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This study aims to theoretically hypothesize and empirically examine the impact of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on firms' innovation performance as well as the contingency conditions of this relationship.

This study collects and combines secondary longitudinal data from multiple sources to test for a direct impact of EPU on firms' innovation performance. It further examines the moderating effects of firms' operational and marketing capabilities. A series of robustness checks are performed to ensure the consistency of the findings.

In contrast to the common belief that EPU reduces the innovativeness of firms, the authors find an inverted-U relationship between EPU and innovation performance, indicating that a moderate level of EPU actually promotes innovation. Further analysis suggests that firms' operational and marketing capabilities make the inverted-U relationship steeper, further enhancing firms' innovation performance at a moderate level of EPU.

This study adds to the emerging literature that investigates the operational implications of EPU, which enhances our understanding of the potential bright side of EPU and broadens the scope of operational risk management.

Employee learning is imperative in the dynamic service environment; yet, much is still unknown about its strategic importance. The purpose of this paper is to extend the understanding of learning by focusing on the strategic importance of learning goal orientation (LGO) in customer-contact employees in service industries characterized with high customer contact.

This paper adopts the multi-method approach by conducting two studies in the high-contact service sector. Study 1 is a large-scale, multiple-respondent survey that investigates the associations between LGO and its antecedents and performance outcomes. To supplement study 1, study 2 embraces case studies that identify the managerial supportive practices and outcomes of customer-contact employees’ learning behaviors.

The results of study 1 demonstrate that employees’ affective organizational commitment does not yield higher-quality services unless the service employees are learning oriented. The findings of study 1 also indicate that management commitment to service quality has positive effects on both LGO and affective organizational commitment. In study 2, the results reveal the practical methods that managers can employ to effectively promote such activities.

This research offers novel insights into research on learning by showing the strategic importance of LGO to enhancing high-contact service firms’ performance and the practical means of fostering LGO in customer-contact employees.

The Chinese Government encourages firms to diffuse their operational-level environmental management (EM) into their organization’s mission and strategy to develop strategic EM to promote sustainable development. The purpose of this paper is to utilize two concepts of institutional theory (isomorphic pressures and decoupling behavior) to assess how different institutional forces arising from Chinese macro-level factors (market pressure, business turbulence, legal voids, carbon policy, structural-level governmental interference and guanxi with government) influence the efficacy of strategic EM.

In partnership with a major consulting firm in China, the authors collect multi-informant survey data from 183 manufacturing firms drawn from a variety of industries for testing the hypotheses posited.

The efficacy of strategic EM in the sampled firms is confirmed by the positive association with environmental performance. The authors also find that the efficacy of strategic EM is weakened by market pressure, business turbulence and legal voids, whereas it is strengthened by structural-level governmental interference. However, carbon policy and guanxi with government do not impact it significantly.

To extend the findings on the environmental importance of strategic EM, future research can develop and validate a management framework to guide the adoption of strategic EM. With regard to the four valid macro-level factors influencing the efficacy of strategic EM, future research can identify the reasons (e.g. conflict with corporate functions) behind them to aid manufacturers to mitigate their negative influence or enhance the positive influence on strategic EM.

China’s Government and its manufacturers (or those sharing a similar institutional environment) can expand the scope of their EM efforts from operational-level EM practices to strategic EM. The findings on the valid macro-level factors have led to practical suggestions for government bodies and manufacturers to improve the efficacy of strategic EM adoption. Overall, the implications help achieve the higher levels of firm-level environmental performance and alleviate the global pollution problem.

A particular value of this work lies in the demonstration of combining institutional theory (organization decoupling, isomorphic pressures) with practical consideration such as guanxi with government in the particular institutional environment of China to help address an important and context-related problem, environmental performance.

With the development of social media and Internet technology, many firms have started to use various crowdsourcing innovation platforms to operate their open innovation business modes. The purpose of this study is to explore how such platforms' assurance mechanisms enhance the effectiveness of crowdsourcing innovations and how to apply assurance mechanisms to handle different innovation tasks, thereby motivating more seekers to use crowdsourcing innovations.

The authors use a Python-based technology to collect the research data comprising 2,302 solvers and 8,390 trade records from zbj.com and apply statistical methods to test the postulated hypotheses.

The effectiveness of assurance mechanism is confirmed by its positive relationship with solver's behaviour, thereby improving seeker's retention behaviour. However, task complexity, task novelty and task professionalization have different moderating effects on the relationships among assurance mechanism, solver's (innovator's) behaviour and seeker's behaviour.

This study enriches the literature on crowdsourcing innovations and extends the application of uncertainty reduction theory to innovation research. It also makes the theoretical contribution that the assurance mechanism adopted by the platform has different impacts on user's behaviour depending on the task characteristics.

The findings provide guidance to the platform operator on how to design the assurance mechanism to match the innovation task and innovator's behaviour to reduce seeker's uncertainty, thereby facilitating the seeker's decision-making.

A particular value of this study lies in exploring the impact of the platform assurance mechanism of social media-based crowdsourcing innovations on innovator's behaviour, which may further improve seeker's behaviour, based on uncertainty reduction theory.

This paper aims to explore the practice of quality management framework as a strategic tool for public management.

The paper starts with a basic process‐based model; it then enhances the model with the quality management principles for continuous improvement. With identification of concerned factors from the literature, it examines their usefulness in the quality management system.

An empirical analysis on the framework identifies eight factors: factual approach to decision making, use of quality tools, customer focus, leadership, involvement of people, process approach, mutually beneficial supplier partnership and internal results. The framework shows that leadership and customer focus are much more important than previously anticipated for successful implementation of quality management system.

Managers in public organizations must realize that all high performance organizations, whether private or public, are by principle customer‐driven. In addition, it is imperative for them to enhance their leadership as it is essential for effective quality improvement.

While the effect of adopting a quality management system on organizational performance has been well documented, the underlying mechanism about how the system works has yet to be empirically identified. This paper contributes to the literature by addressing such a gap and presenting a causal model for quality management principles.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent of implementing management system standards among ISO (and other) certified companies in the Pearl River Delta and its effect on the perceived benefits.

A cross‐sectional survey of certified companies was carried out using a self‐administrated questionnaire. A total of 157 companies participated in the study.

It was found that the majority of the responding companies implement more than one standardized management system, mostly adopting the quality management, environmental management, and occupational health and safety management systems (i.e. ISO9001, ISO14001, and OHSAS18001). Results show that companies certified to ISO9001 and ISO14001 gain more benefits than the others.

The study shows that companies implementing multiple management systems can have better corporate performance, product quality, and marketing edges than the others. The results indicate that different combinations of management systems give rise to different level of performance.

There is a lack of empirical proof that more benefits will be gained when multiple management system standards are adopted. The paper addresses this short‐coming and provides evidence that acquiring more system certifications will result in greater perceived benefits.

The purpose of this paper is to study the implementation of ISO 9001:2000 in the public sector, using data obtained from a small‐scale and service‐oriented economy – i.e. Macao SAR, the People's Republic of China.

Based on a literature review on ISO 9001 development, a measurement instrument was established using the management principles of ISO 9001:2000 and hypotheses were developed to test the applicability and effectiveness of ISO 9001:2000. The instrument and hypotheses were tested using responses from managers and executives in public organizations.

The results show that ISO 9001:2000 is useful in enhancing organizational performance in public organizations.

Mangers in public organizations must realize that simply adopting and maintaining the ISO 9001:2000 certificate is not enough. More resources and commitment are needed to achieve better organizational performance.

The paper contributes to the literature by developing a measurement instrument using the quality management principles of ISO 9001:2000 and offering new empirical evidence on the applicability and effectiveness of ISO 9001:2000 in the public sector.

The purpose of this paper is to explore conceptually and examine empirically the impact of market competitiveness on employee satisfaction, service quality, and customer satisfaction in high‐contact service industries.

An empirical study was conducted in high‐contact service shops in Hong Kong. Dyadic data were collected from 210 high‐contact service shops and were analysed using structural equation modelling.

The results confirm that market competitiveness has a direct impact on service quality, not employee satisfaction. The findings also reveal that service quality affects customer satisfaction, which in turn leads to employee satisfaction, forming a “quality‐customer satisfaction‐employee satisfaction cycle”.

The results recommend that firms take a long‐term perspective towards investment in understanding the competitiveness of the market. Such an understanding helps managers identify and implement appropriate quality‐improvement activities, such as establishing quality standards, providing appropriate job description to service employees, and adopting a customer‐oriented strategy, leading to enhanced customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction in a cyclic manner.

This study contributes to a detailed understanding of how service firms should strategically respond to market competitiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the patterns with which ISO 9000:2000 was implemented in service organizations, and to examine the performance outcomes and contextual factors which are associated with different ISO 9000:2000 implementation patterns.

Based on a literature review of quality management practice, a questionnaire was developed based on quality management principles of ISO 9000:2000 and three propositions. The propositions were tested using responses from managers or executives in 45 service organizations.

Cluster analysis shows that there are two markedly different ISO 9000:2000 implementation patterns among sample organizations. The analysis results also indicate that organizations with different ISO 9000:2000 implementation patterns performed differently in the two outcomes analysed.

Managers in service organizations must realize that ISO 9000:2000 is capable of generating a competitive advantage only if top management is fully committed to the program implementation from a strategic perspective.

The paper contributes to the literature by offering new insights on the implementation patterns of ISO 9000:2000 in service organizations and their relationships with performance outcomes and contextual factors.

In globalized economy, product life cycle is reducing continuously, customers demands are changing fast, and lead time for response is decreasing. In such scenario, ability of firms to quickly respond to changes in their external environment is a primary determinant of firm’s performance. This can be only possible when whole of the supply chain (SC) is responsive. For this, firms have to manage internal operations effectively to enable SC, responsive for market requirements. The purpose of this paper is to identify different factors for responsive SC.

Based on literature review, total 17 critical factors for the responsive SC have been identified. Some of these factors are process oriented and some are result oriented. To develop structural relationship among these factors from strategic perspective, interpretive structural modeling (ISM) approach has been applied.

It is observed that top management commitment, strategy development, resource development, use of technology, risk and reward sharing are major drivers for responsive SC. By managing these enablers, organizations can also benefit in terms of inventory management, lead time reduction and agility.

ISM has got some limitations. Major limitation is that the relationships developed are subjective and there are chances of biasing. Therefore findings need to be validated with case studies and empirical findings.

Top management should strive for effective use of resources and technology to improve SC capabilities to meet market changes.

This study develops structural relationships between different factors and it will help organizations in taking initiatives for improving responsiveness.