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This study aims to examine the impact of environmental scanning on organizational resilience through organizational learning based on organizational information processing theory (OIPT) in Egyptian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, this study aims to examine the moderating role of environmental uncertainty in this relationship.

The data for the mediation analysis was obtained using a cross-sectional design. Using a self-administered questionnaire, the authors collected data from a sample of 249 Egyptian SMEs. The authors tested the hypotheses using the smart partial least square structural equation modeling approach.

Organizational learning affects organizational resilience. Environmental scanning does not have a direct effect on organizational resilience. However, organizational learning fully mediates the relationship between environmental scanning and organizational resilience. Furthermore, environmental uncertainty does not moderate the indirect relationship between environmental scanning and resilience.

The sample included only Egyptian manufacturing SMEs. The results in the service sector and in other countries may differ. This study was cross-sectional, which was limited in its ability to trace the long-term effects of environmental scanning and organizational learning on organizational resilience.

Egyptian SMEs’ managers should experience organizational learning as a pathway for environmental scanning to build organizational resilience.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the role of environmental scanning in building organizational resilience through organizational learning and the moderating role of environmental uncertainty in this relationship.

This study aims to extend ambidexterity theory from the perspective of organisational learning and examine how process ambidexterity, which comprises operational flexibility and operational routine, responds to environmental uncertainty and ultimately reduces organisational risks.

This study tests the hypotheses by analysing 464 annual reports of 115 listed companies in the Chinese agricultural and food industry using content and secondary data analyses. Four case studies are also provided.

The results show that (1) environmental uncertainty has a positive effect on either operational flexibility or operational routine; (2) both operational flexibility and operational routine have negative effects on organisational risks, supporting the view that process ambidexterity mediates the relationship between environmental uncertainty and organisational risks; and (3) organisational slack plays the role of “double-edged sword” by negatively moderating the effect of environmental uncertainty on operational flexibility and positively moderating the effect of environmental uncertainty on operational routine.

In an uncertain environment, companies are exposed to greater risk. This study contributes to risk management in three ways: first, it extends ambidexterity theory to process management and proposes how process ambidexterity balances operational flexibility and routines. Second, it distinguishes between the different conditions under which flexibility or routines are superior. Third, it explains the mechanisms related to how organisations can resolve environmental uncertainty into risk through process ambidexterity.

This paper analyzes the effects of environmental uncertainty on the use of Management Control Systems (MCS) and product and process innovation.

The hypotheses were tested with data from a survey carried out with 140 managers of innovative Brazilian firms using structural equation modeling.

The analyzes show significant negative effects of environmental uncertainty on MCS use and non-significant ones on product and process innovation, which suggests that when environmental uncertainty increases, the MCS use decreases. In contrast, significant positive effects of MCS use on product and process innovation were found, despite environmental uncertainty permeating innovation. However, no mediating effect of the MCS use on the relationship between environmental uncertainty and innovation was observed.

This study presents implications to the management literature grounded on the Contingency Theory by pointing out negative effects of environmental uncertainty on MCS use and product and process innovation. This encourages research on other contingency factors that might be predictors of MCS use and innovation.

The findings provide evidence that the analyzed organizational practices (MCS use and innovation) are conceived and implemented to disregard external stimuli, which may bring dysfunctional consequences that need to be monitored.

The study contributes by revealing that environmental uncertainty inhibits the MCS use and does not favor innovation. It was expected that MCS that produce information about the external environment would be valued and would have effects on the strategic planning in these firms.

Supply chain literature highlights that environmental uncertainty (EU) encourages firms to integrate their business strategies and develop strategic flexibility (SF). The authors’ use the dynamic capability view (DCV) to explain why the EU motivates firms to develop SF and integrate business strategies for better supply chain coordination (SCC) and enhanced performance. This study tests the role of SCC as a mediator between (1) business strategy integration (BSI) and operational performance, and (2) SF and operational performance. The study also measures the contingent effect of structural constructs on the relationship between EU, BSI and SF.

Data of 356 firms drawn from the continuous innovation network (CINet) are used in this paper. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to test the direct, indirect and moderation hypotheses.

The paper finds that EU enhances SF and BSI. Further, BSI has a significant positive impact on SCC that drives operational performance. The paper also finds that SF has no direct impact on SCC rather it affects SCC through BSI. SCC mediates the relationship between (1) SF and operational performance, and (2) BSI and operational performance. The organization's structural factors including connectedness and formalization moderate the effect of EU on BSI and SF.

The paper extends debate at the interface of supply chain risk and strategy literature and provides a specific understanding of the “external-internal-external” mechanism in the context of the turbulent business environment. This mechanism helps to understand why and under what structural conditions EU (external) leads to BSI and SF (internal). Further, BSI and SF (internal) help firms to manage SCC (external) effectively that in turn improve operational performance.

While implementing green innovation-driven strategies when facing growing grim environmental problems and the realistic demands of achieving high-quality development is increasingly urgent, changing abruptly is inevitably detrimental to the smooth functioning of social and economic development. Restrained by resources, innovation-driven strategy is a huge strategy for an organization to shift from traditional technological innovation to green innovation. Supports and implementation in green technology investment would necessarily crowd out other business investment and lead to reduction of innovation outputs and mount of financial uncertainty. Under the guidance of harmonious balance, the equilibrium allocation between green research and non-green counterpart is badly needed to be addressed for decision-makers inside and outside the organizations. The differentiated inputs of them would lead to different effects on organizational performance in practice.

The authors first conducted a Hausman test on green research intensity (GRI) and innovation performance, economic performance, social performance, and environmental performance, respectively. Adopting the fixed effects model for estimation seems accurate, if there is no significant heteroscedasticity shown in the BP test. The authors then adopted the least square dummy variable method to handle individual heterogeneity (Xia et al., 2020). After controlling the industry effect and time effect simultaneously, the results were consistent with that of fixed effects model, thereby eliminating the impact of heteroscedasticity.

The authors construct a multi-dimensional performance system—innovation performance, economic performance, social performance, and environmental performance—to probe into the influence of GRI from the resource-based view and allocation theory. Different performance does not benefit equally from increasing the intensity of green research. Performance increase may squeeze out the quantity of total innovation but can compensate quality for knowledge spillovers of green technology. The organization's growth and long-term value may be beneficial from the increase, but not the short-term financial performance. While the relationship between GRI and social performance has the characteristic of reverse U-curve, there has to be some scale of green research to gain considerable and nonlinear environmental performance. Low level of green research may increase pollution until green research has cross over the inflection point. These relationships are intensely moderated by the environmental regulation.

Because of the focus of this study is on the organizational performance of green research, the analysis comes with some limitations that should be addressed in future research. Data were inter-professional, with large enterprises and small businesses innovating green technology at the same time. Though the hypotheses presented here were grounded in existing theoretical rationale, the generality of this study cannot be assumed. Multi-performance of green activities in small- and medium-sized businesses should be further explored. Additionally, concrete index of the corresponding evaluation system constructed here contribute more to practical activities of green innovation. Refinement of synergy performance index is the task for future work. Further, grounded in Chinese context, the authors' results could be compared with other scenario with institutional heterogeneity to provide detailed evidences for institutional theory. Future studies could also move forward to longitudinal case study to delicately investigate the performance differentiation of green research when in different development stage.

First, what and how the authors do is novel as the authors use listed Chinese manufacturing companies to probe into the complex relationship between GRI and multiple performance rather than discussing the performance of green innovation input from a single perspective merely. Second, the authors systematically define the performance as economic performance, environmental performance, social performance and innovation performance in depth, which consider adequately the tangible and intangible value as well as internal and external benefits of green research. And finally, in the context of environmental regulation, the study discusses the differentiation of the increase of green research intensity from the perspective of resource constraints, providing reference for optimizing the resource allocation in green and non-green research and solving the decoupling between earnest social appeal and sluggish or reluctant green behaviors.

Exploration and exploitation have long been documented as prominent approaches to business management and organizational adaptation to external environment. Maintaining balance between these activities is a key to survival and prosperity. However, there is little direct evidence of the effect of such combined usage of both approaches on firm performance in times of crisis, especially within small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The purpose of this paper is to reveal the role of balanced ambidexterity in shaping firm performance during COVID-19 recession.

Based on a survey of 333 Russian SMEs, the authors test the proposed theoretical framework linking innovative ambidexterity to firm performance level and variability taking into account technological uncertainty.

The results show that innovative ambidexterity tends to increase level and decrease variability of performance outcomes, whereas technological uncertainty acts as a positive contingency for this impact.

The results provide an improved understanding of ambidexterity and organizational literatures by clarifying the contingent nature of the ambidexterity–firm performance relationship during COVID-19 recession.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the interaction between internal factors of corporate governance, especially the relationship between equity checks and balances and corporate social responsibility (CSR), and further analyze the mediating of green innovation performance and the moderating role of environmental uncertainty.

This study adopts a sample of Chinese A-share listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2012 to 2020 constructed a regulated mediation effect model, empirically tests the impact of equity checks and balances on CSR and the mediation and mediator roles of green innovation performance and environmental uncertainty.

(1) Equity checks and balances among shareholders have a significant positive impact on CSR. (2) Equity checks and balances have a positive impact on green innovation performance, green innovation performance has a positive impact on CSR and green innovation performance plays a partial mediation effect between equity checks and balances and CSR. (3) Additionally, environmental uncertainty not only moderates the relationship between Green Innovation Performance and CSR but also moderates the direct effect between equity balance and CSR, which verifies the existence of a moderated mediation effect.

The study only considers listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets as the research sample and does not include unlisted and gem enterprises.

The present research can offer some managerial implications about implementing equity checks and balances among shareholders, actively fulfilling CSR and developing new products.

This study complements previous studies on the role of green innovation in corporate governance by exploring the impact of green innovation on equity checks and balances and CSR. And this study explores the dynamic moderating of environmental uncertainty within enterprises and provides another explanation for the mixed results of equity checks and balances, green innovation performance and CSR.

By demonstrating the influence of the ownership structure of A-shares listed companies on CSR, this paper provides a new and comprehensive theoretical framework to examine the interaction between equity checks and balances, green innovation performance, environmental uncertainty and CSR. The results can be used as a reference for corporate governance, improving innovation performance and fulfilling CSR.

Synthesizing from the institutional theory and social network theory, this study investigates factors influencing green innovation performance in new ventures.

The findings show that the dimensions of internal social network; heterogeneous network and tie strength have significant positive effects on proactive environmental strategy based on a sample of 300 new ventures in China.

The results further support the mediating role of proactive environmental strategy on internal organizational networks and green innovation performance of new ventures. The study further investigated the moderating role of the regulatory quality as a dimension of institutional environment in China. The results show that the regulatory quality positively moderates the relationship between proactive environmental strategy and green innovation performance. Policy and managerial implications are further discussed.

Over the past 20 years, green innovation has increasingly attracted the attention of policymakers and scholars. However, most studies have focused on mature ventures, and little attention has been given to how newly established ventures attain green innovation performance.

Economy-wide crises create major challenges for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Existing studies emphasize the crucial role of contrasting behavioral strategies, effectuation and causation in SMEs' adaptation to crisis conditions. Yet, prior literature concentrated predominantly on exploring the impact of effectuation and causation on firm performance rather than survival. The authors present and empirically test a theoretical model explaining how behavioral strategies affect SME survival during an economy-wide crisis under different levels of environmental dynamism.

The authors propose a theoretical framework based on the combination of the effectuation literature and the emerging variance-based perspective on entrepreneurial actions. The theoretical model is then tested using a sample of Russian SMEs during a period of economic adversity and recovery (2015–2019).

The empirical results reveal that causation reduces the probability of firm survival in dynamic environments, while effectuation increases the chance of survival irrespective of the state of the environment. In a nutshell, the study provides evidence that the effectuation logic serves a viable way for SMEs to increase the chances of survival through the economic shock and subsequent recovery period.

For the first time in the literature, the authors demonstrate the role of behavioral strategy (effectual and causal) as a crucial antecedent of SME survival in the short and medium term, particularly during an economy-wide downturn. Furthermore, the study demonstrates the power of variability-based theorizing for explaining and predicting the survival/failure implications of entrepreneurial actions.

This study views Net-Zero as a dynamic capability for decarbonising supply chains (SCs). This study aims to investigate the relationship between three information processing-related capabilities (supply chain visibility [SCV], supply chain integration [SCI] and big data analytics [BDA]) as its antecedents and SC performance as its competitive advantage outcome.

The authors conceptualise a research model grounded in the literature based on dynamic capabilities and information processing views. The study uses a structural equation modelling technique to test the hypotheses’ relationship using the survey data from 311 industrial enterprises.

The results show that SCI and BDA positively and directly influence the Net-Zero capability (NZC). No significant direct impact is found between SCV and NZC. BDA fully mediates SCV and partially mediates SCI in their relationship with NZC. The results also confirm that NZC positively impacts SC performance (SCP).

This study contributes to operations management and SC literature by extending the knowledge about Net-Zero SCs through an empirical investigation. In particular, the study suggests BDA is essential to enhance NZC as SCV alone does not significantly contribute. The study also documents the benefit of NZC on SCP, which can encourage more volunteer actions in the industry.