Are companies with high absorptive capacity more likely to survive in harsh environments? From the perspective of innovation spillovers

This study examines whether companies with high absorptive capacity are more likely to survive adversity. With the financial component stocks of the S&P 500 taken as the research subjects, the industrial innovation spillover effects of individual stocks were extracted and then put into panel data regression for analysis. The results reveal that, following the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), companies with high absorptive capacity rapidly adjusted their organizational strategies to increase their absorption of innovation spillovers, particularly active in absorbing those from the financial technology (Fin-Tech) industry. Policy-wise, the study recommends that the government examine regulatory flexibility during major economic events and encourage industry players to proactively develop endogenous institution innovations.

Collaborative Innovation and Absorptive Capacity as an Antecedent on IT Firm Financial Performance

A lack of collaborative innovation and absorptive capacity in firms causes projects to fail. Managers/employees in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are not sufficiently aware of the practices of intellectual capital and nor do they collect, share, transfer, and utilize knowledge properly. This current study, therefore, focuses on the relationship between collaborative innovation and the financial performance of Portuguese IT sector SMEs, with a mediating role of absorptive capacity and a moderating role of intellectual capital based on three sub-domains (human capital, organizational capital, and social capital). Close-ended questionnaires were used to obtain data from 308 employees and managers. Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, data were also collected through an online survey method. The simple random sampling technique was used to collect data and analyze it using the PLS-SEM method. The results show that collaborative innovation has a positive and significant impact on the financial performance of IT firms in Portugal. Absorptive capacity is considered a potential mediator between collaborative innovation and financial performance. Moreover, the moderating role of intellectual capital strengthens the relationship between collaborative innovation and absorptive capacity. © 2023, The Author(s).

Rigidity in crisis: The impact of OHSAS 18001 certification on production repurposing during COVID-19

It is important for firms to repurpose production responsively during a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, to seize the market opportunity and create social value. However, occupational health and safety (OHS) can also be a concern in a crisis, and adherence to OHS management systems can undermine a firm's responsiveness in repurposing decision making. We adopt the "capability-rigidity" lens to construct a connection between OHS management standards (i.e., OHSAS 18001) and firms' adaptation responsiveness. After sampling 734 listed Chinese manufacturing firms, our match-based analysis reveals that firms certified with OHSAS 18001 were less responsive during COVID-19 in terms of production repurposing than those without the certification. Yet, certain experience, namely, prepandemic manufacturing of related products, experience of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic, and being geographically located close to firms that produced medical supplies, could attenuate this effect. We discuss the implications of our findings in the context of and adding to the literature on safety management, certified management standards, and organizational adaptation and learning.

Celebrating 50 years of DECISION

In a timely research commentary, Nandita Roy and Moutusy Maity examine ChatGPT and its impact on 'textuality' focusing on three key concepts and the accompanying dangers-the naturalness in the interaction, the information asymmetry, and the lack of the end-user's personal control. While they find that persons with love of money motive and/or a personal sense of power are more likely to engage in unethical decision making, they also argue that this may not be the case in higher power distance-oriented environments, where people are more likely to behave in a manner that benefits their superiors given the hierarchical nature of such environments. Jaspreet Kaur, Madhu Vij and Ajay Kumar Chauhan, in their paper on corporate credit ratings (CCR), engage in a systematic review of published literature across a 20-year time period on the signals and drivers of CCR. In the case titled Novolutions in Covid-19, Kishinchand Poornima Wasdani and Mathew J Manimala use live case analysis as an extension of the case study method.

Reported shocks, households' resilience and local food commercialization in Thailand

PurposeThe authors examine the factors affecting households' resilience capacities and the impacts of these capacities on household consumption and crop commercialization.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use panel data of 1,648 households from Thailand collected in three years, 2010, 2013 and 2016. The authors employ an econometric model with an instrumental variable approach to address endogenous issues.FindingsThe study results show that the experience of shocks in previous years positively correlates with households' savings per capita and income diversification. Further, a better absorptive capacity in the form of better savings and a better adaptive capacity in the form of higher income diversification have a significant and positive influence on household expenditure per capita and crop commercialization.Practical implicationsDevelopment policies and programs aiming to improve income, increase savings and provide income diversification opportunities are strongly recommended.Originality/valueThe authors provide empirical evidence on the determinants of resilience strategies and their impacts on local food commercialization from a country in the middle-income group.

Learning to Contract under Uncertainty in Strategic Alliances: The Co-evolution of a Firm's Absorptive Capacity: JMI

Firms have often used strategic alliances as a strategy to cope with increased uncertainty. This paper argues that a firm needs to learn to leverage its absorptive capacity to exploit and explore the contracting knowledge in strategic alliances so as to enhance efficiency, scope, and flexibility. It conceptually examines how a firm's contractual absorptive capacity co-evolves with its knowledge environment under uncertainty as part of learning. By integrating transaction cost economics and absorptive capacity literatures, this paper offers a rich picture of the co-evolutionary processes underlying contractual absorptive capacity in strategic alliances under uncertainty. It also incorporates a more refined (and underexplored) conceptualization of asset specificity and uncertainty, two key constructs in transaction cost economics, into the coevolutionary framework of absorptive capacity in strategic alliances. It illustrates some of the concepts with examples from the hospitality industry, where the impact of uncertainty is clearly evident - particularly in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Resilience of Food Supply Chains - a Dynamic Capability Approach

There are many examples of increasing risk exposure in supply chains in recent years. The Covid-19 pandemic proved to be a huge challenge in the last two years, and the war in Ukraine is currently creating uncertainty in the food industry. In our study, we specifically identify and examine risks threatening the food supply chains. In addition to classifying risks, we examine the dynamic capabilities that companies need to have when operating in the downstream supply chain processes in order to mitigate these risks. The research uses a qualitative methodology and explores the range of required corporate capabilities through interviews with manufacturers as focal companies of a food supply chain. We hypothesise that sensing capability and flexibility, as well as communication and coordination skills, will be key to managing threats. As a result of our study, we can ascertain that the security of supply chain operations does not only depend on supply chain capabilities.

The drivers of the digital transformation in the healthcare industry: An empirical analysis in Italian hospitals

In recent years, driven by the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, digital transformation in the healthcare sector is becoming increasingly important. Digital healthcare technologies, if adopted in a targeted manner and imple-mented in a cost-effective way, make it possible to reduce healthcare inequalities, improve the quality of healthcare provided and increase the well-being of citizens. The importance of digital transformation in healthcare is also attracting interest from academics. However, at present, there are few studies aimed at examining the degree of digital transformation in healthcare and the drivers of the adoption and implementation of digital solutions by healthcare facilities. This study aims to fill this gap by analysing the level of digital transformation of Italian hospitals and the factors that can affect this level of digital transformation. The analysis, conducted on a sample of 103 hospitals, shows a positive and significant impact of the hospital size, hospital age and hospital teaching status on the level of digital transformation. Furthermore, in relation to hospital complexity, it shows a positive effect of the presence of the emergency room and a non-significant influence of the number of hospital departments on the level of digital transformation.

Does Participative Leadership Promote Employee Innovative Work Behavior in IT Organizations

The responsibilities of leaders have grown as a result of information technology organizations' increasing reliance on information and development to carry out their work. It is important for leaders to guide and support organizations as they respond to the challenges of continually generating new innovation and information frameworks. The participative initiative, therefore, is characterized as an authority that draws on part data and part insight to reduce progressive obstructions by including individual hierarchical individuals in the decision-making process. The participative initiative encourages a positive style of leadership in which the leader provides workers with the chance to partake in dynamic and critical thinking through consolation, backing, and impact. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of participative leadership on employee innovative work behavior through the mediating role of employee knowledge-sharing attitude and absorptive capacity, with project risk management as moderator. The non-probability convenience sampling technique was used and data collection occurred over three months from January 2022 to March 2022. As data collection took place in one time period, the design is cross-sectional in nature. The data were collected from 273 workers (i.e. engineering manager, project manager, project leader, team leader, software engineer, advisor, and expert) working in different public and private sector IT companies of Portugal. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, both hard and soft copies of surveys were distributed via email. The analysis was performed using Smart PLS version 3.2.8. The results revealed that participative leadership had a direct effect on employee innovative work behavior that was positive and significant. Also, both the knowledge-sharing attitude and absorptive capacity of employees positively and significantly mediate the relationship between participative leadership and employee innovative work behavior. Project risk management, however, only significantly moderates the relationship between absorptive capacity and employee innovative work behavior. Lastly, some theoretical, practical implications, study limitations and future directions were discussed.

¿Cómo la capacidad de absorción afecta la innovación frugal de las pymes en el Bajío mexicano?

El objetivo de esta investigación es determinar si la capacidad de absorción de conocimiento (ACAP) afecta la innovación frugal de las pymes manufactureras mexicanas, así como conocer el nivel de desempeño que presentan en ambas variables. Para recolectar los datos se utilizó un cuestionario tipo encuesta, que se aplicó de manera aleatoria a una muestra de 249 pequeñas y medianas empresas (pymes), empleado un nivel de confianza del 95% y un margen de error del 6%. La encuesta fue respondida por 200 gerentes o dueños de pymes manufactureras en el estado de Guanajuato, México. Los resultados obtenidos a través de los modelos de ecuaciones estructurales por mínimos cuadrados parciales (PLS-SEM) indican que la ACAP tiene una fuerte influencia positiva y significativa en la innovación frugal. Asimismo, se identificó que este tipo de empresas manufactureras tienen un bajo nivel de desempeño de ACAP y de innovación frugal, por lo que es fundamental que los tomadores de decisiones focalicen sus esfuerzos en la adquisición y explotación del conocimiento para mejorar sus niveles de ACAP y de innovación frugal.Alternate :This empirical research aims at determining whether knowledge absorptive capacity (ACAP) affects frugal innovation in Mexican manufacturing SMEs, and to determine their performance level in both variables. For this purpose, a survey-type questionnaire was used to collect the data, which was randomly applied to a sample of 249 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), using a confidence level of 95% and a margin of error of 6%. The survey was responded by 200 managers or owners of manufacturing SMEs in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico. The results obtained through partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS -SEM) indicate that ACAP has a strong positive and significant influence on frugal innovation. Likewise, it was identified that this type of manufacturing companies has a low level of ACAP and frugal innovation performance, so it is essential that decision makers focus their efforts on the acquisition and exploitation of knowledge to improve their levels of ACAP and frugal innovation.

THE IMPACT OF ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY, CORPORATE SOCIAL INNOVATION, AND E-BUSINESS PROACTIVENESS ON SMES' SURVIVAL

This study examines the role of absorptive capacity on corporate social innovation, e-business proactiveness, and SMEs' survival. It also investigates the impact of corporate social innovation and e-business proactiveness, and SMEs' survival. Data were collected from 384 managers and owners of 62 SMEs in Jordan. Smart PLS, version 3, was employed to test hypotheses. The findings reveal that absorptive capacity significantly impacts e-business proactiveness and social innovation. They also show that absorptive capacity, e-business proactiveness, and social innovation significantly impact SMEs' survival. This study enriches the literature on renewable dynamic capabilities, exploring how e-business entrepreneurial orientation and social innovation contribute to SMEs' resilience and survival during global crises. © Vilnius University, 2002-2023.

A Categorization of Resilience: A Scoping Review

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the existential public health and economic fragilities of the civil aviation industry. To prevent future public health disruptions, the civil aviation industry is gaining interest in becoming more "resilient” but rarely elaborates on its meaning, hampering decision-making and strategy development. When looking into the academic literature it seems that a proliferation of resilience-related concepts occurred. Although enriching resilience, it also dilutes its meaning and reduces its use for practice. This paper aims to create concept clarity regarding resilience by proposing a categorization of resilience. Based upon a scoping review, this categorization dissects resilience into four reoccurring aspects: fragility, robustness, adaptation, and transformation. This categorization is expected to support sensemaking in disruptive times while assisting decision-making and strategy development on resilience. When applying this categorization in the civil aviation and public health context, the transformative aspect seems underused. Further research will focus on maturing the categorization of resilience and its use as a sensemaking tool.

Antifragility in Innovative Start-Ups: Resources, Relationships, People

Contexts of uncertainty, such as the pandemic, cause exogenous shocks for different players in the global economic system. Some actors, however, react by turning crises into opportunities: a property called antifragility. This study has the goal to identify antecedents of antifragility in innovative start-ups. The paper presents the results of a survey conducted on Italian innovative start-ups during the Covid-19 crisis to investigate the links between the antifragile reaction and factors as intangible capital, availability of uncommitted tangible resources (or slack), technologies and absorptive capacity. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Linking online and offline intergenerational knowledge transfer to younger employees' innovative work behaviors: evidence from Chinese hospitals

PurposeLittle is known about when younger employees' intergenerational knowledge transfer (IGKT) – behaviors of acquiring knowledge from older employees – improves their innovative work behaviors (IWB), especially in hospitals. Taking into consideration the moderating roles of individual absorptive capacity (AC) and organization size, this study aims to develop a theoretical model to account for the associations of both online and offline IGKT with younger employees' IWB.Design/methodology/approachThe model was tested with a survey of 202 Chinese younger doctors (40 years old and below). Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the data.FindingsThe results showed that both online IGKT and offline IGKT have significant positive relationships with younger doctors' IWB. Individual AC can strengthen the relationship between offline IGKT and IWB, and organization size can weaken the relationship. However, both individual AC and organization size do not significantly moderate the relationship between online IGKT and IWB.Originality/valueThe findings extend the understanding and application of individual-level knowledge-based view and media synchronicity theory by exploring the relationship of knowledge acquisition from older doctors through both online and offline communication channels with younger doctors' IWB.

Sustainable supply chain clusters: an integrated framework

Purpose: This research aims to provide a conceptual framework with the scope to assist in establishing sustainable supply chain clusters (SCCs) by providing an instrument for organisations to enhance the three sustainability dimensions in a dynamic environment. Design/methodology/approach: This research proposes a conceptual framework to enhance sustainability and organisational performance through three theoretical lenses: the system theory, extended resource-based view and the dynamic capabilities (DCs) theory. This approach is carried out through a comprehensive review of the existing literature on SCCs. Findings: Four main propositions are formulated and demonstrated using the developed framework, which expands the discussion about SCCs and their key characteristics in a dynamic environment. This is particularly relevant as it allows empirical testing of the theories in an SCC context. Research limitations/implications: It can be noted that more extensive research is needed to further understand the issues faced in establishing sustainable clusters. Drawing on the theoretical lenses to establish the framework helps to enhance the understanding and operational capabilities of sustainable SCCs during and after disruptions, such as the global disruption created by COVID-19. Practical implications: This research paves the way to help organisations improve their adaptability to the dynamic business environment by emphasizing the importance of clustering and linking it to sustainability through DCs to establish a sustainable cluster. Originality/value: This research aims to guide organisations' use of SCCs as tools to enhance sustainability in a dynamic environment, given that the relationship amongst supply chain cluster design characteristics (SCCDCs), DCs and sustainability remains unexplored. The combination of the three theoretical lenses in developing the proposed framework will assist in further understanding the applicability of these theories when they are considered together. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic – catching up in the food industry through business model innovation

Purpose: The food supply chain worldwide has suffered severely due to the COVID-19 pandemic countermeasures. Previous research suggests that business model innovation (BMI) could be a viable solution for recovering from the pandemic and fostering organizational resilience. This study analyzes the capabilities that enable food companies to innovate their business model and thereby increase organizational resilience. Design/methodology/approach: Results were obtained using a multiple-case study approach consisting of 15 companies along the entire food supply chain. Managers and decision-makers were interviewed, and the collected insights were enriched with additional material. Findings: The results show several capabilities that enable companies to innovate their business model due to disruption. These capabilities are categorized into four phases based on the processual representation of BMIs. Originality/value: This study contributes to the understanding of BMI in the food supply chain and provides empirical evidence on the potential for business recovery through BMI. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Impact of absorptive capacity on project success through mediating role of strategic agility: Project complexity as a moderator

The purpose of this study is to explore the role of potential and realized absorptive capacity on project success through both the mediating roles of strategic agility and the moderating role of project complexity. A simple random sampling was used to collect data from 285 respondents working in the IT sector of small-medium sized Portuguese enterprises (SMEs). Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, data were collected from and distributed on, several online channels (Gmail, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook). Smart PLS-SEM, version 3.2.8 was used for the analysis. The results indicate that the two absorptive capacity sub-dimensions, potential and realized absorptive capacity, not only directly affect a project's success but also indirectly through the mediator of strategic agility. Although the moderating role of project complexity has a positive and significant effect on the relation between potential absorptive capacity and strategic agility, it is insignificant concerning the relation between realized absorptive capacity and strategic agility. Finally, theoretical and practical contributions are made, research limitations are stated and future research is suggested. © 2023

Increasing Furniture Manufacturing SMEs' Business Performance Through Absorptive Capacity and Product Quality

Purpose: This study discusses the phenomenon of the uncertain sustainability of SMEs in developing countries. SMEs face various challenges in the dynamics of a competitive environment, which threaten their growth and sustainability. This study aims to address a research gap between company's internal resources, in the form of absorptive capacity, and its business performance. By using product quality as a mediator, which has never been studied before, this research presents a novelty to answer the existing research gap using the Resource Based Theory (RBT) perspective. Research design, data and methodology: Using quantitative method, data are collected from 164 respondents, who are owners or managers of furniture manufacturing SMEs in Gerbangkertosusila Area, East Java, Indonesia. The data are analyzed using Partial Least Square (PLS) – Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Results: The findings show that absorptive capacity has a direct and significant effect on business performance and indirectly through product quality. Conclusion: Furniture manufacturing SMEs are advised to focus on developing absorptive capacity reflected in good product quality, in order to improve their business performance. This is especially important to survive the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Thus, the results of this study contribute to the development of RBT, and there are several suggestions for further research. © Copyright: The Author(s) This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://Creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Financial performance of firms with supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic: the roles of dynamic capability and supply chain resilience

PurposeThis study proposes an integrated model to explore the relationships between dynamic capability and supply chain resilience (SCRE) and the relationships' impacts on firms' financial performance with supply chains (FPwSC) during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.Design/methodology/approachBased on resource-based theory and knowledge-based theory, the dynamic capability is classified into resource-based dynamic capability (RBDC) and knowledge-based dynamic capability (KBDC). The study collects 158 useable survey samples from manufacturers in Taiwan and analyzes the samples with the structural equation model.FindingsThe results show that knowledge is power;KBDC is crucial for FPwSC, SCRE and RBDC. In addition, SCRE mediates the relationship between KBDC and FPwSC. Finally, RBDC significantly suppresses FPwSC.Research limitations/implicationsFuture researchers could replicate this study in other industries and expand this to other countries to generalize the results.Practical implicationsA firm with KBDC can adopt and implement strategies that exploit its internal strengths to respond to environmental opportunities, overcome internal weaknesses and mitigate external threats. Furthermore, a firm should fully utilize SCRE with proactive and reactive strategies. Exercising a firm's KBDC could facilitate SC collective intelligence to handle the risk of SC disruption and vice versa.Originality/valueThe study is the first to combine KBDC, RBDC and SCRE into an integrated model for FPwSC. Moreover, this study reveals that resilience relies on knowledge, not resources, as evidenced by SCRE being affected significantly by KBDC but not RBDC.

Calmness instead of panicking: re-thinking the resource allocation strategies in an era of uncertainty: a case of a developing country

PurposeDrawing on the concept of superior resource, capability and processes of the resource-based theory of the firm, the purpose of the current study is to analyze the influence of firms' winner-picking strategic approach on firm performance (FP) via a direct and indirect mechanism.Design/methodology/approachUsing survey data of 104 diversified manufacturing firms, the current study analyzed the conditional indirect effect of firms' strategic approach on efficient resource allocation with the help of Statistical Analysis Software (SAS) process macros.FindingsThe study found that firms' choices of winner-picking approach can undermine the resource allocation efficiency when not perfectly blended with firms' access to the resource. Furthermore, the effect of winner-picking strategy (WPS) on resource allocation efficiency via firms' competitive advantage (CA) can be greater when both strategic choice and resources are employed adequately.Research limitations/implicationsDespite making a unique contribution, the present study has a few limitations requiring researchers' attention to be tackled in the forthcoming. This includes a little amount of data, a self-reporting technique and failure to include all the possible reasons that could lead to inefficient resource allocation.Practical implicationsThe present research has potential applications for managers of the manufacturing industry in a period of sheer uncertainty [coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)]. First, the study alerts managers about the challenges of underinvestment and overinvestment while allocating resources. At the same time, this study provides an important implication for managing the importance of firms' access to capital (AC).Originality/valueThe current study has made a sizeable impression in the literature on internal resource allocation and resource-based theory of the firm by recommending a model that augments the theoretical foundation of strategic management of the firms. As there are only a handful of studies on this grave issue in the context of developing economies, thus, closely considering these insights would be helping for the firms for allocating resources efficiently in the manufacturing industry.