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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the individual effects of boundary-spanning search from suppliers (supplier-side search (SS)). It is proposed that SS contributes to innovation ambidexterity (IA) and then business performance (BP). Further, this paper includes buyer–supplier relationships (BSRs) and competitive intensity (CI) as moderators to clarify boundary conditions.

An ordinary least squares regression was employed to test hypotheses, based on 184 sets of data from Hong Kong manufacturing firms. The SPSS version of PROCESS was utilized.

The results show that IA partially mediates the relationship between SS and BP. Contingently, the direct effect is negatively moderated by BSRs and CI.

This paper confirms the partial mediating effect of IA on the relationship between SS and BP. Additional mediators, such as organizational innovation and marketing innovation, can be examined in the future.

This paper contributes to practice by suggesting that suppliers are a rewarding single source for firms to undertake boundary-spanning search. IA plays a significant role in reinforcing the effects of SS on BP and should be implemented with sustaining efforts. BSRs and CI can be detrimental and should be responded to cautiously.

This paper highlights the individual effects of SS on BP. Furthermore, the underlying process and boundary conditions are analyzed. The exploitation-exploration framework is applied throughout the entire study.

Cloud Manufacturing (CM) is the manufacturing version of Cloud Computing and aims to increase flexibility in the provision of manufacturing services. On-demand manufacturing services can be requested by users to the cloud and this enables the concept of Manufacturing-as-a-Service (MaaS). Given the considerable number of prototypes and proofs of concept addressed in literature, this work seeks real CM platforms to study them from a business perspective, in order to discover what MaaS concretely means today and how these platforms are operating.

Since the number of real applications of this paradigm is very limited (if the authors exclude prototypes), the research approach is qualitative. The paper presents a multiple-case analysis of 6 different platforms operating in the manufacturing field today. It is based on empirical data and inductively researches differences among them (e.g. stakeholders, operational flows, capabilities offered and scalability level).

MaaS has come true in some contexts, and today it is following two different deployment models: open or closed to the provider side. The open architecture is inspired by a truly open platform which allows any company to be part of the pool of service providers, while the closed architecture is limited to a single service provider of the manufacturing services, as it happens in most cloud computing services.

The research shoots a picture of what MaaS offers today in term of capabilities, what are the deployment models and finally suggests a framework to assess different levels of development of MaaS platforms.

This study aims to explore a new restaurant category’s development from birth to maturity, thereby explaining the rationale for category innovation strategies.

The authors conducted a qualitative case study analysis of the New Chinese-style Fusion Restaurant category’s development from birth to maturity. Thematic analysis was conducted on data collected from semi-structured interviews and textual information.

A new restaurant category’s maturation is determined by the formation of society’s shared knowledge about the category’s crucial attributes, which is an outcome of market participants’ category-related social practices. The authors develop a novel, four-stage framework for the socialized construction of this shared knowledge: a knowledge creation (KC), knowledge diffusion (KD), knowledge integration (KI) and knowledge structuralization (KS). This knowledge evolution along this KC–KD–KI–KS sequence can holistically describe the category maturation process. This framework can help understand the rationale for a restaurant category’s maturation by analyzing the interrelationships among market participants’ social practices, knowledge-related activities and market development.

This study explains how market participants’ knowledge-related activities facilitate a new restaurant category’s maturation. This can help restaurant managers cope with increasingly homogeneous competition by applying a category-innovation strategy.

This study extends product categorization research on restaurants by articulating a product category’s maturation process from a knowledge perspective.

Collection development in a post-subject librarian age needs to be done differently; utilising data, metadata, analytical tools and automation more fully may offer new possibilities. The purpose of this paper is to report and evaluate an exploratory project into new techniques for collection development at the University of Manchester Library.

The project employed a cross-team approach where a relatively large number of staff tried some innovative and experimental approaches to individual aspects of a large and complex task in a large, research-intensive university library. The overriding aim was to exploit data to support decision making and to push automation as far as possible.

The quality of (meta)data remains a huge hindrance to data-driven approaches. A proper understanding of usage data is an urgent but intractable issue. Human input and relationships are still important. Data are nothing without analysis, and many librarians currently lack the data fluency to work confidently in a world of dynamic content curation.

Librarians need both to re-skill and to change their self-identification and the philosophy that underlies it if they are to achieve confident, data fluency.

The University of Manchester Library was one of the first libraries in the UK to make a thoroughgoing structural change from subject-based to functional teams. This paper will be of value to other libraries moving in this direction, and to those looking to make more use of data-driven decision making in collections management.

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 study is based on knowledge-based view to examine the relationships among buyer–supplier interaction, ambidextrous innovation and business performance. It includes competitive intensity and dysfunctional competition to clarify boundary conditions.

The ordinary least squares regression was conducted to test hypotheses. The survey data were collected from 182 Hong Kong manufacturing firms.

Buyer–supplier interaction facilitates ambidextrous innovation, namely exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation. In turn, exploitative innovation enhances business performance, whereas exploratory innovation has no influence on business performance. Competitive intensity strengthens while dysfunctional competition weakens the impact of buyer–supplier interaction on ambidextrous innovation.

This study is based on the knowing processes of knowledge-based view. It contends that business performance is derived from ambidextrous innovation, which depends on the utilization of acquired supplier knowledge and the influence of external competitive environment. The test of relationships is constrained by the single-source and cross-sectional data.

Firms should engage in buyer–supplier interaction to acquire and utilize supplier knowledge. Meanwhile, they should monitor competitive environment to seize opportunities and avoid threats.

This study builds a holistic framework for buyer–supplier interaction, which reconciles the mixed arguments by distinguishing its effects on ambidextrous innovation, and by clarifying boundary conditions in terms of competitive intensity and dysfunctional competition.

Until recently, only large companies could afford to develop and maintain computer systems to automate their trading processes. These ad hoc solutions are expensive and preclude widespread applications because they often address specific issues. This paper addresses some of these issues by proposing a business‐to‐business (b2b) electronic trading framework known as virtual electronic trading (VET).

With personal computers and the internet, it is now possible to realize a generic electronic infrastructure for virtual trading. A modular approach has been adopted in the development of VET to ensure a high degree of flexibility, scalability, maintainability and upgradeability. Overall, the design goal is to make sure that the system performs effectively and reliably.

A survey of existing b2b electronic trading systems has been conducted. Key attributes of these systems and areas of improvements are highlighted. These form the basis of VET.

The VET framework forms the basis for further research. Two examples are highlighted, namely: application of intelligent agents to perform the of market‐maker task; and development into a mobile commerce system when mobile technology and infrastructure can support such services.

An important contribution of our work is that the VET system provides a generic framework for a variety of business models and practices. Owing to the modular design, it can be easily customized to suit different (specialized) trading communities.

It is a systematic approach in developing a b2b e‐trading system that addresses users' needs by applying the most up‐to‐date computing and internetworking technology.

Since firms are often puzzled with the adoption of proper governing mechanism to achieve their environmental benefits, this research examines how green supplier integration (GSI) affects environmental performance via environmental innovation and the moderating role of ambidextrous governance.

The authors tested the hypotheses by adopting two-waved survey data from 206 Chinese manufacturers and the hierarchical regression analysis.

The results revealed that GSI is positively linked with both incremental and radical environmental innovation, which further enhance environmental performance. Moreover, balanced ambidexterity enhanced the link between GSI and incremental environmental innovation, while combined ambidexterity alleviated the link between GSI and radical environmental innovation.

Firms should integrate suppliers into their activities of dealing with environmental issues to realize environmental benefits through facilitating environmental innovation. Moreover, the choice of different dimensions of ambidextrous governance can affect the environmental benefits of GSI.

This research enriches the authors’ understanding of how to achieve environmental benefits by engaging in GSI, and it provides a novel and insightful approach for better managing GSI from the perspective of ambidextrous governance.

The purpose of this study is to examine how cloud computing assimilation reduces supply chain financing (SCF) risks of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This study also investigated the mediating roles of internal and external supply chain integration between cloud computing assimilation and the SCF risks of SMEs, as well as the moderating role of environmental competitiveness.

Data was collected from surveys of SMEs located in China. Multiple regression analysis was used to validate the proposed theoretical model and research hypotheses.

The findings show that cloud computing assimilation could reduce the SCF risks of SMEs directly. The results also indicate that both internal and external supply chain integration mediate the relationship between cloud computing assimilation and SCF risks. Furthermore, environmental competitiveness inhibits the effects of cloud computing assimilation on SCF risks.

To our best knowledge, this is the preliminary study to explore the role of cloud computing assimilation in reducing the SCF risks of SMEs. Also, this study attempted to investigate the process by which cloud computing assimilation affects the SCF risks of SMEs.

Considerable amount of purchases in business-to-business (B2B) markets make through the tendering process. As technology keeps driving B2B procurement, both the supplier/contractor and buyer firms have settled down in their respective roles in the electronic-tendering environment. Researchers have ignored the supplier-side e-tender-driven marketing process that might lead to substantively successful financial performance. The purpose of this study is to improve the performance of an e-tender-driven marketing process of an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) incorporating the stakeholder's inputs.

Discrete event simulation modelling (DESM) has been used as a methodology to model, analyse and improve the process with the involvement of stakeholders at every stage of the study. Different scenarios are analysed to identify the near-optimal scenario based on agreed-upon key performance indicators.

Scenario that incorporated man-power sharing and eliminating avoidable activities gives the near-optimal solution for implementation.

This study highlights that better insights can be gained by adopting the process-oriented view of the marketing–operations interface. Embracing a stakeholder-based consultative approach gives research a more practical outlook and reduces the gap between theory and practice. Suggestions for further research are provided.

B2B organizations, where lines between marketing and operations are blurred, can improve their marketing processes by implementing operations research tools.

This study provides an attempt to improve the performance of a supplier-side e-tender-driven marketing process of an OEM using the DESM methodology incorporating stakeholder's inputs.