Search results

This paper aims to clear whether the monopoly structure of the internet industry has produced market power and discussed the welfare change of the internet industry monopoly.

By using new empirical industrial organization methods and taking the e-commerce market as an example, the authors measured market power and economies of scale of the internet platform companies.

Internet platform enterprises have formed scale economy, but it has not had market power, and the industry still maintains high levels of competition; also, the emergence of large enterprises may increase the welfare of consumers.

The conclusion of this paper clarified actual competition status of internet industry and provided a new foothold for regulation and ideas for the traditional industry to crack the Marshall Conflict.

Currently, China’s economy is in the critical phase of transforming economic development patterns and replacing old growth drivers with new ones. Whether it can successfully overcome the “middle-income trap” has become a significant issue attracting wide attention.

Driven by underlying digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing and big data, the fourth industrial revolution featuring the booming digital economy has provided significant opportunities for China’s economy to “overtake” and overcome the “middle-income trap”. The transformation of economic development pattern, the optimization of industrial structure, and the change of growth drivers, brought by the deep integration of digital and real economies are the keys to leaping over the “middle-income trap”.

From the supply side, the digital economy can improve the quality and efficiency of the supply side and promote the supply-side structural reform and economic growth from the following three aspects: First, promote the quality, efficiency and diversification of the supply system; second, promote networking, opening-up and synergy in the innovation system and third, promote the socialization, modularization and flexibility of production pattern. From the demand side, the digital economy can boost the new drivers of the “troika” of economic growth consisting of consumption, exports and investment by changing the market investment direction, promoting consumption upgrade and fostering export strengths. However, once these two attributes interact with each other, especially when data is combined with capital, the most adhesive factor in the market economy, a series of new social relations will then be produced based on the technical attribute, resulting in significant adjustments in social relations, involving both positive and negative externalities.

To overcome the “middle-income trap”, it is necessary to adapt to the laws of economic evolution and promote a fundamental change in economic growth drivers; boost the high-quality development of the digital economy by strengthening the support role of data in the digital economy; and accelerate digital industrialization and industrial digitalization to realize the integration of digital and real economies.

In recent years, innovative methodologies of product development such as lean product development (LPD) and agile project management (APM) have emerged. Even though previous research studies focused on these subjects, only few of them were focused on traditional industries, as civil construction. The purpose of this paper is to cover a part of this gap by estimating the potential of the application of these two new approaches (LPD and APM) in the construction industry, more specifically on the design stage.

For this, a case study has been conducted in order to understand if some of LPD and APM tools and practices had already been used, and also to evaluate the potential application of these new methodologies. Three Brazilian companies have been evaluated, all of them were exclusive executors of the design stage and presented distinct characteristics (size, structure, business model, etc.).

The results show that there is currently little adherence to LPD and APM practices within the companies studied. In terms of potential application of these new methodologies, the study has identified evidence regarding technical similarities between the reported cases and others mentioned in literature. However, the interviewees’ reception of these concepts was mostly pessimistic, showing considerable resistance to changes in the current process.

According to the analysis, the study identified that the main challenge/hampering to the implementation of these tools in the cases studied herein are the functional organizational structures, the customer–supplier relationships and the internal cultural resistance to change.

The purpose of this research is to explore how an industry is represented in multimodal public media narratives and to explore how this representation subsequently affects the formation of public sense-giving space during a persisting crisis, such as a pandemic. The question asked is: how do the use of multimodality by public service media dynamically shape representations of industry identity during a persisting crisis?

This study made use of a multimodal approach. The verbal and visual media text on the restaurant industry during the COVID-19 pandemic that were published in Finland by the public service media distributor Yle were studied. Data published between March 2020 and March 2022 were analysed. The data consisted of 236 verbal texts, including 263 visuals.

Three narratives were identified– victim, servant and survivor – that construct power relations and depict the identity of the restaurant industry differently. It was argued that multimodal media narratives hold three meaning making functions: sentimentalizing, juxtaposing and nuancing industry characteristics. It was also argued that multimodal public service media narratives have wider implications in possibly shaping the future attractiveness of the industry and organizational members' understanding of their identity.

This research contributes to sensemaking literature in that it explores the role of power – explicitly or implicitly constructed through media narratives during crisis. Furthermore, this research contributes to sensemaking literature in that it shows how narratives take shape multimodally during a continuous crisis, and how this impacts the construction of industry identity.

This paper aims to investigate sustainability-led innovation, focusing on the interplay between product and process innovation for sustainability goals and the underlying supplier–customer relationships. Thus, the paper delves into sustainability-led innovation and how it affects supplier–customer relationships, and vice versa, thus providing a twofold perspective.

The textile industry is the empirical context of this study, which is exploratory research based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs, managers and experts in the textile industry.

In the textile industry, sustainability-led product innovation concerns mainly product durability and performance, product recyclability and the use of waste for new product development. Process innovation deals with circular economy, traceability and water and chemical use minimization. The paper also shows how sustainability-led innovation is implemented in more technical terms and regarding supplier–customer relationships.

The paper adopts an original perspective on how processes take place in the relationships between suppliers and customers, where there is no dominance of one actor, but innovation emerges from interdependence and interaction. Such perspective allows to provide an in-depth analysis of the supplier–customer relationships and underlying dynamics that affect sustainability-led innovation; moreover, the authors study how such innovation impacts supplier–customer relationships and the underlying relational dynamics. The value of the paper also stands in delivering a real representation of the innovation processes grounded in the textile industry.

The purpose of this study is to explore how the development of digital trade can provide new development prospects to China's foreign trade under the background of the gradual expansion of China's digital economy and the further release of policy dividends.

Using the methods of literature collection and induction, combined with traditional trade theory, this paper analyzes the characteristics and challenges of digital trade under the background of the digital economy.

The findings reveal that China's digital trade development still faces some risks, such as the containment of China's core technology, digital security and unbalanced development among regions. Considering these risks, China should break through core technical problem, participate in the formulation of international rules to ensure data security, give priority to the development of service trade and improve the unbalanced development of digital trade.

By analyzing the development status and characteristics of the digital economy and digital trade, this paper summarizes the challenges and comparative advantages faced by China's digital trade, and puts forward corresponding suggestions. These suggestions will allow China to take advantage of its rapid digital economy development and occupy a leading position in global digital trade.

This paper creatively expounds on the new development direction of digital trade from the perspective of comparative advantage and risks, and provides some suggestions to expedite China's digital trade development.

Research on grey systems is becoming more sophisticated, and grey relational and prediction analyses are receiving close review worldwide. Particularly, the application of grey systems in marine economics is gaining importance. The purpose of this paper is to summarize and review literature on grey models, providing new directions in their application in the marine economy.

This paper organized seminal studies on grey systems published by Chinese core journal database – CNKI, Web of Science and Elsevier from 1982 to 2018. After searching the aforementioned database for the said duration, the authors used the CiteSpace visualization tools to analyze them.

The authors sorted the studies according to their countries/regions, institutions, keywords and categories using the CiteSpace tool; analyzed current research characteristics on grey models; and discussed their possible applications in marine businesses, economy, scientific research and education, marine environment and disasters. Finally, the authors pointed out the development trend of grey models.

Although researches are combining grey theory with fractals, neural networks, fuzzy theory and other methods, the applications, in terms of scope, have still not met the demand. With the increasingly in-depth research in marine economics and management, international marine economic research has entered a new period of development. Grey theory will certainly attract scholars’ attention, and its role in marine economy and management will gain considerable significance.

Agile methods are increasingly being applied in the contexts of innovation beyond traditional information technology (IT) and physical product development projects, such as when process improvements are being implemented. Nevertheless, this phenomenon is still recent and little addressed in the literature, with few descriptions of empirical cases. This study aims to address this gap.

This multiple case study aims to present and discuss the application of Agile practices embedded in large companies’ innovation value chains, focusing on improvements of business processes. The following research question is pursued: How are large companies applying elements of Agile methods to their innovation processes when implementing incremental improvements in their operational processes? Based on the idea that the Agile-Stage-Gate model is an alternative to this challenge, this study investigates the application of this hybrid model in two large Brazilian companies by presenting their idiosyncrasies, lessons learned, adaptations, challenges and benefits.

Overall, it was observed that the experience with the application of the Agile-Stage-Gate model is positive for these companies, with better customer engagement, easier project control and increased productivity of the project team.

For those aiming to implement the Agile-Stage-Gate model, this paper identifies the main adaptations made in order to combine the purist approaches and critical success factors for its implementation.

The purpose of this paper is to present a strategic management framework for a successful digital transformation (DT) roll-out aimed at enabling organisational resilience. The study aims to identify the critical areas of consideration for management to strategically approach DT in order to build resilience.

The research study is based on the 3Ps framework: (1) people (culture, capabilities, engagement and well-being), (2) processes (systems) and (3) plant (technological infrastructure and tools). The research methodology is a qualitative study comprising semi-structured in-depth interviews, conducted with industry experts in different sectors undergoing major digital disruptions such as financial services, mining, oil and gas, energy and retail.

The research findings show that the successful roll-out of an organisation’s DT is largely driven by the people elements incorporating organisational culture, workforce skills and training and employee well-being. It also highlights that it is critical for organisations to invest in technological infrastructure, once the people elements have been addressed, as they are the drivers of technology implementation.

A bigger and broader sample size can validate the elements and structure of the DT framework in South Africa.

The study’s discussion unlocks understanding about: (1) what are the key enablers for successful DT; (2) what hinders organisations from realising the value of digital investments and (3) a strategic framework for the digital roll-out.

Technology is impacting employees at both a personal and professional levels. Ensuring that DT rollouts are strategical implemented lowers the impact on technostress and strengthens resilience.

The value and practical implication of this study is that the developed strategic framework can be used by managements to enable the smooth adoption of DT toward building organisational resilience in developing countries such as South Africa with low digital maturity.