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The purpose of this study is to examine whether and how independent director-CEO friendliness has an impact on the enterprise's sustainable growth capability and further explore how corporate social responsibility (CSR) and executive compensation affect the relationship in the Chinese context.

Using a sample of Chinese-listed companies from 2010 to 2020, the study adopts fixed effects models to empirically analyze the effect of independent director-CEO friendliness on the enterprise's sustainable growth capability and the roles of CSR and executive compensation.

This study finds that independent director-CEO friendliness is significantly positively correlated with the sustainable growth capability of an enterprise, and this effect is enhanced with the improvement of the degree of CSR fulfillment. What is more, the positive relationship between independent director-CEO friendliness and the enterprise's sustainable growth capability becomes stronger with higher executive compensation.

Given that the existing research on sustainable growth capability mainly focused on the macroeconomic field, this study is of great theoretical significance in exploring the relationship between independent director-CEO friendliness and the enterprise's sustainable growth capability from the micro-level, contributing to the research on the enterprise's sustainable growth capability. In addition, this study considers the boundary conditions of CSR and executive compensation from internal and external perspectives, respectively, as it is innovative to elucidate organizational development from the perspective of internal and external balance.

Influenced by factors such as fluctuations in market supply and demand and the rapid development of new technologies, manufacturing companies are facing greater challenges to transform and upgrade. The existing relevant studies about sustainable innovation capabilities mostly focus on classification of innovation or from a static resource-based view and less on quantitative measurement from a dynamic perspective and inter-organizational relationships. This paper takes a dynamic capabilities and social capital theory, explore the concept and dimensions of sustainable innovation capabilities and then makes development of a new scale.

This paper uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methodologies to develop a measure of sustainable innovation capabilities in two studies. Grounded theory methodology is used to explore the concept definition and dimensions of sustainable innovation capabilities. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis are conducted to refine and validate the factor structure, and then the authors developed the sustainable innovation capabilities scale.

The results show that sustainable innovation capabilities composed of ideation capabilities, opportunity capture capabilities, agile learning, creative inheritance and networking capabilities. The sustainable innovation capabilities that firms should possess are reflected at the firm level and inter-organizational relationship level, and the culture-specific dimension of creative inheritance reflects the influence of national and organizational culture.

The research reveals the internal driving force of the manufacturer's sustainable innovation capabilities, as well as the role and uniqueness embodied in the specific culture, providing a new perspective for improving the manufacturer's sustainable innovation capabilities.

The paper embarks on the development of theory and methodology for managing the sustainable development of machine-building enterprises through the use of quantitative modeling tools. The article proposes an algorithm for estimating the position of an enterprise in its competitive space for sustainable development.

The three dimensions of sustainability (social, economic, environmental) are represented by the equations based on the multiple criteria of sustainability. The three-dimensional space is constructed and the effects of managerial decisions can be quantified in terms of the latter space.

The proposed model is applied in the case of Ukrainian machinery construction company. The effects of introduction of the environmentally friendly business strategy are assessed in the three-dimensional sustainability space. The changes in the level of sustainability can be estimated based on the projected changes in the criteria of sustainability.

The proposed methodology combines expert knowledge, empirical data and quantitative methods in order to quantify the level of sustainability of enterprises. The model can be extended to include additional dimensions and applied to different empirical cases.

Enterprises generally change their organizational structures in an era of uncertainty for flexibility, and accordingly, employee entrepreneurship emerges as employees gain more power and responsibility during this process. This paper aims to explore how employee entrepreneurship impacts enterprises’ sustainable innovation capability. The authors consider the mediating effect of value cocreation and the moderating effect of role stress.

The authors adopted a questionnaire survey to test the hypothesis, and 356 questionnaires were collected from an online questionnaire platform.

The results show that employee entrepreneurship has a positive impact on sustainable innovation capability, value cocreation plays a partial mediating role in this relationship between employee entrepreneurship and value cocreation and role stress plays a negative moderating role in the relationship between employee entrepreneurship and value cocreation.

The study makes three main contributions to the literature concerning entrepreneurship and enterprise sustainable innovation capability. First, in relation to the entrepreneurship literature, the authors shift entrepreneurship research from entrepreneurs/leaders to employees in the digital transformation context and specify the connotation of employee entrepreneurship. This shift further enriches and broadens the research boundary of entrepreneurship (Bhide, 2000; Djankov et al., 2006). Second, we add the micro dynamic mechanism of sustainable innovation capability by focusing on the effect of employee entrepreneurship. Employee entrepreneurship positively contributes to enterprise sustainable innovation capability, which is partially mediated by value cocreation, and its impact on value cocreation is moderated by role stress due to the identity change of employees in the digital transformation context. The authors answer calls to clarify the micromechanisms of building enterprise competitive advantage (Terziovski and Sohal, 2020). The research confirms the relationship change between enterprises and consumers in value creation from separation to cooperation (Tu et al., 2020; Costa and Hafto, 2021). Additionally, the authors discuss the dynamic mechanism and factors of value cocreation at the employee level and further verify the positive effect of an active interaction among enterprises, consumers and other value creators (Matarazzo et al., 2021; Heinonen et al., 2013). This approach compensates for the deficiency of previous studies investigating the influence of value cocreation at the level of organization members.

The theoretical analysis and empirical conclusions of this study have important practical implications. First, employee entrepreneurship positively impacts enterprises’ sustainable innovation capabilities. Therefore, enterprises should stimulate their employees’ entrepreneurship to strengthen organizational resilience and adaptability, which are important for enterprises to survive in the changeable age. For example, enterprises can authorize their frontline employees with more resource allocation power and reduce hierarchical control; thus, their employees can address emergencies in a timely manner and catch fleeting market opportunities. Second, since value cocreation is a partial mechanism by which employee entrepreneurship contributes to an enterprise’s sustainable innovation capability, enterprises should help employees improve their capabilities and knowledge for value cocreation. For instance, enterprises should develop decision-making support toolkits, upscale training courses and efficient coordination tools to help employees achieve the necessary skills and knowledge. Only in this way can they qualify to perform an increasing number of autonomous tasks. Finally, employees’ role stress negatively moderates the relationship between employee entrepreneurship and value cocreation. This finding provides a reference for enterprises in position setting, role rule-making, role responsibility-planning, etc. Specifically, enterprises should build a feedback mechanism to manage employees’ role ambiguity, conflict and overload; thus, they can eliminate the potential negative effects on value cocreation and their sustainable innovation capability in a timely manner.

This study expands the boundary and connotation of entrepreneurship in an era of uncertainty, specifies the micromechanism of sustainable innovation capability and provides new insights for enterprises constructing their sustainable innovation capability.

This paper aims to address the nature of sustainable enterprise excellence, what it is, its enablers and specific manifestations.

A sweeping model of sustainable enterprise excellence, resilience and robustness is introduced, along with its enablers. Among enablers, supply-chain proficiency, vertical trust, distributed leadership and neuropsychological measurement are cited. A method of strategy modeling is introduced that, if rigorously pursued, will improve enterprise strategy and, hence, also opportunity for better subsequent performance and impacts. Similarly, an approach for strategic alignment in a large, multi-level enterprise is presented.

There are many paths toward sustainable enterprise excellence. Regardless of the path, this anticipates enterprise pursuit of socially equitable, environmentally responsible and economically sound performance and impacts.

The present is the Anthropocene age, an era fraught with challenges largely of people's own making and related to climate change and various sorts of social strain. Organizations have the wherewithal to attack these challenges. Given the orientation of sustainable enterprise excellence, methods and models that advance sustainable enterprise excellence have the potential to combat these challenges.

Sustainable enterprise excellence provides models and methods for confronting significant challenges that societies and organizations alike are faced with. Various models and paths to sustainable enterprise excellence are suggested in this paper.

The purpose of this paper is to increase understanding of the real situation of Enterprise's Sustainable Innovation (ESI) in China.

First, the paper analyzes the practice of Chinese ESI in the past 30 years, and then reviews research results of the topic in China, by the authors and by other Chinese scholars. Finally, it provides the future prospects for ESI in China.

The practice of Chinese ESI started in 1978 when this country began reform, and two stages of Chinese ESI practice has been summarized. Otherwise, six major characteristics have been highlighted. China is one of the earliest countries that began to research on ESI and has achieved significant results since 1995. The paper summarizes major research findings of ESI in China, which can be divided into two categories. Especially, it stresses that one of the distinguishing achievements is research on mechanisms of ESI in China.

The research on ESI in China is initially implemented based on Chinese practice. So, future research may explore whether the research results could be suitable for abroad, or not.

This original paper analyzes ESI practice and research findings in China, and may have value in helping people to understand ESI's real situation.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it discusses the role of entrepreneurship, in general, and women entrepreneurship, in particular, in advancing the cause of sustainable development. Future research directions that emerge from the body of knowledge that the paper relied upon have been identified. Second, it presents unique cases of eight women-led enterprises in energy sector spread across three continents, namely, Asia, Africa and the USA; identifies the constraints and opportunities, analyses the business models and their impact on the quality of life pointers to demonstrate the role of women-led enterprises in sustainable development.

The paper combines a schematic review of literature at the interface of entrepreneurship and sustainable development coupled with select relevant case studies addressing the interface. The real-life case studies, which are consciously chosen and compiled from secondary data sources, complement and testify the insights drawn from the schematic literature review. The framework for analyzing the case studies is designed around multidimensional drivers and factors that steer the women-led enterprises.

The paper identified the need to look at entrepreneurship through the gendered lens not only for studying entrepreneurship as a discipline, in general, but also to gauge whether the inclusion of women as entrepreneurs is actually advancing the cause of sustainable development. Besides analyzing real-life case studies of accomplished women entrepreneurs to gauge their motivations and mindsets, the process of identification of pain points, identifying differentiating and innovative features, or studying the impact on society, economy and environment, the paper eventually created a schematic framework of key enablers, constraints and strategic response of women entrepreneurs.

Given the dearth of adequate theoretical and empirical contributions on the study of effectuation, mindsets and drivers of how women entrepreneurship steers the process of sustainable development, the paper is an endeavour in that direction.

The purpose of this study is to assess the level of adjustment of the activities of health tourism and hospitality enterprises to the sustainable development criteria developed by the global sustainable tourism council.

The main research method used in this study was a diagnostic survey – an in-depth interview. This research was conducted among managers of 18 of the largest enterprises that conduct tourism and wellness activities in Polish health resorts.

The analysis of the research results indicated that only every other surveyed health resort entity implemented a sustainable development system or program. Most health resort entities undertook initiatives to support the local community in the field of education, health, sanitary safety and mitigating the negative effects of climate change. The respondents also unequivocally stated that they used good practices in promoting cultural heritage among health resort guests. Almost all of the analyzed enterprises applied solutions aimed at saving natural resources, i.e. reducing unnecessary purchases and saving electricity and water. Participation in programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and means of transport usage was very rarely declared.

It is recommended to include environmental issues in the business models of health tourism entities, e.g. by including them in the strategy, including mission, communicating pro-environmental goals and actions to stakeholders, and applying environmental management systems and concepts.

The research problem is a strong point of the work, as the issue of sustainable development of tourist organizations has rarely been discussed so far. Health resorts were also not considered the subject of research in this area. In this research, the authors assessed the degree of compliance of health tourism enterprises with the requirements of sustainable development, which is a contribution to the science system.

Existing research highlights gender as an important dimension for entrepreneurship theory and practice. This study aims to explore the differences between female and male sustainable entrepreneurs in the areas of previous professional experiences, their performance and growth, their use of financial resources and their overall attitude to risk.

Through a feminist perspective and on the basis of empirical evidence gathered through a series of 20 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with male and female sustainable entrepreneurs in the UK, thr authors analyse differences between male and female sustainable entrepreneurs.

The findings suggest that female role models play a significant role in the emergence of women sustainable entrepreneurs who start from the same experience levels as men, show strong feminist attitudes and are conscious of their contribution to global sustainability. Sustainable entrepreneurship offers women professional development and a limited flexibility to balance work and family commitments. Lack of funding appears to be a major constraint applying to both female and male participants, while the authors argue that business pragmatism in a difficult investment environment triggered women’s reluctance to take on debt. Nonetheless, female sustainable entrepreneurs were found to have developed and used their professional and social networks to a greater extent than their male counterparts.

This study offers a new gender perspective to the research of sustainable entrepreneurship and, at the same time, contributes with findings from research on sustainable entrepreneurs to the study of gender in management.

There are two purposes in this paper. The first one is to explore the impact mechanisms and paths of service-oriented manufacturing (SOM) on the sustainability performance of green manufacturing firms and to pay particular attention to the mediating role of enterprise costs in the relationship between the two. The second one is to reveal the dynamic process and laws of SOM influencing on the sustainability performance of green manufacturing enterprises.

This paper employs a combination of dynamic and static research from two aspects. On the one hand, based on 495 green manufacturing firms in China, the authors verify the SEM of SOM, enterprise cost and sustainability performance of green manufacturing firms through empirical research, analyze the path relationship and mediation effect, and demonstrate its complex impact mechanism. On the other hand, the authors use agent-based modeling and simulation to reveal the dynamic influence of SOM on the sustainability performance of green manufacturing enterprises and explore its dynamic laws and future development trends.

The study results indicate that (1) SOM has a direct positive effect on firm sustainability performance. (2) Reducing firm costs has a positive effect on firm sustainability performance, and firm costs play a partial mediating role in the mechanism by which SOM influences firm sustainability performance. (3) The dynamic impact of SOM on sustainability performance increases significantly over time. (4) Significant firm heterogeneity exists in the process by which SOM improves sustainability performance. (5) There are differences in the promotion of SOM for economic performance, environmental performance and social performance.

This paper makes two main contributions. First, compared with previous research on sustainability performance focusing on a certain dimension, this paper organically integrates the three dimensions of sustainability performance, regards them as a whole and considers the paths to improve sustainability performance. Second, this paper focuses on the complex relationship among SOM, enterprise costs and sustainability performance and reveals different sustainability performance improvement paths and dynamic impact processes, thereby expanding and deepening previous research on sustainability on the subject. These contributions lead to a better understanding of the driving forces and realization path for green manufacturing firms' sustainability performance from an integrated static and dynamic perspective.