Sustainable digital solutions for biodiversity and food system transformation stall because heterogeneous stakeholder knowledge is hard to integrate and translate into implementable artefacts. This conceptual article explains how stakeholder collaboration can accelerate sustainable digital solution design by integrating absorptive capacity and design thinking within a DEKA-CoPs (Digitally Enhanced Knowledge Architecture for Communities of Practice) extension. We conceptualise high-quality stakeholder co-creation configurations as expanding epistemic diversity and enabling collective knowledge mobilisation. Mobilised knowledge strengthens absorptive capacity by improving the collective ability to recognise, assimilate and apply biodiversity, heritage and market knowledge to design decisions. Absorptive capacity then enables a design thinking cycle that stabilises problem framing and compresses learning through prototyping and testing, yielding quality-adjusted acceleration. We further theorise boundary conditions: programme configurations in Slow Food biodiversity work (Ark of Taste, Presidia, Earth Markets, Cooks’ Alliance, Food Gardens in Africa, Slow Food Travel) moderate the conversion of mobilised knowledge into absorptive capacity, while ecosystem coordination moderates the impact of design thinking enactment on acceleration. The framework contributes to knowledge management and innovation research by specifying a capability-process-governance explanation of solution acceleration and by offering guidance for policymakers and practitioners seeking to scale legitimate digital solutions that protect biodiversity without erasing local authenticity.
Industrial isomorphism—the structural convergence of industrial distribution between cities—has profound implications for regional innovation dynamics. This study examines whether and how such isomorphism shapes the innovation gap across cities, contributing new insights to the knowledge base on advancing spatial innovation systems. Using panel data from 248 Chinese prefecture-level cities, we demonstrate that industrial isomorphism can widen the innovation gap between cities by reducing innovation cooperation and technology transfer. This positive relationship consistently holds across multiple dimensions of innovation output, including the scale of innovation activities, invention patents, and non-invention patents. In addition, human capital and foreign direct investment (FDI) gaps positively reinforce the positive impact of industrial isomorphism on innovation gaps. After taking human capital and FDI gaps as threshold variables, the influence of industrial isomorphism on the innovation gap respectively decreases and increases. A key insight of this study is the significant heterogeneity of this effect. The influence of industrial isomorphism on innovation divergence varies systematically across city groupings such as central versus peripheral cities, inland versus coastal locations, high versus low fiscal freedom cities, and resource-based versus non-resource-based economies, revealing how place-specific institutional and structural factors moderate the isomorphism–innovation nexus. These results not only advance the theoretical understanding of industrial structure and innovation geography but also provide a knowledge-driven foundation for policymakers seeking to foster regional industrial coordination and collaborative innovation ecosystems.
Emerging digital technologies are transforming how organizations sense, interpret, and respond to environmental challenges. In this study, we develop and test a model grounded in the Dynamic Capabilities View and the Knowledge-Based View that explains how big data analytics capability, Internet of Things intensity, and artificial intelligence assimilation, collectively referred to as emerging digital capabilities, enhance environmental governance through sustainability-oriented innovation. We conceptualize these technological capabilities as complementary digital inputs that enhance the organization’s sensing and analytical capacity, while knowledge integration and creation capability serves as the central conduit through which digital inputs are transformed into sustainability-oriented innovation and, ultimately, environmental governance outcomes. Using survey data collected from organizations across multiple sectors, we employ PLS-SEM to test the sequential paths from digital capabilities through knowledge integration and creation to innovation and governance effectiveness. The results demonstrate that well-developed capabilities stimulate knowledge integration and creation, which in turn drives sustainability-oriented innovation, leading to more transparent, adaptive, and evidence-based environmental governance. Green strategic orientation is introduced as a boundary condition that shapes how knowledge created through digital capabilities is channelled toward sustainability innovation and governance outcomes. This paper makes a theoretical contribution by integrating the Dynamic Capabilities View and the Knowledge-Based View theories in the context of digital sustainability, showcasing how knowledge creation transforms digital capability into environmental governance value. From a managerial perspective, this study positions knowledge integration and creation as the engine of sustainable organizational management.
Within sustainable innovation ecosystems, firm innovation is not a linear outcome of isolated factors but a configurational outcome shaped by the alignment of multiple institutional pressures and environmental factors. However, studies frequently overlook the configurational effects of these diverse pressures and their complex evolutionary dynamics across the industry lifecycle. To address this gap, this study develops a hybrid analytical framework comprising dynamic fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis and decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory-adversarial interpretive structure modeling based on reverse deduction. This framework identifies configurations of innovation outcomes and subsequently deconstructs the causal structures of the underlying pressures, elucidating the mechanisms of innovation ecosystems. Applying this framework to China’s new-energy-vehicle industry, we identify three distinct yet functionally equivalent paths leading to high-level innovation: responsibility buffering, the dual drive of policy and resources, and multidimensional pressure linkage. Further, we find that innovation ecosystems evolve in three stages—namely, regulatory dominance, market-imitation synergy, and multipressure synergy. These multiple pressures within the ecosystem are not equally influential but form a core-periphery hierarchical topology: Policy-induced pressure is the fundamental factor setting legitimacy boundaries, while normative pressure is a surface-level factor guiding technological development. This study reveals the structural synergies within innovation ecosystems, offering both an explanatory framework for and practical insights into how enterprises select innovation paths under complex institutional and resource conditions.
Sustainable innovation ecosystems (SIEs) are increasingly central to addressing grand societal challenges. However, interventions within these ecosystems often rely on frameworks rooted in implicit theoretical assumptions that shape how actors are mobilised, value is created, and impact is assessed. This paper investigates how the adoption of distinct theoretical perspectives (stakeholder, network, and practice-based) influences the design and outcomes of interventions in SIEs, shaping both ecosystem configuration and actor interactions. Specifically, we ask the following question: ‘How does the adoption of a practice-based perspective influence interventions in SIEs?’ We argue that a practice lens illuminates how ecosystems are enacted through situated routines, material arrangements, and shared understandings, thereby foregrounding the everyday work that sustains innovation over time. We draw on a case study of MIT REAP Rio, a widely recognised initiative designed to foster a clean energy-oriented SIE in Brazil. Although the programme achieved symbolic success through stakeholder alignment and network activation, our analysis suggests that limited attention to nurturing ongoing shared practices contributed to challenges in post-programme consolidation. We propose a conceptual reframing of SIEs as relational spaces constituted through practices and demonstrate how a practice-based lens reveals blind spots in commonly adopted ecosystem frameworks. Our findings have implications for both theory and practice. Researchers should critically examine the epistemological foundations of ecosystem frameworks, while practitioners should shift their emphasis from mobilising actors towards embedding routines and artefacts that sustain collaborative value creation over time.
In recent years, sustainability and business innovation have become essential for firms’ survival and strengthening of their competitive position in national and international markets. In this context, one of the sectors that has recently undergone a significant transformation is logistics, which is driven by the need for improvement in key areas such as sustainability management, knowledge management and the adoption of technological innovations. Logistics plays a fundamental role in fostering economic development, where ensuring financial health is a prerequisite for informed decision making by stakeholders and policymakers. Accordingly, the present study seeks to evaluate the economic and financial health of logistics companies in the Baltic region, with a particular focus on their profitability and the key factors affecting those firms’ financial performance. The final sample consists of a total of 3048 logistics companies selected based on the availability of complete financial records. The overall financial situation of these companies is first assessed using a descriptive analysis, followed by an analysis of key financial ratios by country, firm size, and quartiles. Furthermore, Altman’s Z-score model is used to predict bankruptcy and analyse the economic and financial health of these companies. The results indicate significant variability in profitability across logistics firms in the Baltic countries. The findings confirm the critical role of liquidity, solvency, and efficiency ratios in explaining firm profitability. Collectively, the results reported in this study contribute to previous research by providing empirical evidence on the financial health of logistics companies. Important insights also concern the role of innovation and sustainability in improving logistics firms’ competitiveness, financial efficiency, and resilience in the face of current global market challenges.
New ventures in emerging economies often face substantial challenges in pursuing radical innovation, particularly under conditions of resource scarcity and environmental volatility. Integrating dynamic capability theory with the capability hierarchy perspective, this study examines the relationship between alliance orientation and radical innovation, considering organizational agility as a potential explanatory pathway and digital technology adoption as a boundary condition. We further articulate a capability hierarchy framework that conceptually links lower-order capabilities, higher-order capabilities, and radical innovation within Chinese new ventures. Based on 295 valid survey responses from Chinese new ventures, the results suggest that the three dimensions of alliance orientation relate to radical innovation in distinct ways. Alliance scanning and alliance learning show inverted U-shaped relationships with radical innovation, whereas alliance coordination shows a positive linear relationship. Organizational agility serves as an explanatory pathway that helps explain how these alliance-oriented capabilities relate to innovative outcomes, and this relationship appears stronger at higher levels of digital technology adoption. In addition, fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) identifies three equifinal configurations associated with high radical innovation, highlighting the configurational complexity of capability combinations in emerging-market settings. Overall, the study contributes contextual insights to capability hierarchy research and enriches understanding of how alliance-related capabilities are associated with radical innovation in Chinese new ventures.
Using a panel dataset of 281 cities in China from 2011 to 2023, this study systematically examines the influence of financial technology (fintech) development on urban dual green innovation and investigates the underlying role of local government intervention. Empirical results demonstrate that fintech significantly promotes exploratory and exploitative green innovation, and these findings remain robust across multiple identification strategies. Mechanistically, the findings reveal a nuanced interplay between fintech and governmental influence: although government intervention initially suppresses but later enhances fintech’s effect on exploratory green innovation, it consistently strengthens the relationship between fintech and exploitative green innovation through technology and governance. This temporal dynamic in regulatory influence represents a significant contribution to the innovation ecosystems and digital finance knowledge base. Heterogeneity analyses demonstrate that the promotional effect of fintech is more substantial after 2015, in cities located in eastern and central regions, and in larger urban agglomerations. These findings provide new theoretical insights into the coordinated roles of financial technology and governance in advancing urban sustainability, with practical implications for designing adaptive policies to support knowledge-driven green transformation.
In the era of digital economy, digital transformation (DT) is inevitable for firms seeking competitive advantage. However, achievement of high firm performance through DT is challenging—both for academia and industry. Existing studies predominantly focus on the net effects of single factors. In contrast, this study posits that high performance is driven by the interaction of three conditions: environmental uncertainty, DT strategy, and digital resources, not from any single condition. First, we establish a theoretical framework by applying the grounded theory approach, and thereafter, adopt the Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis method to empirically investigate 38 firms undergoing DT. The research findings show that: (1) DT strategy is a necessary condition for high performance; (2) There are two types of high innovation performance configurations: “strategy-driven” and “technology-driven,” and two types of high customer performance configurations: “culture-driven” and “technology-driven.” These insights elucidate how DT leads to high performance and offer practical implications for managers.
Manufacturing SMEs are now under sharper pressure than ever to retool their operations and value architectures around circular principles. However, limited attention has been given to how knowledge-driven capabilities enable firms to translate knowledge into circular innovation and business model transformation. Drawing on dynamic capabilities’ theory and the knowledge-based view, the study conceptualises adaptive knowledge sensing capability, opportunity-oriented knowledge integration capability, and dynamic knowledge reconfiguration capability as key antecedents of innovation-oriented knowledge utilisation capability. In turn, knowledge utilisation is proposed to enhance circular eco-innovation, which drives circular business model innovation. Furthermore, circular economy thinking is introduced as a moderating condition that strengthens the relationship between circular eco-innovation and business model innovation. To test the proposed model, a time-lagged research design was employed using data collected from 331 manufacturing SMEs in Shandong Province, China, across three waves. The findings reveal that the three knowledge-driven dynamic capabilities, adaptive knowledge sensing capability, opportunity-oriented knowledge integration capability, and dynamic knowledge reconfiguration capability, each significantly and positively influence innovation-oriented knowledge utilisation capability. In addition, knowledge utilisation capability positively affects circular eco-innovation, which, in turn, has a significant positive impact on circular business model innovation. The results also confirm that circular economy thinking positively moderates the relationship between circular eco-innovation and business model innovation, such that the relationship becomes stronger at higher levels of circular economy thinking. This study contributes to the literature by integrating dynamic capabilities theory and the knowledge-based view to explain how knowledge-based capabilities are translated into circular innovation outcomes.
This paper studies fuzzy language in corporate annual reports as a knowledge-processing friction under limited investor attention. We define fuzziness as an overall hard-to-understand barrier that is distinct from readability or textual complexity and from dictionary-based uncertainty. We develop a Large language model-based pipeline to construct a fuzzy disclosure index (FIX) from Management’s Discussion and Analysis texts of China’s A-share firms. Annual reports from 2002–2007 are used only for out-of-sample calibration, while the empirical analyses focus on reports released during 2008–2025. After merging text-based measures with market outcomes and controls, the baseline sample contains 56,565 firm–year observations. Using double machine learning with firm and year fixed effects, we find that higher FIX is associated with higher trading volume and turnover but lower abnormal returns in the announcement quarter. This pattern remains after controlling for textual complexity and uncertainty. In the following quarter, the trading effect weakens and abnormal returns partially reverse. The trading effects are stronger when non-institutional ownership is higher, and prior-year exchange inquiries predict higher subsequent fuzziness
Competition over technical standards has become a core arena in which enterprises and nations contend for industrial dominance and safeguard technological security in the digital economy era. Using data from A-share listed companies in China’s high-tech manufacturing industry from 2010 to 2023, this paper examines the impact of technical standardization on corporate innovation resilience. The findings reveal that technical standardization significantly enhances corporate innovation resilience, a conclusion that remains robust after addressing endogeneity through instrumental variable estimation and propensity score matching, as well as conducting multiple robustness checks, including alternative variable measurements, extended observation windows, additional control variables, and placebo tests. Mechanism analysis identifies two pathways through which technical standardization operates: fostering a collaborative culture and attracting patient capital within firms. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the positive effect of technical standardization on innovation resilience is more pronounced in growth-stage and mature-stage enterprises, firms with increasing R&D investment, and state-owned enterprises. Further analysis of economic consequences confirms that the standardization-driven enhancement of innovation resilience ultimately translates into higher market value. This study reveals the intrinsic mechanisms through which technical standardization empowers corporate innovation resilience, providing important empirical evidence for sustaining innovation capabilities in high-tech manufacturing amid international turbulence.
Effective drivers of urban economic transformation have remained underexplored, and previous research has examined the mechanisms of digitalization or green technologies as promoters. This study constructs the multisector general equilibrium model intended to theoretically explain the driving mechanisms of the integration of digitalization and green technologies (IDGT) for urban economic transformation. Based on path branching theory, we also analyze how to leverage digitalization to identify suitable green technological innovation pathways to foster the urban economic transformation. To do so, this study conducts an empirical analysis adopting 262 Chinese cities over the 2011–2021 period as the research data. Benchmark regression results indicate that the IDGT significantly promotes urban economic transformation. Mechanism analyses reveal that IDGT primarily drives urban economic transformation through labor allocation optimization, output growth acceleration, and carbon emissions reduction. Further analysis reveals that digitalization has an inverted U-shaped impact on green related technological diversification, while its impact on green unrelated technological diversification follows a U-shaped curve. Large and coastal cities can make full use of digitalization to advance green unrelated technological diversification and are better to adopt the radical technological innovation pathway, while small and medium cities, as well as inland cities are still exploring the green technological innovation pathway. This study enriches the theoretical mechanisms of digitalization and green technologies and provides empirical evidence for fostering urban economic transformation from the IDGT perspective.
Amid the global transition to green energy, the new energy sector has become a strategic arena in international economic competition. Certain developed economies, leveraging first-mover and standardization advantages, have established high-level technical standards systems covering performance, safety, and environmental protection, thereby creating significant knowledge barriers in global trade. This study investigates how such international standards influence innovation quality in new energy enterprises, using forward patent citations as the primary metric and adopting an export-destination perspective. Grounded in new institutional economics, the study develops a theoretical framework and employs empirical models to analyze data from 53 listed new energy companies (2010–2023).The findings reveal several theoretically significant contributions: (1) International standards substantially enhance firms’ innovation quality through knowledge absorption and recombination mechanisms; (2) The impact demonstrates systematic firm-level heterogeneity, with technologically advanced firms showing stronger learning effects; (3) Enterprises enhance their industrial competitiveness through three paths: cost pressure, learning and absorbing experience, and exporting experience. This process reveals how standards drive the upgrading of the innovation system. Methodologically, this research advances the understanding of standardization-innovation linkages by integrating institutional theory with innovation quality metrics.These insights provide knowledge-based foundations for innovation policy design, suggesting that strategic standard adoption can catalyze quality-driven innovation in knowledge-intensive sectors while enhancing global competitiveness in sustainable technologies.
This study examines how digital transformation translates into firm performance in manufacturing by addressing the digital transformation paradox through interdependent knowledge mechanisms. Drawing on the knowledge-based view and integrating perspectives on knowledge management and absorptive capacity, the study proposes and tests a sequential pathway in which digital transformation enables servitization, servitization fosters corporate entrepreneurship, and corporate entrepreneurship ultimately drives firm performance. Survey data from 130 South Korean manufacturing firms were analyzed using PLS-SEM, controlling for knowledge and technology intensity, research and development intensity, firm size, firm age, and geographic location. Results show that digital transformation significantly enhances servitization, servitization significantly promotes corporate entrepreneurship, and corporate entrepreneurship significantly improves firm performance. By contrast, the direct links between digital transformation and firm performance, and between servitization and firm performance, are not significant; only the sequential pathway linking digital transformation to firm performance through servitization and corporate entrepreneurship is supported. This study contributes to theory by clarifying the digital transformation paradox through a layered knowledge-based framework that frames digital transformation as a knowledge infrastructure, servitization as a knowledge interface rather than a direct performance driver, and corporate entrepreneurship as a knowledge-enactment mechanism linking digital transformation to firm performance. For managers, the results underscore the need to strategically orchestrate digital transformation, servitization, and corporate entrepreneurship as interlinked stages of a knowledge-based process to translate digital investments into sustained performance improvements in manufacturing.
This study develops a theoretical framework for optimising knowledge innovation portfolios by extending the production function to incorporate cognitive adaptation costs, piecewise interaction effects, and heterogeneous knowledge depreciation across basic research, applied innovation, and fusion innovation. Numerical optimisation under the baseline parameter calibration indicates that a balanced allocation approximating an equal distribution [0.333, 0.333, 0.333] outperforms traditional science-heavy strategies [0.50, 0.35, 0.15]. Robustness analysis confirms this qualitative pattern across reasonable variations in depreciation rates and interaction parameters. This finding reflects context-dependent optimisation, conditional on the assumed heterogeneous depreciation structure and piecewise interaction effects, rather than a universally applicable prescription. Three counterintuitive insights emerge: excessive concentration in basic research leads to productivity losses; simultaneous, balanced ‘leapfrogging’ strategies dominate sequential catching-up paths; and fusion innovation yields disproportionately high marginal returns despite receiving smaller optimal allocations due to cross-domain synergies. Dynamic and sensitivity analyses validate the heterogeneous depreciation mechanism and confirm the robustness of optimal allocation structures under parameter uncertainty. Based on these findings, the study provides actionable guidance for organisations and governments, emphasising gradual transitions towards balanced portfolios and a reorientation of public funding towards applied and fusion innovation. Overall, the results advance innovation theory and policy through a structural shift from linear specialisation models to dynamic portfolio optimisation grounded in knowledge heterogeneity, differential depreciation, and interaction synergies.
The rise of global digital trade offers new pathways for accelerating green technologies’ creation and application, fostering a knowledge-driven approach to ecological innovation. Leveraging China’s National E-Commerce Demonstration City policy as a quasi-natural experiment, we employ a two-stage slacks-based measure network model to divide green innovation efficiency into green technology research and development (R&D) and green achievement transformation efficiency phases. Using panel data from 279 Chinese cities (2005–2022), we examine how digital trade shapes innovation efficiency across these stages. Our findings reveal several innovative insights. First, digital trade significantly improves overall green innovation efficiency, with a more pronounced effect on R&D efficiency than transformation efficiency. Second, industrial structure upgrading and digital innovation capabilities are dual transmission channels through which digital trade promotes overall and stage-specific green innovation efficiency. Furthermore, while government environmental regulation strengthens the role of digital trade, intellectual property (IP) protection and marketisation only amplify its effect on overall and R&D efficiency, but not transformation efficiency. We also uncover context-dependent effects in which cities with industrial legacies show greater transformation efficiency gains, whereas others benefit more in overall and R&D efficiency. High fiscal pressure boosts overall and R&D efficiency but inhibits transformation efficiency, while high-debt environments facilitate gains across all stages. Digital trade promotes overall efficiency and green technology R&D efficiency for the high digital infrastructure group more strongly. Moreover, as AI development advances from low to high, the promotional effect of digital trade on green innovation efficiency exhibits a gradually weakening trend. These results provide novel evidence for designing stage-specific and context-aware innovation policies.
Environmental issues in China are escalating due to its rapid growing electronics manufacturing industry. These issues include electronic waste, depletion of resources, and carbon emission. Effective circular economy (CE) operationalization is required to achieve national sustainability as proposed in the Made in China 2025 project and 2060 carbon neutrality commitment. . However, many companies struggle to implement CE activities due to limited innovation potential and knowledge fragmentation. Drawing on the Resource-Based View (RBV) and the Knowledge-Based View (KBV), this study examines how digital knowledge management systems (DKMS), open innovation practices (OIP), and green investment strategies (GIS) on circular innovation capability (CIC) that subsequently facilitates CE implementation (CEI). It also investigates the moderating effect of the stakeholder pressure (SP) on the CIC-CEI relationship. Using a quantitative cross-sectional research, data was collected from 327 employees in Chinese electronics manufacturing companies. It was analyzed using the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) in Smart-PLS. The findings show that DKMS, OIP, and GIS significantly enhance CIC, which in turn strongly predicts CEI. Also, the SP positively moderates the CIC-CEI relation, which demonstrates that the impact of the innovation capability is enhanced under high institutional and market pressure. These results highlight that digitalisation, joint innovation, and sustainability-driven financial policies are crucial for a successful CE transition. The findings contribute to the theoretical knowledge of capability formation in circular transformation and offers actionable implications for the stakeholders aiming to develop a resource-efficient, innovation-driven, and environmentally friendly electronics industry in China.
As the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation accelerates, new quality productivity (NQP)—primarily driven by technological innovation—is emerging as a key engine for promoting the economy’s green and low-carbon transformation. Based on panel data from 258 Chinese cities covering the 2012–2022 period, this study systematically examines the impact of NQP on pollution and carbon reduction (PCR) in Chinese cities and the underlying mechanisms. The results indicate that NQP has a significant influence on promoting PCR. Mechanism analysis reveals that NQP promotes PCR through digital technology innovation (DTI), green technology innovation (GTI), and industrial upgrading (IU) transmission mechanisms. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that NQP’s emissions reduction effect is more pronounced in the eastern region, non-resource-based cities, and Broadband China policy pilot cities, and are stronger in regions with higher DTI, GTI, and IU levels. Furthermore, an analysis of reform policies’ heterogeneity indicates that the primary effect from 2012 to 2015 was pollution reduction, while the carbon reduction effect gradually emerged from 2016 to 2022, and pollution reduction effects remained consistently significant. This study provides empirical evidence for China’s development of innovation-driven NQP and exploration of new models of environmental governance and offers a Chinese model that developing countries can reference to resolve the structural contradiction between development rights and emissions reduction responsibilities and advance the process of sustainable development.
