This paper introduces the concept of dynamic strategic agency to explain how firms translate internal capabilities into superior performance in highly competitive markets. Dynamic strategic agency captures the intensity and breadth of firms’ discretionary strategic actions, including changes in product scope and market positioning. Using a large firm-level survey conducted by the Italian National Statistical Institute, we construct synthetic indicators of dynamic strategic agency as well as organizational and personnel capabilities through multivariate techniques. We show that firms with higher levels of dynamic strategic agency experience significantly higher labour productivity growth, especially in business services activities. Moreover, organizational and personnel capabilities emerge as key drivers of dynamic strategic agency, indicating that internal resources affect performance primarily through their role in enabling active and adaptive strategic behaviour (especially in the industry sector). These results highlight the importance of combining strategic action and internal capabilities in a unified framework and carry relevant managerial and policy implications.
Recent studies highlight the digital economy’s potential to enhance environmental quality by reducing carbon emissions. However, the mechanisms by which the digital economy influences nitrogen emissions, especially at the provincial level in developing countries, remain underexplored. Drawing on provincial nitrogen footprint data from China, this study investigates both the direct effects and the spatial spillover mechanisms through which the digital economy shapes the nitrogen footprint. Our findings reveal a pronounced inverted U-shaped correlation between the digital economy and the nitrogen footprint, along with a nonlinear, U-shaped spatial spillover effect on neighboring provinces. Furthermore, the analysis shows that the digital economy indirectly mitigates the nitrogen footprint by promoting industrial restructuring and advancing green technological innovation. These findings provide important insights for designing regional development strategies and informing policy aimed at reducing nitrogen emissions.
We examine whether China’s Carbon Emission Trading Scheme pilot affects corporate debt financing costs. Using a difference-in-differences design and a sample of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2008 to 2020, we find that the CETS pilot significantly increases debt financing costs for treated firms. This result withstands a battery of robustness tests. Mechanism analysis reveals that CETS elevates debt financing costs by increasing operational risk and reducing information quality. Heterogeneity analysis further demonstrates that the positive effect is more pronounced among non-state-owned enterprises, financially constrained firms, firms with limited carbon cost transfer capacity, firms operating in carbon markets with higher prices and trading volumes, and those with weaker green innovation capability. We also find that CETS reduces the availability of bank credit for pilot firms. Our findings contribute to the literature by extending research on the economic consequences of carbon trading in emerging markets, shifting attention from environmental outcomes to financial consequences, and identifying market-based environmental regulation as an important determinant of corporate debt financing costs.
Numerous studies deal with the link between daily recovery experiences (DRE) and mental health for employees. Hardly any studies exist for small business owners. This is surprising, given that their health is important not only to them but also to their environment (including employees, clients, suppliers, and networks). In the present cross-sectional study, we analyse whether this link also works for some 2,400 Japanese small business owners. Next to overall DRE, four dimensions of DRE are distinguished (detachment, relaxation, mastery, and control). Mental health is captured using well-being (psychological well-being and job satisfaction) and ill-being (burnout and stress). First, we compare our DRE levels with those reported in many other (employee) studies. Second, controlling for many phenomena, including participating in nomikai (a typical Japanese custom of getting together after office hours), both linear regressions and structural equation modelling show that for Japanese small business owners, the quality of overall DRE is positively linked to psychological well-being and job satisfaction, and negatively to burnout and stress. Third, like the quality of overall DRE, nomikai activities of the owner are positively linked to their psychological well-being and job satisfaction, and negatively linked to burnout and stress. Its role seems to be independent of that of the quality of DRE. Fourth, surprisingly, we find that the detachment dimension is negatively correlated with psychological well-being and job satisfaction, while the other three dimensions show the expected positive links. Fifth, and surprisingly, unlike the relaxation and mastery dimensions, the detachment and control dimensions do not show the expected negative links with burnout and stress. Many implications are discussed.
This study contributes to the literature on technology sourcing in multi-location R D by providing novel regional-level evidence on how green knowledge embedded in host locations shapes the green innovation trajectory of global R D leaders. Using data from 231 top R D companies with inventive activities dispersed across 118 European regions over the period 2000–2018, we adopt a two-step empirical strategy combining conditional fixed-effects logistic and Poisson models. The results show that higher green innovation intensity in host regions is significantly associated with both the occurrence and count of green patents by R D units located within them. To address potential endogeneity concerns, we implement a Control Function Approach (CFA), and validate our findings through extensive robustness checks. Heterogeneity analyses indicate that these results hold only when host regions are foreign, located within the European core area, environmentally “brown” and subject to stricter environmental regulation than firms’ home countries. We also find that local knowledge, rather than neighboring regional innovative activity, drives these patterns. Overall, the findings reveal reverse technological externalities from host contexts to corporate R D units and underscore the importance of local embeddedness in shaping the environmental direction of corporate innovation. Policy implications point to the strategic role of attracting R D investments to strengthen regional green knowledge bases and cumulative technological capabilities, while managerial implications emphasize the value of leveraging location-specific conditions to foster sustainable innovation.
