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This article develops an attention-based view of organizational knowledge filters and it explains the theoretical roots for their existence, typology, and boundary conditions of influencing knowledge spillovers (i.e., employee venturing behaviors). Although prior studies have examined the roles of institutional factors in the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship (KSTE), it still lacks insights into whether and how the core proposition of the KSTE—the impact of knowledge filters on knowledge spillovers—differs across nations. Based on the analysis of a dataset of the U.S. and Indian firms collected from LinkedIn, this cross-institutional study reveals that though knowledge-creating firms’ cultural knowledge filters and capability knowledge filters both relate positively to employee venturing behaviors, the latter has a stronger impact than the former, across the U.S. and Indian firms. Due to different economic and cultural institutions, cultural knowledge filters exhibit a stronger impact on employee venturing behaviors in the U.S. firms, whereas the influence of capability knowledge filters is stronger in Indian firms.

Despite the critical roles of knowledge filters and knowledge spillovers in the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship (KSTE), the impact of knowledge filters on knowledge spillovers at the firm level remains underexplored. This article thus extends the KSTE to the firm level by directly investigating the effects of knowledge filters on knowledge spillovers (employee venturing behaviors) in incumbent firms. Moreover, based on the KSTE and institutional theory, we examine how regulatory institution (government support) and the enforceability of it (government transparency) moderate the effect of knowledge filters in incumbent firms on their employee venturing behaviors. We collect survey data from the Chinese pharmaceutical industry as it is knowledge intensive and entrepreneurially active by using a multi-informant method, that is, two senior managers from every responding company were interviewed on site by using structured questionnaires. To further minimize bias, we combine the survey data with provincial secondary data to test research hypotheses. Our findings reveal that the positive link between incumbent firms’ knowledge filters and employee venturing behaviors is enhanced by government policy support and government tax support. Furthermore, government transparency strengthens the moderating effect of government policy support whereas it weakens the moderating role of government tax support on the link between knowledge filters and employee venturing behaviors. Overall, this article explores the key proposition of the KSTE framework at the firm level, thus constructing the microfoundation of the KSTE, and substantiates the importance of integrating regulatory institutions into the firm-level KSTE.

PurposeThis study unpacks the relationship between employees' perceptions of organizational politics and their helping behavior, by explicating a mediating role of employees' affective commitment and moderating roles of their tenacity and passion for work.Design/methodology/approachQuantitative survey data were collected from 476 employees, through Amazon Mechanical Turk.FindingsBeliefs that the organizational climate is predicated on self-serving behaviors diminish helping behaviors, and this effect arises because employees become less emotionally attached to their organization. This mediating role of affective commitment is less salient to the extent that employees persevere in the face of challenges and feel passionate about working hard.Practical implicationsFor human resource managers, this study pinpoints a lack of positive organization-oriented energy as a key mechanism by which perceptions about a negative political climate steer employees away from assisting organizational colleagues on a voluntary basis. They can contain this mechanism by ensuring that employees are equipped with energy-boosting personal resources.Originality/valueThis study addresses employees' highly salient emotional reactions to organizational politics and pinpoints the critical function of affective commitment for explaining the escalation of perceived organizational politics into diminished helping behavior. It also identifies buffering effects linked to two pertinent personal resources.

There is a considerable scholarly discussion regarding how Islamic values influence CSR, but prior studies remain fragmented and scattered across several fields. This paper, therefore, aims to offer a more comprehensive understanding of the impacts of Islamic values on CSR by conducting a systematic literature review of 84 relevant publications from 1995 through 2020. The results of a thematic analysis show that there are four underlying themes to consider when explaining the influence of Islamic values on CSR: (1) Islamic narratives promoting CSR, (2) Islam-based CSR, (3) Islamic financial institutions as enablers of CSR, and (4) stakeholders’ perspectives on how Islamic values influence CSR. This study contributes to the CSR literature by providing a systematic understanding of how Islamic values influence CSR and by identifying current challenges and promising directions for future exploration along this line of inquiry.

PurposeSocial network theory emphasizes that, to acquire needed resources, new ventures should cultivate industrial connections (intra-industry ties and extra-industry ties). In the meanwhile human capital theory focuses on entrepreneurs' employment experience, especially with respect to its breadth and depth. This study examines ties and experience to determine whether, in combination, they have positive or negative effects on resource acquisition in new ventures.Design/methodology/approachThis study tests research hypotheses using questionnaire survey data with a sample of entrepreneurs in new ventures. Multivariate regression analysis is used to analyze the data.FindingsCombining intra-industry ties and experience breadth or extra-industry ties and experience depth affects resource acquisition positively, whereas combining intra-industry ties and experience depth or extra-industry ties and experience breadth affects resource acquisition negatively.Research limitations/implicationsConclusions may be constrained by the limited sample size and source. Rather, the impact of the study lies in its identification of the effects of interaction between network ties and entrepreneurs' experience on resource acquisition. Future research can explore the effects of interaction between other dimensions of network ties and a range of entrepreneurs' experience characteristics on resource acquisition.Practical implicationsEntrepreneurs are provided with effective strategies to make use of their ventures' network ties and their personal accumulated experience in the process of obtaining resources.Originality/valueThe findings enrich the entrepreneurship literature by providing a more nuanced understanding of how and when new ventures' industry ties and entrepreneurs' employment experience together influence resource acquisition.

The extant literature offers inconsistent predictions and conflicting evidence regarding the relationship between state ownership and the internationalization of emerging market firms (EMFs). Drawing on institutional theory, we examine the moderating roles of political and economic institutions at the subnational and national levels in the link between state ownership and EMFs’ outward foreign direct investment (OFDI). Based on a sample of 1421 OFDI projects involving 286 Chinese listed firms in 115 host countries between 2003 and 2016, we find that state ownership can scale up OFDI when Chinese firms are headquartered in subnational regions with high institutional development or low economic development, or when political relationships between home and host countries are amicable or market growth in a host country is slow; otherwise, state ownership hinders OFDI. These findings offer new insights into the relationship between state ownership and the internationalization of EMFs Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Whereas strategic alliances have been widely used to foster product innovation, the extant literature offers inconsistent arguments and inconclusive empirical evidence regarding how the number of p...

Is outside-in networking less influential than inside-out R&D on firm performance? Over the past three decades, the inside-out perspective stands at the core of the marketing literature, whereas there is a subconscious bias toward the outside-in perspective. Building on the outside-in and inside-out perspectives of the firm, this study answers the question of whether outside-in networking is indeed less effective than inside-out R&D for enhancing firm performance. The empirical findings based on multiple archival data sources collected on firms operating in China indicate that the effects of networking expenses on firm performance are not weaker than those of R&D expenses. The findings also indicate that the effects of inside-out R&D and outside-in networking expenses are enhanced when firms operate in regions with stronger consumer protection whereas inside-out R&D expenses become less effective in a corrupt environment.

Prior studies that examine business model innovations lack consideration on how value propositions are best developed in specific contexts or how restructuring other components can deliver on value propositions. This article first identifies three types of Chinese consumption behaviors—imitation-based “good-enough” consumption, renqing consumption, and face consumption—and their corresponding value propositions based on value-hierarchy theory. We then look at Chinese companies that illustrate how business model innovations that focus on the targeted value propositions are initiated, formulated, and implemented. In particular, we identify four types of business model innovations: imitation-based “good-enough” business models, renqing business models, face business models, and hybrid business models. We conclude with practical implications for conducting and implementing business model innovations in China.

This article investigates how two types of proactive environmental strategies (PESs) – proactive green management and green political influence – affect firm performance directly and under varying conditions characterising corporate venturing activities (domestic versus international). The results obtained by analysing a multi-informant dataset reveal that proactive green management has a stronger positive impact on firm performance than green political influence does. Moreover, international venturing has a greater positive moderating effect than domestic venturing on the link between proactive green management and firm performance, whereas, domestic venturing has a stronger positive moderating effect than international venturing on the relationship between green political influence and firm performance. This article contributes by differentiating between two important forms of corporate venturing, by distinguishing two important types of PESs and by offering a more granular framework for aligning corporate venturing activities with PESs.

PurposeAlthough the store environment-impulse buying nexus is well documented, the influence of consumer motivations on this nexus is still underexplored. Consequently, this paper aims at explaining the mediating effect of emotional states and the moderating effect of hedonic shopping motives on the relationship between store atmospherics and impulse buying behavior.Design/methodology/approachPrimary data from 437 customers were generated through a questionnaire developed for this study. Respondents were accessed using mall-intercept technique. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was done to empirically estimate the model.FindingsResults indicate that pleasure and shopping enjoyment mediate the effect of store atmospherics on the impulse purchase behavior. The findings also show that hedonic shopping motives moderate the relationship between the store atmospherics and impulse purchase.Originality/valueThis study contributes by introducing the moderating role played by the hedonic shopping motives on the relationship between store atmospherics and impulse purchase. In addition, it introduces that shopping enjoyment and pleasure mediate the effect of perceived store atmospherics on impulse purchase.

Based on the awareness-motivation-capability framework, this research examines how firm-level factors (environmental scanning and organizational slack) individually and collectively interact with institutional factors (government support and industry competition) to influence a firm’s adoption of green management. Moreover, we distinguish the impacts of green management on financial performance and innovation performance. The empirical findings reveal that environmental scanning and organizational slack facilitate green management, government support strengthens these positive relationships, and industry competition attenuates the effect of environmental scanning on green management. In addition, green management enhances innovation performance to a greater extent than financial performance. This research provides an integrative framework illustrating how firm-level factors and institutional environments influence green decisions and proposes that green management may impact firm performance measures in distinctive ways.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine how entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and strategic renewal (as a critical dimension of corporate entrepreneurship) might transmit government institutional support and thereby enhance firm performance in a transition economy.Design/methodology/approachMulti-respondent data were collected from 230 Chinese-based firms. The hypotheses were tested with structural equation modeling, in combination with a bias-corrected bootstrap method, to assess the significance of the theorized direct and indirect relationships.FindingsGovernment institutional support enhances EO and strategic renewal individually, yet EO also fully mediates the relationship between government institutional support and strategic renewal. Moreover, strategic renewal fully mediates the relationship between EO and firm financial performance, and it partially mediates the relationship between EO and firm reputation.Originality/valueThis study contributes to entrepreneurship literature by testing an organization-level model of entrepreneurial phenomena in established firms that identifies EO and strategic renewal as two distinct mechanisms through which government institutional support in a transition economy can enhance organizational effectiveness, which entails the firm’s financial performance and reputation. In doing so, this study provides an extended understanding of how EO and strategic renewal might influence a firm’s financial and nonfinancial outcomes in different ways.

Although knowledge has been built around how product newness affects product performance in the context of established firms, such an effect in new ventures remains to be explored. Building on the knowledge-based view, the open innovation literature, and observations of the liability of newness, this study examines the differential effects of technological and market newness on product performance and tests how market knowledge breadth and tacitness moderate these effects in distinctive ways. Results obtained using data from new high-tech ventures in China show that market newness has a stronger positive effect on product performance than technological newness. Market knowledge breadth enhances the effect of technological newness on product performance, whereas market knowledge tacitness appears to be a double-edged sword: it weakens the effect of technological newness but enhances the effect of market newness on new product performance. These findings provide novel insights into how distinct dimensions of product newness have differential effects on product performance and a more nuanced view of how market knowledge characteristics function as boundaries in the product newness–performance link in new ventures.

The multifaceted nature of firm innovation has prevented researchers from fully explaining the relationship between firm innovation and green management. This study, building on the Schumpeterian theory of innovation, explores this relationship by examining three major types of firm innovation—strategic innovation, managerial innovation, and product innovation—and their respective relationships with green management, considering several dimensions of environmental turbulence as distinctive boundary conditions. We propose that both strategic innovation and managerial innovation facilitate green management, which in turn mediates these effects on new product performance. The results of a survey of 303 Chinese firms provide strong support for this mediating logic. Moreover, we find that market turbulence weakens the effect of strategic innovation on green management whereas technological turbulence strengthens such effect but the effect of managerial innovation on green management is not influenced by environmental turbulence. Our research contributes to the innovation as well as green management and sustainability literatures by offering a framework in which to analyze firm innovation and green management and by showing how firms pursue sustainability and prosperity under specific environmental conditions.

To benefit from green entrepreneurship, firms need to simultaneously possess an entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and a green orientation (GO) which in fact may conflict with each other as they aim ...

In transitional economies such as China, corporate reputations are usually built by addressing stakeholder interests related to the market and the government, which requires firms there to embrace ...

Is coopetition between foreign and local partners good or bad for international joint venture (IJV) performance? This study develops a contingent view to examine how the efficacy of coopetition is conditional on IJV characteristics (i.e., foreign equity share and partner cultural compatibility) and environmental factors (i.e., technological turbulence and market growth). The results from analyzing 194 IJVs in China reveal that coopetition fosters IJV performance under the conditions of high foreign equity share, low partner cultural compatibility, high technological turbulence, and/or high market growth. In contrast, coopetition hinders IJV performance at low levels of foreign equity share, technological turbulence, and/or market growth, or at high levels of partner cultural compatibility. These findings support the authors’ contingent view of coopetition and provide novel insights for managing partner coopetition in IJVs.

Managerial ties include business ties and political ties, but their individual effects on product innovation remain underexplored in the literature. Integrating social network theory and institution theory, this study first proposes a nonlinear relationship between business/political ties and product innovation and further examines the moderating roles of a macro-institutional environment (comparing developed with underdeveloped regions where firms are located) and a micro-institutional environment (i.e., market dynamism) in the proposed relationships. Empirical findings generally confirmed our hypotheses that 1) business ties have an inverted U-shaped effect on product innovation whereas political ties have a U-shaped effect; 2) if firms operate in developed regions their business ties have a stronger influence on product innovation, whereas if they operate in underdeveloped regions their political ties have a stronger influence; and 3) market dynamism positively moderates the curvilinear relationship between business/political ties and product innovation.

Sichuan Haidilao Catering Co., Ltd. (Haidilao) is the leading hot-pot company in the Chinese market, and this case depicts how it addressed a kitchen hygiene crisis in late August 2017. Haidilao is famous for the extraordinary customer service that has made it a legend in the catering industry. The company has been the exemplar for a large number of organizations that have followed its approach and learned how to fine-tune customer service. However, the Legal Evening News released a breaking story that deflated the legend and dragged Haidilao down from its pedestal. The news, accompanied by online videos, revealed mice running around in the kitchen of one of its restaurants; dustpans and tableware being washed in the same sink; and spoons for customer use being used to unclog plumbing. This news immediately caught the public’s attention. Within several hours, Haidilao issued an apology letter that explained how it would address the problems. Shortly after the initial statement, Haidilao issued additional announcements to further provide solutions to the problems in detail. These announcements triggered still more severe online discussions about the hygiene issues. Some people thought Haidilao handled the crisis management well, while others argued that the company’s response to the problems was unacceptable. As the situation evolved, netizens’ attitudes toward Haidilao constantly changed.

Developing new products that can address the triple bottom line of sustainability poses one of the grand challenges in our time. This study is among the first to examine how the adoption of 3D printing (3DP) technologies mediates the impact of firms’ sustainability orientation (SO) on new product performance. We use a mixed-methods design. First, we conduct qualitative interviews in the U.S. and India and find that firms adopt 3DP technologies in two stages: acquisition and application. We then conduct a quantitative study based on large-scale surveys in these two countries and the results show that SO has a stronger positive effect on the acquisition of 3DP technologies in U.S. firms than in Indian ones, but it has a stronger positive effect on the application of 3DP technologies in India than in the U.S. Moreover, the application of 3DP technologies partially mediates the effects of SO on new product performance in Indian firms but not in U.S. firms. This study enriches our understanding of how SO influences new product performance by distinguishing between stages in the adoption of 3DP technologies and shows that the impacts of SO on distinct stages in the adoption process differ between developing and developed countries.

This study investigates how corporate venturing activities, including domestic venturing and international venturing, moderate the links between two types of proactive environmental strategies (PES...

In 2012, China was ranked fourth in patent filing by region of origin. However, firm innovation quality is not comparable to such quantity. Evidence of this is that no Chinese organization was named as a Thomson Reuters 2011 or 2012 Top 100 Global Innovators. This paradox of firm patenting and innovations in China challenges the traditional understanding of the role of government in industrial innovation. This paper provides a theoretical lens through which to examine traditional protective and strategic patenting motives. Based on institutional theory and the ultimate goals of patenting motives, the paper posits that protective patenting motives are directly law-based while strategic patenting motives are largely law-derived. The paper also aims to empirically examine three questions: (1) What is the relative importance of various patenting motives to firm patenting behaviors? (2) What effects do patenting behaviors have on firm product and process innovations? (3) How, if at all, does governmental institutional support affect firm patenting and innovations? This paper uses dominant analysis, structural equation modeling, and regression analysis to analyze the survey data collected from a sample of 270 firms in China. The empirical results provide new evidence about firm patenting, innovations, and government institutional support. First, the order of relative importance of patenting motives to patenting behaviors was found to be (in the descending order of importance) reputation, exchange, blocking, and protection. Second, patenting behaviors were more relevant to product innovations than to process innovations. Third, more importantly, while government institutional support can enhance the effects of protective patenting motives on patenting behaviors, it can mitigate the effects of strategic patenting motives on patenting behaviors. Moreover, government institutional support reduces the positive effect of patenting behaviors on product innovations. These findings suggest that firm patenting and innovations are distinct activities, and that government institutional support acts as a double-edged sword in firm patenting and innovations: On the one hand government institutional support - an extralegal formal institution - may work alongside the patent system - a law-based formal institution - to advance science and technology, but on the other hand government institutional support may distract firms from commercializing patented knowledge into new products. This paper primarily contributes to institutional theory, new product development literature, and innovation management practice by revealing the dynamics between two different types of formal institutions - patent system and government institutional support - by establishing an institution-based view of patenting motives, by empirically distinguishing firm patenting and innovations, and more interestingly by uncovering a double-edged role of government institutional support in firm patenting and innovations. © 2014 Product Development & Management Association.

We develop and examine a framework for the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship in alliances. Our framework regards entrepreneurial opportunity as endogenous, and entrepreneurial firms as heterogeneous. The empirical findings show that partners’ knowledge protection, which is regarded as a knowledge filter, can increase knowledge spillovers in an alliance. Moreover, this relationship is contingent on the strength of a focal firm's entrepreneurial orientation and on alliance type (equity joint venture versus nonequity joint venture). Results also reveal that knowledge spillovers in an alliance enhance alliance performance more significantly than they enhance firm performance.

Building on the real options logic, we posit that applied patents play a greater role than granted patents in enabling technology ventures to raise capital in initial public offerings (IPOs). Compa...

Given the wide involvement of 3D printing (3DP) technologies in the process of developing new products, this study examines how the adoption of 3DP technologies mediates the impact of firm sustaina...

Managerial ties, the personal networks of senior managers, have been found to be facilitators of firm performance because of their network benefits. However, social network theory suggests that managerial ties only play a "conduit" role by providing possibilities and opportunities to approach external resources. How can firms turn these possibilities and opportunities into internal knowledge assets and further transform them into firm innovation? Extant research constructs a direct mechanism for the managerial ties-firm innovation link. The research reported here, however, provides and investigates an indirect ties-innovation argument where organizational knowledge creation processes, including knowledge exchange and knowledge combination, are mediators. And managerial ties are examined through two traditional dimensions, business ties and political ties. This study employs empirical data from 270 firms in China and uses structural equation modeling techniques to reveal interesting findings. First, the results support the key argument that the influence of managerial ties on firm innovation is indirect. Second, knowledge exchange and knowledge combination are different constructs and the former positively influences the latter. More interestingly, business ties can exert a significant direct impact on both knowledge exchange and knowledge combination, while political ties can only influence knowledge exchange directly. Although both knowledge exchange and knowledge combination impact product innovation directly, only knowledge combination can directly influence process innovation. These findings indicate that the role of political ties is declining, but business ties still have substantial influence on firm innovation in transitional China. Different processes of organizational knowledge creation, such as knowledge exchange and knowledge combination, make distinct contributions to firm innovation. Product innovation, as opposed to process innovation, is more externally oriented and needs more organizational level knowledge creation activities. This article extends the understanding of the ties-innovation link, organizational knowledge creation theory, and firm innovation in a transitional economy by providing a more complete understanding of how firms can access and internalize external resources and then transform them into product innovation and process innovation. © 2011 Product Development & Management Association.

Going green through entrepreneurship has been advocated, conceptualized, and empirically examined in the recent entrepreneurship literature, but green entrepreneurship without considering instituti...

This paper proposes and examines an indirect link between managerial guanxi ties and firm innovation. Empirical results show that knowledge creation processes (knowledge exchange and knowledge comb...

Should new ventures focus more on advancing technologies or introducing novel features in their product development? Building on the knowledge-based view and strategic fit literature, this study ex...

Although a firm may simultaneously pursue strategy innovation, management innovation, and product innovation, the mechanisms for them to collectively impact firm performance are still relatively un...

Does being green facilitate product innovation? This study examines whether green management in firms operating in China fosters radical product innovation to a greater extent than it does incremental product innovation and investigates the underlying institutional mechanisms involved in the relationship between green management and product innovation. The findings show that green management is more likely to lead to radical product innovation than to incremental product innovation. Moreover, government support as a formal institutional benefit more strongly mediates the effect of green management on radical product innovation than its effect on incremental product innovation; whereas social legitimacy as an informal institutional benefit more strongly mediates the effect of green management on incremental product innovation than its effect on radical product innovation. These findings provide important implications for explaining how firms employ green management to facilitate product innovation. © 2014, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

Strategic alliances play a critical role in global innovation. Firms can overcome resource constraints and achieve superior innovative performance not only by using internal resources but also by acquiring knowledge-based capabilities from alliance partners. In this study, the authors investigate how knowledge acquired from alliance partners affects organizational knowledge creation, which in turn leads to innovative performance. The authors propose that the knowledge–innovation relationship is stronger in international alliances than domestic alliances. The results from a survey of 127 German firms engaged in strategic alliances confirm that knowledge creation mediates the effect of knowledge acquisition on innovative performance and that international alliances strengthen the effect of knowledge creation on innovative performance. In addition, the authors find that interfirm cooperation and competition coexist in strategic alliances and that both factors increase knowledge acquisition, though from different motivational bases.