowledge-related activities and market development.

This study explains how market participants’ knowledge-related activities facilitate a new restaurant category’s maturation. This can help restaurant managers cope with increasingly homogeneous competition by applying a category-innovation strategy.

This study extends product categorization research on restaurants by articulating a product category’s maturation process from a knowledge perspective.

This study investigated the effect of green marketing mix on consumer repurchase intention in Ghana. The study focusses on the interaction effect of green knowledge on green marketing mix and consumer repurchase in Ghana.

A quantitative approach to research was employed. In all, 371 participants were chosen using the purposive sampling technique. Data analysis was conducted using the SPSS software.

The findings showed that green price, green place and green promotion had a positive significant effect on repurchase intention. However, green product insignificantly influenced repurchase intention. The findings further showed that green knowledge moderated the relationship between green price and green place, on repurchase intention. Green knowledge was not found to moderate the relationship between green product, green promotion and repurchase intention.

The study advances our knowledge on green marketing mix, green knowledge and repurchase intention within the beverage sector. It reveals the positive implication of green marketing mix on a firm’s customers using the marketing mix theory.

This study aims to explore how an organization’s ethical climate determines the type and effectiveness of entrepreneurial marketing activities. Also, this study seeks to identify the most critical intra-organizational capabilities related to entrepreneurial marketing components and explain their role in the path of ethical climate to entrepreneurial marketing, which means moving from the intra- to the extra-organizational environment.

Data were collected from managers working in 100 scientific and research companies in Iran through survey questionnaires. Latent variable structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized relationships.

The findings reveal that the linkage between the ethical climate of the organization and entrepreneurial marketing is partially mediated by work engagement. In addition, the mediating role of knowledge transfer was not confirmed. These results imply that the ethical climate of the organization fosters entrepreneurial marketing by enabling employees with absorption, vigor and dedication.

Scientific and research companies in this research are different in size, resources, knowledge management system, organizational structure and products offered to the market; they have different emphasis on innovation and entrepreneurship as well. This issue increases the variety of data and the ability to generalize the results. Still, on the other hand, it reduces the ability to categorize data and increases the amount of outlier data. Future research in a comparative manner between different industries is needed.

This study indicates that an organization’s ethical climate can be a critical predictor of its entrepreneurial marketing as well as effective knowledge transfer and work engagement. In this regard, organizations should pay attention to employee’s perception of the organization’s ethical climate and create an environment that supports productive behaviors, commitment, trust, communication, work dedication, etc., to facilitate knowledge transfer effectively so that the organization can identify market opportunities and turn it into customer-oriented innovation, cocreate value for their customers and increase market share.

In turbulent markets, companies need to introduce quality and reliable products. Still, because the life cycle of products has shortened and the speed of introducing new products has increased, the supply of products will fail if companies are not equipped with new marketing methods. In this regard, the current research will seek to provide a mechanism for organizational capabilities on the road to entrepreneurial marketing by expressing entrepreneurial marketing as an innovative approach and trying to identify factors affecting it.

This study aims to investigate a mediation model in which generative learning positively affects marketing innovation and both organizational control and relationship openness mediate the relationship between learning intent and generative learning of international joint ventures (IJVs) in emerging markets. We also decipher the degree of necessity of these factors for generative learning and of generative learning for marketing innovation.

A sample of 181 marketing managers of IJVs in Vietnam, an emerging market, was surveyed to collect data. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed to test the net effect, and necessary condition analysis (NCA) was used to decipher the degree of necessity.

The PLS-SEM results demonstrate that the effect of learning intent on generative learning is fully mediated by organizational control and relationship openness, which in turn leads to marketing innovation. The NCA findings reveal that all three factors, namely learning intent, organizational control and relationship openness, serve as necessary conditions for generative learning. However, generative learning does not play the role of a necessary condition for marketing innovation.

The study findings suggest that IJVs in emerging markets should pay attention not only to the net effects of those factors but also to their degrees of necessity for generative learning in order to achieve marketing innovation.

The study contributes to the literature by confirming the mediating roles of organizational control and relationship openness in the relationship between learning intent and generative learning. Furthermore, it is among the first to decipher the degrees of necessity of these factors for generative learning and of generative learning for the marketing innovation of IJVs in emerging markets.

Digital transformation (DT) is among the vital factors contributing to innovation ambidexterity, especially for advanced manufacturing firms (AMFs). However, the empirical studies on the relationship between DT and innovation ambidexterity in AMFs from the perspective of knowledge management are inadequate. Therefore, this study aims to systematically analyze the impact of DT on innovation ambidexterity and its mechanism of action.

This study selects 254 listed firms within the ten key areas of “Made in China 2025,” as they occupy a key position in China’s advanced manufacturing system. Based on the knowledge-based view (KBV) and contingency theory, it constructs a model of the influence mechanism of DT on innovation ambidexterity.

The results show that the DT of AMFs positively influence innovation ambidexterity. External pressure from environmental turbulence enhances the positive relationship between DT and innovation ambidexterity, demonstrating the “resilience effect,” external knowledge search (EKS) and broadening the knowledge base mediating roles between them, highlighting the “accumulation effect.”

By identifying this mediation mechanism of DT and innovation ambidexterity, this study provides new ideas for path research on the KBV. Moreover, this study explores the triggering effect of market environmental turbulence on the DT of firms. It reveals the boundary conditions of DT acting on innovation ambidexterity, expands the research perspective on organizational resilience and enriches the theory of power change.

Based on the organizational learning theory, this study regards market orientation as market-based learning and seeks to advance insight into how proactive and responsive market orientations affect two kinds of open innovation strategies, sourcing and selling. A firm’s information and communication technology (ICT) capability is considered an essential moderator in these relationships.

This study adopted a quantitative design and used the questionnaire survey method to collect data. The authors finally collected data on samples in China. Multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses.

The results show that proactive and responsive market orientations act as antecedents of open innovation, showing linear and curvilinear relationships between them. Specifically, responsive market orientation positively affects selling, and proactive market orientation positively affects sourcing. Responsive market orientation has an inverted U-shaped relationship with sourcing, and proactive market orientation has a U-shaped relationship with selling. In addition, ICT capability strengthens the positive effects of market orientation on open innovation and weakens the negative effects.

Drawing on organizational learning theory, this study provides a novel perspective to explain the complex mechanism between market orientation and open innovation. This study also explores the moderating role of ICT capability in this process, which advances research on how to select open innovation strategies under different conditions.