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The purpose of this paper is to investigate three issues: how does an innovative search (local search and boundary-spanning search) impact firm innovation performance of latecomers; how does capability reconfiguration (capability evolution and capability substitution) mediates the relationship between innovative search and firm innovation performance; and how does the technological leapfrogging process (initial stage, following stage, synchronization stage and leading stage) moderate the relationship between capability reconfiguration and firm innovation performance.

A “resource-capability-performance” theoretical framework was developed to explore the relationships between local/boundary-spanning search, capability reconfiguration and firm innovation performance. The data were collected by sending out surveys to managers and employees in various industries in mainland China. These hypotheses were tested using structural equation models and hierarchical regressions.

The results showed that: innovative search has a direct causal relationship to capability reconfiguration; local search and boundary-spanning search are conducive to improve the innovation performance of latecomers; the impact of local search and boundary-spanning search on innovation performance is realized through the completion of mediating role of capability reconfiguration; there are differences in the path of local search and boundary-spanning search affecting the capability reconfiguration of enterprise innovation performance; and the relationship between innovative search, capability reconfiguration and enterprise innovation performance evolves with the enterprise in different stages of technological leapfrogging.

This study explores the relationship and the path of innovative search to firm innovation performance and analyzes the path difference between local search and boundary-spinning search, which enriches the research of organizational search and enterprise innovation. This paper reveals the whole path of innovative search affecting innovation performance, discusses the important role of capability reconfiguration and makes incremental contributions to dynamic capability theory. It studies the evolution of innovative search on innovation performance under the background of technological leapfrogging, which provides a new perspective for the study of organizational search and capability-based theory.

Organisations must build resilience to be able to deal with disruptions or non-routine events in their supply chains. While learning is implicit in definitions of supply chain resilience (SCRes), there is little understanding of how exactly organisations can adapt their routines to build resilience. The purpose of this study is to address this gap.

This paper is an in-depth qualitative case study based on 28 interviews across five companies, exploring learning to build SCRes.

This study uncovers six learning mechanisms and their antecedents that foster SCRes. The learning mechanisms identified suggest that through knowledge creation within an organisation and knowledge transfer across the supply chain and broader network of stakeholders, operating routines are built and/or adapted both intentionally and unintentionally during three stages of a supply chain disruption: preparation, response and recovery.

This study shows how the impact of a supply chain disruption may be reduced by intentional and unintentional learning in all three disruption phases. By being aware of the antecedents of unintentional learning, organisations can more consciously adapt routines. Furthermore, findings highlight the potential value of additional attention to knowledge transfer, particularly in relation to collaborative and vicarious learning across the supply chain and broader network of stakeholders not only in preparation for, but also in response to and recovery from disruptions.

This study contributes novel insights about how learning leads both directly and indirectly to the evolution of operating routines that help an organisation and its supply chains to deal with disruptions. Results detail six specific learning mechanisms for knowledge creation and knowledge transfer and their antecedents for building SCRes. In doing so, this study provides new fine-grained theoretical insights about how SCRes can be improved through all three phases of a disruption. Propositions are developed for theory development.

It should be noted that the (inland waterway transport) IWT in Ukraine currently is in its infancy in comparison with other land based transport means (rail and road) and with other countries that possess navigable rivers. This paper is an extension of the research initiated by Grushevska and Notteboom (2015) where the concepts of intermediacy and centrality were introduced in order to assess the role of Ukraine in the global and regional transport networks. The list of key obstacles for Ukraine’s intermediacy function included IWT related barriers such as: (i) deficient inland waterway infrastructure, (ii) high IWT costs (fees for bridges, locks etc.) and (iii) pilotage charges. To date the transportation to/from ports is mainly fulfilled by road or by rail based multimodal transport solutions. We present the unutilized potential of Ukrainian IWT that needs to be efficiently exploited for the benefit of the national economy and national transport system. This study intends to enrich the limited academic research on IWT systems in a transition stage, as exemplified by the case of Ukraine.

This study aims to understand and explain how institutional change occurs at the level of value co-creation practices in service ecosystems. Despite the centrality of collective practices to the service ecosystems perspective, theoretically grounded explanations of how practices change and become institutionalized remain underdeveloped. Applying the theory of routine dynamics, this paper addresses two questions as follows: what does the institutional change mean at the level of value co-creation practices and what processes underlie these changes?

The study develops a conceptual framework that characterizes value co-creation practices as routines involving three aspects, namely, ostensive, performative and artifactual. As a key element in institutional change, the interplay between these informs an account of institutional change processes in service ecosystems.

The proposed conceptual framework specifies the conditions for institutional change in terms of value co-creation routines. First, any such change is seen to be grounded in alignment between changing institutional rules and the ostensive, performative and artifactual aspects of routines. Second, this alignment is seen to emerge through a dialectics of planned and practice-based activities during institutional change. An empirical research agenda is proposed for the analysis of institutional change processes in different service ecosystems.

This conceptual framework extends existing accounts of how service ecosystems change through the contributions of multiple actors at the level of value co-creation practices.

A port plays a crucial role in total logistics chain by conducting its function as a gateway for inbound (import) and outbound (export) cargo operations. The port has traditionally been regarded as a connecting place where handles ships on one side and cargoes on the other side. These interactive functions to be carried out by the port imply that a port organization should be established, maintained and altered in a way that generates a value-adding activity to the whole logistics chain. This paper aims to suggest an alternative direction for a port organization in context of changing global logistics environment so as to be better prepared for the ever-changing business horizon. Such an attempt will provide global logistics and port management with a strategic insight into innovative and responsive port organizational strategies.

Drawing on the theoretical concept of organisational fit, this paper questions the relevance of employees' participation in the link between continuous improvement (CI) and operational performance. The literature has long emphasised that to be successful, CI implementation needs to rely on employees' involvement as soon as its inception. This paper argues that this approach is not generalisable.

Based on a database of 330 firms across 15 countries, regression analyses were used to hypothesise that the fit between CI and employee participation is positively associated with operational performance, and that the fit between CI and centralisation of authority is negatively associated with operational performance. The authors also ran a robustness check with polynomial regression analyses and the response surface methodology.

CI–employee participation fit is positively associated with operational performance, suggesting that there is less need for employees to be involved when a firm has scarcely developed CI. Employee participation becomes gradually more relevant as CI progresses. Moreover, the results demonstrate that the CI–centralisation of authority fit is negatively associated with operational performance, suggesting that a top-down management approach with centralised authority is preferable when CI is low, whereas a bottom-up management approach is helpful when a firm has extensively developed CI.

This research draws on the concept of organisational fit to explore the relationships between internal practices in the operations management literature. The authors suggest that managers should dynamically balance the practices of employee participation and centralisation of authority as CI improves. This study highlights that CI has different evolutionary levels that require different managerial approaches and practices.

The intra-organisational relationships of through-life support services providers are complex, especially given the multifaceted nature of the provision required. For example, capabilities within the UK highways maintenance arena must support engineering design, routine maintenance and the on-going management of the network. While collaboration in construction projects has formed a major research focus in recent years, there is a paucity of work examining collaboration in-flight.

Through a micro-practices approach, two contracts delivering highway infrastructure maintenance and renewal services are examined to explore the intra-organisational relationships that determine the quality of service delivered.

Despite the rhetoric of collaboration and integrated working that pervades the contemporary project discourse, there was a clear focus on addressing immediate technical and commercial concerns, rather than on creating the conditions for integrated working to flourish. On the occasions where the collaborative environment was prioritised, a more integrated service was delivered.

In contrast to other accounts of the ways collaborative working shapes performance, this research reveals an acute need for a sustained collaborative effort; as soon as “collaborative working” was normalised, the level of integration and seamlessness of service was diminished. This questions normative notions of what defines collaborative working in projects and suggests a need for re-framing it as an on-going accomplishment of actors involved. Such a perspective resonates with notions of “organizational becoming”, particularly in that attempts to foster collaboration are themselves constitutive of the unfolding and shifting nature of intra-organisational relationships that emerge in complex contractual arrangements.