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Using dynamic capabilities (DCs) theory, the authors assess whether micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) can leverage DCs to improve operational capabilities (OCs) during the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors also identify whether organizational learning (OL) affects the relationship between DCs and OCs.

The authors test these propositions on a sample of 419 MSMEs from Australia and New Zealand.

DCs have no direct effect on OCs, technological or marketing capabilities (TCs or MCs). OL moderates the effect of DCs on both TCs and MCs.

The study assesses only MCs and TCs as OCs and does not explicitly measure pandemic impacts on organizations. However, the results illustrate the importance of OL during crises for recovery purposes.

Managers can use the findings to improve structure, processes and knowledge management emanating from MCs and TCs within organizations impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors use a multi-dimensional measure of OL and show that during the pandemic, OL is a critical factor that allows organizations to transform the benefits conferred by DCs into MCs and TCs.

This paper aims to involve both the development of a quantitative measure of outsourcing success that integrates recent research findings on expectations and applying the hierarchy-of-effects (HOE) model to investigating the influence of success on client satisfaction and recommendation intention.

This paper conducted a global survey of information systems managers and Chief Information Officers from firms who have engaged in outsourcing and analyzed the data using partial least squares (PLS).

The study analysis demonstrates the impact of client expectations on perceived outsourcing success, client satisfaction and intention to recommend. This paper also discusses how findings of this study provide important implications for both researchers and practitioners.

To further investigate the theoretical trend toward examining the impact of expectations on outsourcing success, this study extends the foundational success research by quantitatively demonstrating the robustness of an outsourcing success construct that incorporates expectations. Moreover, this study extends the traditional models of success by incorporating factors from each of the stages of client behavior, including cognition, affect and conation.

The purpose of this paper is to identify different types of resource and capability configurations among Hungarian family and nonfamily firms and explore which compositions can be considered competitive. In a rivalrous, dynamic world, understanding which sets of resources and capabilities lead to a higher level of competitiveness is vital.

This paper is based on a quantitative competitiveness survey carried out between November 2018 and July 2019 in Hungary. The authors used the Firm Competitiveness Index (FCI) to measure competitiveness and the resource-based view (RBV) approach to understand which configurations of resources and capabilities are responsible for a higher level of competitiveness based on 32 variables. An exploratory factor and cluster analysis were conducted to analyze the ownership's effect on firm competitiveness. The final sample size contained 111 companies, of which 53 were identified as family and 58 as nonfamily firms.

Factor analysis reveals five factors determining resources and capabilities: “operational,” “leadership,” “knowledge management,” “transformation” and “networking.” Based on these factors, the cluster analysis identified five groups in terms of types of family and nonfamily firms: “Lagging capabilities,” “Knowledge-based leadership,” “Innovativeness and transformation-oriented management,” “Relationship-oriented management” and “Business operation-oriented management.” Results show that nonfamily businesses focus on operational and leadership capabilities, reaching a higher FCI than family businesses, which are likely to invest more in their networking, transformation and knowledge management capabilities.

By defining the different configurations family and nonfamily firms rely on to reach competitiveness, the paper applies an essential element to the Hungarian and Middle Eastern European contexts of family business research. The findings contribute to developing family business literature and point out specific resources and capabilities family firms should focus on to shift toward reaching a higher level of professionalization and competitiveness. The characterization of different types of competitiveness comparing family and nonfamily firms enables the firms to assess customized implications.

Driven by the dual-carbon target and the widespread digital transformation, leveraging digital technology (DT) to facilitate sustainable, green and high-quality development in heavy-polluting industries has emerged as a pivotal and timely research focus. However, existing studies diverge in their perspectives on whether DT’s impact on green innovation is synergistic or leads to a crowding-out effect. In pursuit of optimizing the synergy between DT and green innovation, this paper aims to investigate the mechanisms that can be harnessed to render DT a more constructive force in advancing green innovation.

Drawing from the theoretical framework of resource orchestration, the authors offer a comprehensive elucidation of how DT intricately influences the green innovation efficiency of enterprises. Given the intricate interplay within the synergistic relationship between DT and green innovation, the authors use the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis method to explore diverse configurations of antecedent conditions leading to optimal solutions. This approach transcends conventional linear thinking to provide a more nuanced understanding of the complex dynamics involved.

The findings reveal that antecedent configurations fostering high green innovation efficiency actually differ across various stages. First, there are three distinct configuration patterns that can enhance the green technology research and development (R&D) efficiency of enterprises, namely, digitally driven resource integration (RI), digitally driven resource synergy (RSy) and high resource orchestration capability. Then, the authors also identify three configuration patterns that can bolster the high green achievement transfer efficiency of enterprises, including a digitally optimized resource portfolio, digitally driven RSy and efficient RI. The findings not only contribute to advancing the resource orchestration theory in the digital ecosystem but also provide empirical evidence and practical insights to support the sustainable development of green innovation.

The findings can offer valuable insights for enterprise managers, providing decision-making guidance on effectively harnessing the innovation-driven value of internal and external resources through resource restructuring, bundling and leveraging, whether with or without the support of DT.

The research findings contribute to heavy-polluting enterprises addressing the paradoxical tensions between digital transformation and resource constraints under environmental regulatory pressures. It aims to facilitate the simultaneous achievement of environmental and commercial success by enhancing their green innovation capabilities, ultimately leading to sustainability across profit and the environment.

Compared with previous literature, this research introduces a distinctive theoretical perspective, the resource orchestration view, to shed light on the paradoxical relationship on resource-occupancy between DT application and green innovation. It unveils the “black box” of how digitalization impacts green innovation efficiency from a more dynamic resource-based perspective. While most studies regard green innovation activities as a whole, this study delves into the impact of digitalization on green innovation within the distinct realms of green technology R&D and green achievement transfer, taking into account a two-stage value chain perspective. Finally, in contrast to previous literature that predominantly analyzes influence mechanisms through linear impact, the authors use configuration analysis to intricately unravel the complex influences arising from various combinatorial relationships of digitalization and resource orchestration behaviors on green innovation efficiency.

How does business model design play a role in enabling manufacturing firms’ services? This study aims to investigate the impact of two distinct types of business model design, namely, efficiency-centered business model design (EBMD) and novelty-centered business model design (NBMD), and their effects in balanced and imbalanced configurations, on two types of services: product- and customer-oriented services.

Using matched survey data of 390 top managers and objective performance data of 195 Chinese manufacturing firms, this study uses hierarchical regression, polynomial regression and response surface analysis to test the hypotheses.

The results show that while EBMD positively affects product-oriented services, NBMD positively affects customer-oriented services. Both types of services exert a significant influence on firm performance. Furthermore, the degree of product- and customer-oriented services increases with an increasing effort level with a balance between EBMD and NBMD. Asymmetrical, imbalanced configuration effects reveal that the degree of product-oriented services is higher when the EBMD effort exceeds the NBMD effort, and the degree of customer-oriented services is higher when the NBMD effort exceeds the EBMD effort.

This study enriches the understanding of designing business models to facilitate service growth in manufacturing firms, ultimately benefiting firm performance. In addition, exploring balanced and imbalanced configurations of EBMD and NBMD offers new insights into business model dual design research.

Drawing on a dynamic capability view, this study develops a decision support model that determines the most suitable configuration of strategies and challenges to adopt additive manufacturing (AM) to expedite digital transformation and performance improvement of the surgical and medical device (SMD) supply chain.

To investigate the research objective, a multi-method and multi-study research design was deployed using quality function deployment and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis.

The study finds that only resilience strategies or negation (i.e. minimisation) of challenges are not enough; instead, a configuration of resilience strategies and negation of challenges is highly significant in enhancing performance.

SMD supply chain decision-makers will find the decision support model presented in this study as beneficial to be resilient against various challenges in the digital transformation of service delivery process.

This study builds new knowledge of the adoption of AM technology in the SMD supply chain. The decision support model developed in this study is unique and highly effective for fostering digital transformation and enhancing SMD supply chain performance.

This article aims to unfold digital servitization by exploring the key resources and resource orchestration (i.e. resource configuration and interaction).

This article conducted an explorative two-stage research strategy of Chinese servitized manufacturers using a preliminary case study and fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) design. The data collection was conducted between 2016 and 2021.

This article identifies five key resources – radical, complex technological resources, complementary, specific market resources and digital resources – and their configurations – leveraging market opportunities, leveraging innovation integration and leveraging resource advantages – to facilitate servitization in the digital age. The findings underscore the interaction between technological and market resources as well as the role of digital resources in promoting the servitization journey.

This article contributes to the understanding of servitization in the digital context by examining the key resources and their interactions involved. It builds upon the configurational logic of servitization, expanding the existing framework in the digital context and highlighting the significance of technological and market resource orchestration and interaction in servitization research. Moreover, the paper contributes through its exploratory two-stage approach, going beyond a conceptual understanding of servitization by focusing on both the factors that enable servitization (WHAT) and the configurations that lead to servitization (HOW). Additionally, the article investigates the attributes of resources as lower-level components, addressing the need to explore the micro-level practice of resource realignment. By providing clarity on the configurations of servitization, the paper offers practical guidelines for practitioners on how to effectively utilize resources and benefit from digital servitization.

Resource orchestration theory proposes that firms need resources, capabilities, and horizontal and vertical alignment to achieve high performance. Thus, we investigate which combinations of horizontal fit of resources (commitment-based HR systems for managers and nonmanagers) and capabilities (HR flexibility) together with vertical fit with business strategy (innovation versus cost leadership strategies) relate to superior performance.

Our study is based on a sample of 113 Spanish firms from which we collected data on commitment-based HR systems for managers and nonmanagers, HR flexibility, business strategy and performance. We employ a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to analyze which configurations lead to firm performance.

The empirical analysis shows that both HR practices and policies (commitment-based HR systems) and HR capabilities (HR flexibility) need to be aligned for high performance. The path for performance is comprised of a combination of commitment-based HR systems for staff and HR flexibility and by the absence of an innovation strategy or commitment-based HR systems for managers, HR flexibility, and a cost leadership strategy. We also find four paths where performance relies on efficiently combining an innovation and cost leadership business strategy.

Our findings make three key contributions to the literature. First, we help elucidate multicausal relationships inside the black box of the “HR–performance” relationship for firm performance. Second, we study the vertical fit with business strategy by considering innovation and cost leadership strategies. Third, we analyze multicausal pathways, thus uncovering different combinations of resources and capabilities for performance.

This paper aims to explore the use of digital technologies in enabling circular ecosystems. We apply supply network (SN) configuration theory and a novel resource pooling lens, more typically used in financial systems, to identify inventory pools, information repositories and financial exchange models among network actors.

Five in-depth circular SN case studies are examined where digital technologies are extensively deployed to support circularity, each case representing alternative SN configurations. Data collection involved semi-structured interviews to map SN and resource pooling configurations across each circular ecosystem, with cross-case analysis used to identify distinct pooling and digital strategies.

Results suggest three digitally enabled circular ecosystem archetypes and their related governance modalities: consortia-based information pooling for resource recovery, intermediary-enabled material and financial pooling for remanufacturing and platform-driven information, material and financial pooling for resource optimisation.

Drawing on SN configuration and resource pooling literature, we recognise distinct configurational, stakeholder and resource pooling dimensions characterising circular ecosystems. While this research is exploratory and the identified archetypes not exhaustive, the combination of resource pooling and configuration lenses offers new insights on circular ecosystem configurations and the critical role of resource pools and enabling digital technologies.

We demonstrate the utility of the resource pooling and configuration approach in the design of digitally enabled circular ecosystems. These archetypes provide practitioners and policymakers with alternative design frameworks when considering circular SN transformations.

This paper introduces a resource netting and pooling configuration lens to circular ecosystems, analogous to financial systems, where cyclical flows and stock are critical and enabled through digital technologies.

The interest of scholars to study microfoundations of dynamic capability has increased. Literatures associated with them are rapidly and diversely developing. This study aims to investigate whether both boundary spanning activities and resource orchestration are the microfoundations of dynamic capability.

A systematic literature review using preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) guideline is applied to extract 263 studies from Scopus and 12 studies from other online sources. Some studies investigate some of the relationships but only one investigates all relationships examined.

Further discussion suggests that boundary spanning activities and resource orchestration are microfoundations of dynamic capability. The first and second groups of boundary spanning activities (scout and ambassador) and the first stage of resource orchestration (structuring/search/selection) are microfoundations of sensing/shaping. Third group, task coordinator, with some elements of the second stage, leveraging and all elements of third stage, bundling, are microfoundations of seizing. Meanwhile, some other elements of second stage, leveraging, are microfoundations of reconfiguring. Guard, the fourth group of boundary spanning activities, is excluded from microfoundations of dynamic capability because of its nature of internal activities to keep things from the environment.

This study is an original review of literatures about both boundary spanning activities and resource orchestration as microfoundations of dynamic capability. The paper starts with a systematic literature review on four relationships examined and ends up with deep further analysis on the elements of activities groups of boundary spanning, stages of resource orchestration and process groups of dynamic capability.