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The purpose of this paper is to explore how an organization can combine different types of open innovations and what are the key factors that may influence the combination of different open innovations.

The basic methodology of this paper is the longitudinal inductive analysis within the conceptual framework of the open innovation proposed by Dahlander and Gann (2010). In this case study of Xiaomi Tech Inc., the open innovation combination is investigated through examining 25 new products created between August 2010 and December 2016 in terms of four general types: acquiring, sourcing, selling and revealing open innovation.

In practice, the combination of different types of open innovations can be realized. A firm may combine different open innovations at three levels: a single product level, a related product cluster level and a company level. In addition, different open innovations can be combined in diverse modes. The purpose of combining different types of open innovations is to overcome the disadvantages of each type and to exploit the advantages of all different types. Many factors may affect a firm’s option of how to combine open innovations. At different development stages, a firm may make and implement corresponding strategic direction based on its innovation capacity and internal resource. For a given strategy, the firm needs to create profits and manage intellectual property in the implementation of open innovations. These factors are interacted each other, rather than isolated.

The findings of this paper are helpful for better understanding how and why an organization can combine different types of open innovations. From a managerial point of view, an organization may combine different types of open innovations to leverage advantages and avoid disadvantages of each certain type of open innovation. An appropriate combination of different open innovations can effectively improve new product development.

The objective of this chapter is to interpret a supply chain as an ontological entity with being-in-the-world of spacetimemattering. A case study approach is adopted to reveal the strategies undertaken by one of China’s fastest growing Internet companies – Xiaomi Inc. – to create competitive advantage through its management of product design and supply chain integration. Utilizing publicly available data, we analyze the company with quantum storytelling and network analysis techniques. Our analysis concludes that Xiaomi’s success originates from two aspects. First, Xiaomi is a good storyteller, who makes stories appealing to customers by involving them into product design and branding. Second, Xiaomi’s parsimonious supply chain substantially improves its market responsiveness and reduces disruption risks; more importantly, it helps to offer products of great value to customers.

How do entrepreneurs use simple rules to build their business models? Based on an inductive study of three Chinese Internet and technology firms, the authors find that business models emerge from simple rules that entrepreneurs learn from their experience. Simple rules also guide entrepreneurs to actualize and exploit opportunities in the marketplace, and they can help business models evolve through market feedback, especially in internationalization. This paper aims to delve into the black box of entrepreneurial decision-making and offer a better depiction of the business model development process in uncertain and fast-changing environments and thus provide guidance for future entrepreneurs.

Following the case method (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 2003), the authors first present a thick description of characteristics of three companies and the dynamics of their business models. They then code these descriptions into first-order measures. Finally, they aggregate these measures into abstract constructs. They constantly compare the theoretical constructs and the emerging theory with the existing literature on business models.

The authors generate three key insights from the findings: business models emerge from simple rules learned from entrepreneurs’ experience, simple rules help entrepreneurs exploit and actualize opportunities in the marketplace and simple rules help businesses expand and evolve business models through market feedback, especially in internationalization.

This paper falls into the intersection of strategy and entrepreneurship – an emerging new field of strategic entrepreneurship – and is concerned with how businesses create and sustain a competitive advantage while simultaneously identifying and exploiting new opportunities. The authors bring people – the individual decision-makers for businesses – back in strategy research and depict a more realistic picture of the behavior of successful entrepreneurs and their business model development process.

In early 2016, after the success of its first two smartphones, the OnePlus One and OnePlus 2, China-based startup smartphone maker OnePlus was deciding how to build on its early success and grow into a global contender in the highly competitive smartphone market. Technology enthusiasts and geeks had flocked to purchase the first two generations of its smartphones and expectations were high for the company's next product. The company's founders, Pete Lau and Carl Pei, faced the challenge of broadening the appeal of OnePlus to address the mainstream market without alienating its core customer base.

“Crossing the chasm” from the early adopters to the mainstream market involved addressing three interrelated questions: First, what segments should OnePlus target as it sought to grow beyond its loyal fan base? Second, what value proposition and positioning strategy should it adopt to appeal to these target customers? Finally, what distribution and marketing communications strategy should it employ to make best use of its limited financial resources? A key consideration in formulating its strategy was to stay true to the company's culture and mission of “Never Settle” by charting its own course and not emulating the strategies of much larger competitors like Apple, Samsung, LG, and HTC.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an interpretative framework for the high market capitalisation companies (unicorns) universe, especially with the deployment of the mobile internet. The paper attempts to account for this global trend and to describe its global setting (global data), and its various components.

This paper originates from a research meant to document the phenomenon of high market capitalisation companies (unicorns) through the investigation of a qualitative sample of companies. The paper is based on desk research, a review of literature, review of the technical journals and analysis of annual reports. Going beyond the observations gathered from the sample, the research found that the transformations of the mobile communications ecosystem could provide an adequate framework to understand and put in perspective this phenomenon.

The paper defined unicorns as information technology (IT)-based (software mostly but hardware as well) start-ups that bridge pent-up demand and supply through innovative services and products mostly rooted in the mobile internet wave and the opportunities it brings along. The paper shows that smartphones as games changers facilitate the entry of new players in the mobile markets coming either from the IT sector or from Asia, much to the detriment of the European Union (EU) industry grappling with legacy business models. These companies derived the most from a mobile-first approach and have an outstanding number of unicorns. The paper identifies a potential telecom policy failure especially in the EU: policies have been tilted towards the supply side, without enough consideration of demand. The paper suggests that the EU, after having lead the previous wave, may have missed the last one (mobile broadband) not only from a policy but also from an industry viewpoint.

More research should be done to better investigate what might have been the causes of this apparently missed mobile turn in Europe. The paper deals mostly with the cases of Asia and the USA. As the paper concentrates on the issue of unicorns and mobile technology, some other aspects of the mobile markets may not be taken into account.

The paper suggests reconsidering some policies in the field, to better take into account the role of consumers and to improve the link with other policies like innovation policies.

The paper attempts at giving a better understanding of the evolution of demand and its role in the making of some new services. The paper does not deal with other societal issues like privacy or data.

The main assumption about the role of the mobile internet can shed some light not only about related developments such as the app economy but also about the business and technological environment of an array of start-ups, some of them having reached impressive market capitalisation. The paper reveals how this mobile wave is reshuffling companies, sectors, and geographies. The paper provides one of the first analysis of the unicorn phenomenon.

This paper aims to shed some light on the history of the Chinese videogames industry, to document the growth of the leading companies and reveal how they have been morphing into platforms delivering constellations of apps and digital content (audiovisual, films, music, literature, video streaming […]). The paper tracks the development of digital services through the prism of videogames thereby showing how this industry emerged out of the deployment of the internet.

The paper provides an overview and a synthesis of what is known about the Chinese game industry, particularly based on consultancy documents and publications from firms. The paper is based on desk research, a review of literature and trade press and the analysis of the annual reports of the leading players (NetEase, Tencent […]).

The rise of videogames and the creation of specific company’s “ecosystems” illustrate the capacity of the industry to innovate and its significance for the Chinese economy. It reveals that gaming has been a cornerstone of many Chinese technology companies. The (young) companies came up with the innovative business models (FTP, virtual items) that were required to further expand the market. They found new ways to interact with their customers through communities and various tools.

The paper relies on consultancy documents and publications from firms on heterogeneous data from industry and consultants. This approach comes with some limitations from a methodological viewpoint. It allows documenting the historical trends and describing the industrial landscape but not to qualify the relationships among players. Besides, the use of these sources leads to a greater focus on business models and a more limited one on the policy dimension. The latter is often perceived only through the glasses of the companies.

The data provided are meant to be useful to become familiar with the Chinese games industry.

The paper indicates that the online game industry is a complex web of activities with tensions and contradictions between stakeholders (industry, government and consumers). In the case of China, there is a conflict between the willingness to liberalize the economy and the will to maintain an ideological monopoly through cultural industries.

Little research has been devoted to the role of videogames in emerging economies, to its specific features and to the relationships with the media industry and the information and communications technology sector. The contribution of this “digital native” to the production and distribution of digital content remains less studied. The paper provides an up-to-date overview of the Chinese case.

The objective of this chapter is to identify the key characteristics of Global Services businesses that will thrive and achieve success in the future. These factors are integrated into three main pillars, which we refer to as the Triple-Win. The first and most obvious pillar is technology as a tool. The second pillar is the design and sustainability of the business model, without which the previous factor would be merely a cost and not an investment. And last but not the least, there is the purpose which gives meaning to the proposal, focusing on the human being and their environment. The DIDPAGA business model sits at the intersection of these three elements.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of self-worth on status consumption, focusing on the mediation of self-enhancement and self-compensation and the moderation of power distance belief (PDB) in the relationship of threats to self-worth and consumer choice.

Experiments are used to collect data. Three studies are designed to test the relationship between self-worth, self-enhancement and self-compensation, PDB and status consumption. In total, 180 MBA students participate Study 1, 186 and 244 undergraduate students participate Studies 2 and 3, respectively. ANOVA and bootstrapping method are adopted to analyze the data by using SPSS version 19.0. Study 1 tests the influence of self-worth on status consumption; Study 2 examines the mediation role of self-enhancement and self-compensation; and Study 3 tests the moderation role of PDB.

Results indicate that situational self-worth perception has dual path effects on status consumption. Both improvements in – and threats to – self-worth have a positive impact on status consumption. Improvements in self-worth affect status consumption through the mediation of self-enhancement motives. Threats to self-worth affect status and non-status consumption through the mediation of the self-compensation motive. In the context of a threat to self-worth, compared with consumers with a low PDB, high-PDB consumers have higher purchase intention for status goods but not non-status goods.

In this study, improvements in – and threats to – self-worth are momentarily manipulated. The authors present one product in each experiment, but what would happen if both status goods and non-status goods were shown to participants? Which one will the authors choose under different self-worth manipulations? And how long can the effects last? These questions should be answered in future research.

This research provides a venue for marketers to introduce and advertise status goods. Marketing practitioners should establish the link between self-worth and status consumption appeals. In the Asia-Pacific markets, Confucian value is important to consumers, and high power distance is important in Confucianism. Thus when developing markets in China, international companies should emphasize Confucian values in the design of advertisements or other promotional items. Further, marketing for status goods should attach importance to the expression of their symbolic meanings.

This study contributes to the literature on self-worth and status consumption. It also explores the dual path of the effect of self-worth on status consumption. The motives of self-enhancement and self-compensation are first proposed and tested to explain the mechanism, which differentiates the study from prior work and gives a more reasonable explanation for status and compensatory consumption. The moderation role of PDB delineates the boundary for the effect of a threat to self-worth on status consumption.