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Social media is booming in the digital age, and its rich availability provides many opportunities for companies to innovate across borders. In reality, how enterprises use social media to achieve cross-border innovation also faces important challenges such as breaking path dependency.

This paper explores how social media can facilitate cross-border innovation from the perspective of strategic capability, combined with the path dependency theory and attention-based view. Hierarchical regression analysis and bootstrap method are adopted to test the hypotheses based on survey data provided by 173 firms in China.

The findings show a positive relationship between social media strategic capability and cross-border innovation, with path dependency playing a mediating role. In addition, two internal and external contextual factors, namely customer embeddedness and competitive pressure, play moderating roles, with customer embeddedness negatively moderating the negative relationship between social media strategic capability and path dependency and competitive pressure negatively moderating the negative relationship between path dependency and cross-border innovation.

These findings provide not only new insights into social media and cross-border innovation but also theoretical guidance on how companies can effectively use social media in practice.

This study aims to explore how brands’ degree of internationalization influences consumers’ attitudes toward brands’ engagement in cross-border philanthropy by taking legitimacy as a mediating mechanism. The authors further investigate the moderating role of cause acuteness in this effect to identify practical strategies for managers.

The hypotheses are tested via laboratory experiments. In brief, Study 1 investigates the relationship between a brand’s degree of internationalization and perceived legitimacy for corporate cross-border philanthropy and the impact of internationalization on consumers’ brand evaluations of such philanthropy. Study 2 addresses the moderating role of cause acuteness.

The authors discover that companies with a high (vs low) degree of internationalization gained more legitimacy, and thus better brand evaluations, upon engaging in corporate cross-border philanthropy. This effect reverses when the causes are related to sudden disasters rather than ongoing tragedies.

This study provides valuable guidance for marketers seeking to leverage cross-border philanthropy to enhance consumers’ brand attitudes. Specifically, brands’ degree of internationalization should be consistent when performing cross-border philanthropy. Otherwise, brands will struggle to gain legitimacy and will earn less favorable consumer evaluations.

This work enriches the literature on corporate social responsibility in the domain of cross-border philanthropy and elucidates consumers’ attitudes toward this type of philanthropy in a corporate context. This study also meaningfully contributes to research on brands’ internationalization and legitimacy.

This study aims to identify the strategic factors and their effects on the post-cross-border acquisitions (CBA) technological innovation performance of the acquiring firms. It develops a hierarchical model to examine the interrelationship between identified strategic factors such as strategic flexibility, strategic ambidexterity, environmental dynamism, etc.

This study uses modified total interpretive structural modeling qualitative methodology (m-TISM) to develop a hierarchical model and conducts a Matrice d’impacts croisés multiplication appliquée á un classment (MICMAC) analysis to show the interrelationship between strategic factors affects the acquirer’s post-CBA technological innovation performance. It determines the autonomous, dependent, linkage and independent strategic factors. It further uses comparative case analysis to empirically examine the strategic factors in real-time CBA situations.

This study shows the m-TISM-based hierarchical model highlighting the interrelation, level of autonomy, dependence and linkage among strategic factors affecting the acquirer’s post-CBA technological innovation performance. It suggests that strategic factors such as environmental dynamism, R&D competence, innovation capability and technological capability are largely autonomous and have significant driving power, whereas strategic ambidexterity and strategic flexibility are the connecting factors. post-M&A integration is the governing factor for technological innovation performance in CBA.

The strategists and practitioners could evaluate the key strategic factors having significant driving power for strategy formulation and implementing efficient policies. By implementing the m-TISM model acquiring a firm’s post-CBA performance can be enhanced. Future researchers might utilize quantitative methods like regression and structural equation modeling in the CBA context.

This study uses a novel m-TISM and MICMAC approach to identify the driving and dependent factors affecting post-CBA technological innovation performance. It further provides a detailed theoretical and conceptual understanding relating to the philosophy and establishes an interrelation amongst these under-researched strategic factors in CBA.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of the target firm’s high-tech status on the share of ownership decision in cross-border acquisitions (CBAs), which is an under-explored topic in cross-border M&A literature.

The authors used Tobit regression and tested the hypotheses using a sample of 7,011 CBA transactions between 1999 and 2014. Inverse Mills ratio was used to address selection bias, and various robustness tests were performed.

The authors found that acquirers seek greater ownership share when acquiring high-tech firms, and that this relationship is moderated by various firm and national level factors. Specifically, the positive relationship between the high-tech status of a target firm and ownership share acquired is stronger when the firms’ primary operations are highly related or there is high formal institutional distance between the firms’ home countries, but it is weaker when acquirers have more prior M&A experience or there is high cultural and geographic distance between the firms’ home countries.

While the topic of ownership strategy in CBAs is advancing, it is still limited, especially when examining acquisitions of high-tech target firms. The authors contribute to the research on CBAs and ownership strategy by focusing on the high-tech status of the target firm, and using a sample of both private and public target firms from 116 countries.

This study aims to examine the effects of payment methods used in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) conducted by UK companies spanning the period from 2007 to 2019.

The study used the estimated expected returns method to identify abnormal returns during the deal announcement period, applying event study analysis with both univariate and multivariate regression models to detect cumulative abnormal returns around the announcement timeframe.

The results show a short-term positive return increase for acquiring firms, controlling for deal-specific characteristics like target firm location and payment methods. The authors observed a preference for cash financing across domestic and cross-border transactions. Multivariate analysis revealed insignificance between payment methods and deal characteristics like cross-border acquisitions and diversification.

The study’s focus on publicly traded firms in the UK and the absence of a comparative analysis across different regions and markets limits the sample size and may impact the generalizability of findings.

The study proposes three practical implications. Firstly, firms should tailor payment methods to each transaction, aligning with strategic goals to optimize value and mitigate risks. Secondly, decision-makers must prioritize comprehensive due diligence and strategic alignment throughout M&A processes to enhance success and maximize synergies. Finally, analysing broader strategic contexts and regulatory landscapes when structuring transactions enables goal attainment, such as market expansion or value creation.

The study’s findings can promote transparency and accountability among corporate decision-makers in M&A transactions. Stakeholders can advocate for transparent decision-making processes, enhancing trust in corporate governance.

This study provides valuable insights into the impact of payment methods on shareholder value in M&A transactions involving UK companies, informing strategic decision-making and contributing to the understanding of corporate finance dynamics.

Emerging market multinationals often face a variety of legitimacy challenges as they engage in cross-border acquisitions in developed countries, which requires an assortment of legitimacy strategies best aligned with the legitimacy challenges they face. This study advocates for a configurational perspective that examines how different configurations of legitimacy challenges, organizational characteristics, and legitimacy strategies influence the likelihood of deal completion in cross-border acquisitions by emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs).

Based on 328 cross-border acquisition cases by Chinese firms, this study adopts the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to examine the combined effects of institutional distance, political affinity, equity sought, architecture design, sensitive·industry and state-owned and enterprise (SOE) on cross-border acquisition completion.

This study identifies six pathways with different configurations for deal completion, suggesting that a deal's overall legitimacy falls at the intersection of the country-level institution and the firm-level characters and strategy evaluations.

This study investigates how nested legitimacy influences cross-border acquisition completion by offering a holistic and configurational understanding of the deal completion of cross-border acquisitions by EMNEs and yields useful insights for future research on cross-border acquisition completion and legitimacy.

Based on organizational learning theory, this study aims to investigate the performance consequences and potential contextual factors of outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) persistence.

A regression analysis was conducted on a sample of 19,950 OFDI events of 1,425 A-share listed Chinese enterprises from 2008 to 2022. The estimator used was ordinary least squares with residual analysis, which allowed us to obtain robust and reliable results.

The results indicated that persistence in both greenfield investments and cross-border M&As had a significant and positive impact on firm performance, and such relationship was positively moderated by organizational absorptive capacity.

This study only tested the economic performance of OFDI persistence rather than innovation and social performance. Exploring the effects of OFDI persistence on other aspects may also add new insights to the persistence literature. Besides absorptive capacity, it might be useful to conduct a more comprehensive consideration of moderators in the future.

This paper contributes to the research on the temporal dimension of internationalization by introducing the concept of OFDI persistence. Additionally, we used the OFDI spell to capture the notion of OFDI persistence, which is an endeavor to overcome the shortcomings of the traditional indicator. Finally, this paper also contributes to the organizational learning perspective by applying it to analyze persistent OFDI operations.

The purpose of this study is to explore the antecedents of digital technology adoption by firms, specifically the role of strategic leader social ties such as board networks and executive academic connections in promoting digital transformation. Moreover, the authors also aim to examine the moderating effect of exploratory innovation strategy on the relationship between board networks, academic connections and digital transformation.

This study uses the panel data of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2019. Through text analysis of data such as company annual report, media interaction, asset annotation and International Patent Classification, the authors measure degrees of digital transformation from four dimensions: management attention, media discussion, digital input and digital output. Further, this study employs social network analysis and instrumental variable method to examine the causal relationship between strategic leader social ties and digital transformation.

The study finds that an expansive board network can significantly promote the digital transformation process of companies, in which academic connection of senior executives plays a positive synergistic role with board network. Additionally, firms with exploratory innovation strategies are more likely to utilize board networks to accelerate their digital transformation process.

One limitation of this study is the use of Chinese A-share listed companies as the sample, which may limit the generalizability of the findings to other contexts. Additionally, the study focuses only on two types of strategic leader social ties and does not consider other potential antecedents of digital transformation.

This research provides insights for governments to promote digital economy and industrial upgrading. Policymakers can facilitate industrial digital transformation by creating a supportive policy environment that encourages university–industry collaboration. By fostering academic entrepreneurship and cross-border knowledge transfer, governments can create a thriving ecosystem for digital innovation, thereby enhancing industrial competitiveness and economic growth.

This study helps to improve social welfare. By reducing production costs and enhancing customer experience, digital transformation increases economic surplus for both consumers and manufacturers, enabling society as a whole to benefit from the digital dividend. By promoting collaboration across borders and embracing a digital-friendly culture, businesses and governments can achieve long-term success in the digital age and contribute to building more prosperous and sustainable societies.

This research makes several contributions to the literature on digital transformation and leadership. Firstly, this paper empirically examines the role of board network and executive academic connection in promoting the adoption of digital technology, filling the research gap of leadership antecedents of digital transformation. Secondly, the authors put forward a relatively comprehensive measure for digital transformation, which could help to advance the literature on digital transformation and provide a more nuanced perspective on this topic. Finally, the paper enriches the theoretical understanding of board network and executive academic connection from the perspective of social capital theory and organizational learning theory.

The authors investigate the effects of Chinese acquirer’s chief executive officer (CEO) risk preference on mergers and acquisitions (M&A) payment method and the moderating roles played by acquirer’s ownership, industry relatedness and whether the M&A is cross-border.

Using 4,624 worldwide M&A deals conducted by Chinese firms from 2009 to 2021, the authors conduct multiple linear regression and ordered probit regression. And comprehensive indexes constructed based on the observed features of acquirer’s CEOs are used to be the proxy for CEO risk preference.

The results show that the higher-level Chinese acquirer’s CEO risk preference is overall positively associated with using more stock in payment. Moreover, the above relationship is strengthened if the ownership of the acquirer is state-owned.

The authors highlight the importance of the non-economic factors and demonstrate a relationship between the Chinese acquirer’s CEO risk preference and the M&A payment method, providing support for and enriching the upper echelons theory (UET). Moreover, the unique risk priorities of Chinese acquirers’ CEOs are revealed.

This study aims to answer the question of how incumbent firms cultivate dynamic capabilities through knowledge management so that they can efficiently adapt to the changing external environment.

This study adopts a case study approach and collects data through interviews and secondary public information on the lighting industry and two lighting firms in Lin'an, China. It qualitatively examines the challenges and strategic recommendations for incumbent firms in the context of discontinuous technological change from a knowledge management perspective.

Incumbent firms often face a variety of challenges when responding to discontinuous technological change. These challenges include identifying opportunities, overcoming path dependence and dealing with employee resistance to change. To overcome these difficulties, three strategies have been proposed to enhance the dynamic capabilities of incumbent firms through knowledge management: cross-border search helps firms improve their knowledge acquisition capabilities and better understand their environment to identify opportunities; building strategic leadership overcomes path dependence and improves knowledge integration capabilities; organizational learning deepens employees’ understanding of change and enhances organizational knowledge application capabilities.

Previous research attributes a firm's ability to cope with discontinuous technological change solely to its general resources, which weakens the importance of knowledge management in this context. This study emphasizes the importance of knowledge as a crucial strategic resource in developing the essential dynamic capabilities for incumbent firms to cope with discontinuous technological change.

This study provides an in-depth analysis of incumbent firms' coping strategies in the new context of discontinuous technological change and further promotes cross-disciplinary research.

This study provides an in-depth analysis of coping strategies in the new context of discontinuous technological change, furthermore theoretically advancing the interdisciplinary research of firm transformation and knowledge management. Meanwhile, it is crucial to identify the preconditions for cultivating dynamic capabilities, especially from a knowledge-based view, which enhances the depth of knowledge management research.