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Although training is essential to continuous improvement, scant literature examines post-training facilitators for continuous improvement. The study aims to explore the relationship between training and continuous improvement, the mediating role of self-efficacy and the moderate role of training transfer climate.

This study utilizes the questionnaire survey of 455 Vietnamese employees to test the link between continuous improvement training and continuous improvement, the moderate role of the training transfer climate and the mediating role of self–efficacy.

Research results reveal that training positively influences continuous improvement. Furthermore, self-efficacy fully intervenes in the link between training and continuous improvement. Finally, the training transfer climate positively moderates this link.

Although the link between training and continuous improvement is suspicious, there is scant research on post-training facilitators of continuous improvement applications. To the best of the author's knowledge, this study is one of the first to explore the moderation role of transfer climate and the mediation role of self-efficacy in the relationship between training and continuous improvement.

Open innovation is an issue that has aroused great interest in recent years. The need to create an environment that facilitates the creation of ideas is essential for the implementation of a series of changes in organizational practices and routines that lead to the launch of new products. However, due to the more behavioral nature and the lesser externalization of these changes introduced in the company's internal processes, how this process occurs has not been studied in depth. The objective of this study is to analyze the effect of an open innovation climate on both incremental and radical product innovation. Moreover, it specifically analyzes the mediating role played by hidden innovation in this relationship.

The methodology used in this study was based on a survey of 213 Spanish SMEs, subsequently applying the structural equation methodology to contrast the results.

The results indicate that open innovation climate offers significant competitive advantages to SMEs. First, the open innovation climate in SMEs favorably influences product innovation (both incremental and radical). Secondly, it is observed that hidden innovations are essential to obtain product innovations. Finally, evidence of the mediating effect of hidden innovation has been obtained.

Although the literature often focuses on visible innovation, materialized in product development, this study demonstrates the importance of other types of innovations that are necessary to launch new products. This is especially relevant for SMEs that, with limited resources, must be creative enough to involve their personnel in introducing changes that will lead to new products. This paper attempts to strengthen the previous literature on hidden innovation by contributing to the understanding of how SMEs improve their innovative processes. However, the study has the limitations derived from using a single informant to obtain data, using subjective-type scales and being a cross-sectional research.

Managers of SMEs involved in innovation processes should favor the creation of an open innovation climate and invest in organizational innovation. Governments should promote policies to support hidden and open innovation.

The main interest of this work is based on the importance of hidden innovation for the development of innovations. This study shows how organizations must make a series of organizational changes prior to the implementation of more visible innovations materialized in products. For this task, the creation of a favorable climate for the development of new ideas becomes a fundamental task. On the other hand, this study has focused on SMEs, which tend to have fewer means for the development of the right conditions for innovation and are often more neglected by scientific research.

An important but neglected area of investigation in digital entrepreneurship is the combined role of both core and peripheral members of an emerging technological field in shaping the symbolic and social boundaries of the field. This is a serious gap as both categories of members play a distinct role in expanding the pool of resources of the field. I address this gap by exploring how membership category is related to funding decisions in the emerging field of artificial intelligence (AI).

The first quantitative study involved a sample of 1,315 AI-based startups which were founded in the period of 2011–2018 in the United States. In the second qualitative study, the author interviewed 32 members of the field (core members, peripheral members and investors) to define the boundaries of their respective role in shaping the social boundaries of the AI field.

The author finds that core members in the newly founded field of AI were more successful at attracting funding from investors than peripheral members and that size of the founding team, number of lead investors, number of patents and CEO approval were positively related to funding. In the second qualitative study, the author interviewed 30 members of the field (core members, peripheral members and investors) to define their respective role in shaping the social boundaries of the AI field.

This study is one of the first to build on the growing literature in emerging organizational fields to bring empirical evidence that investors adapt their funding strategy to membership categories (core and peripheral members) of a new technological field in their resource allocation decisions. Furthermore, I find that core and peripheral members claim distinct roles in their participation and contribution to the field in terms of technological developments, and that although core members attract more resources than peripheral members, both actors play a significant role in expanding the field’s social boundaries.

Core AI entrepreneurs who wish to attract funding may consider operating in fewer categories in order to be perceived as core members of the field, and thus focus their activities and limited resources to build internal AI capabilities. Entrepreneurs may invest early in filing a patent to signal their in-house AI capabilities to investors.

The social boundaries of an emerging technological field are shaped by a multitude of actors and not only the core members of the field. The author should pay attention to the role of each category of actors and build on their contributions to expand a promising field.

This paper is among the first to build on the growing literature in emerging organizational fields to study the resource acquisition strategies of entrepreneurs in a newly establishing technological field.

Organization studies in India has largely remained insular to the writings of Indian scholars in parent disciplines such as sociology. The lack of engagement with Indian sociological works has promoted excessive dependence on Euro–American theory. It has further hindered the development of indigenous theories. This paper aims to argue that engagement with the writings of classical and contemporary Indian sociologists can resolve this issue.

The paper delineates the contribution of Indian sociologists to organizational or sociological institutionalism. It focuses specifically on the contribution of these scholars concerning two subtopics: conceptualization of institutions and fields, and the dynamics of institutional change.

The paper draws upon the work of Indian sociologists to develop a concept of ecological field. It further delves into the dynamic interplay between ideas and institutional change. More precisely, it draws attention to the role of actors and mechanisms that produce ideas.

Future studies can leverage the contribution of Indian scholars to explicate, elaborate and develop creative theories of organizational institutionalism. Such cumulative efforts can help in building an Indian tradition of organizational institutionalism.