While digital platforms have significantly disrupted complementors' performance, some complementors, particularly incumbent firms, can still achieve successful adaptation. However, adaptation literature primarily focuses on platform owners, overlooking complementors. We explore complementors' adaptation through a qualitative multiple-case study of four hotels operating on hospitality platforms. We examine digital innovationenabled complementarity and develop a process model for complementors' adaptation. Additionally, we identify three mechanisms-partial grafting, spontaneous amplifying, and mutual reinforcing-that enable successful adaptation. We advance understanding of complementors' adaptation by introducing novel insights into digital innovation-enabled complementarity, providing a pathway for complementors to move beyond mere survival. Furthermore, we provide practical insights for incumbent firms on how to leverage digital innovation to navigate complementarity in pursuit of successful adaptation in the rapidly evolving digital landscape.

Sharing economy business models are often associated with sustainability because they enable shared access to resources that might otherwise remain idle, fragmented, or weakly used. Yet their sustainability potential is not automatically realized. While prior research has examined how sharing economy business models support access, coordination, and governance, less is known about how firms mobilize resources that are both underutilized and dispersed across users, communities, and partners to generate sustainability-oriented value. Drawing on a longitudinal multiple case study of four sustainability-oriented coworking spaces in China, this study theorizes digital resourcefulness as a digitally mediated process through which firms stabilize, recalibrate, and extend underutilized resources under sustainability pressure. Our findings identify three recursive mechanisms: infrastructure scaffolding, data-driven temporalizing, and collective aligning. Through the interaction of these mechanisms, sharing economy business models progressively realize their sustainability potential in both depth and breadth. This study advances resourcefulness research by explaining how digital technologies transform the conditions and process of resourcefulness. Rather than treating resourcefulness primarily as actors’ situated use of resources at hand, we show how digital mediation renders dispersed resources visible, connects them across boundaries, and enables their repeated reconfiguration over time. It further extends community and partnership-based resourcefulness by explaining how digital technologies mediate distributed resource mobilization across actors who do not fully own or control the relevant resources. It also contributes to research on sharing economy business models by explaining how the formal promise of sharing is transformed into substantive resource mobilization for sustainability.

In the contemporary business landscape, where business interactions are progressively migrating to virtual environments, the ability to convey human touch without physical proximity has emerged as a critical yet underexplored phenomenon. This study conceptualizes Digital Human Touch as a relational construct, exploring how empathy, authenticity, warmth, and care are enacted through digital channels. The study's research design encompasses dyadic buyer-supplier interviews conducted prior to, during, and following the onset of the pandemic with a large-scale analysis of customer reviews. The findings identify core dimensions of Digital Human Touch: digital authenticity, warmth and care, and openness in communication; during the pandemic also: forgiveness and tolerance, and reconciliation. The post-Covid-19 emergence of real-time connectedness was also identified. The findings indicate that Digital Human Touch fosters relational continuity and value co-creation. By challenging the assumption that human touch always requires physical interaction, this study contributes to the advancement of theory on relationship management.

The emerging literature on entrepreneurship-based algorithmic normative control examines how micro-and-small complementors are motivated to join and engage with platforms in pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunities. However, their entrepreneurial experiences on platforms are ambivalent-some achieve entrepreneurial growth, while others increasingly become vulnerable. We suggest the key to understanding this ambivalence lies in how complementors internalize algorithmic opacity while pursuing entrepreneurial opportunities. Yet, we have a limited understanding of how micro-and-small complementors internalize such opacity during the pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunities within algorithm-driven environment. To address the research gap, we employ an explorative, case-study approach to collect data from various sources, including 79 semi-structured interviews with the complementors and platform, informal conversations and archival documentation. Our study provides a research model that explains how micro-and-small complementors internalize opacity in their pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunities. Specifically, we identify three internalization mechanisms: adaptive identity work, selective (de)coupling and community-based continuous learning, and unpack their interlinking relationships. We highlight these internalizations foster algorithmically shaped entrepreneurial growth. This study advances the literature on algorithmic normative control, entrepreneurial effectuation and complementor response strategy.

The sustainability of digital platforms depends on the active engagement of complementor communities in contributing resources, knowledge, and collective innovation to promote economic as well as social and environmental sustainability. However, research has largely overlooked the proactive role of complementors, particularly platform-dependent entrepreneurs (PDEs), who rely on platform-provided resources but lack ownership of these assets. Using a resourcing perspective, this study examines how PDEs contribute to sustainable complementor communities through resource searching, accessing, and mobilizing processes. Based on data from 44 interviews with PDEs on Taobao, Alibaba, and Amazon, the research identifies a process model across resource searching, accessing, and mobilizing activities, which highlights the iterative, emergent nature of resourcing activities that PDEs employ to contribute to sustainable complementor communities. This study advances understanding of the dynamic capabilities and social practices underpinning the contributions of PDEs, shifting focus from platform owners to complementors' proactive roles and offering insights into the "low-tech" related features in platform dependence research.

Many digital platforms emphasize how they leverage algorithm management to help small businesses improve economic efficiency, thereby fostering platform social responsibility. However, a pressing societal concern relates to small businesses’ vulnerability under algorithm management, creating a tension between algorithm management–driven economic efficiency and the distrust that small businesses develop toward platforms. Despite this, there is limited understanding of how this tension manifests and how platforms address it. Drawing on an exploratory approach, we collected data from various sources, including two focus groups, 64 semi–structured interviews, and archival data. We first identify three tensions: algorithmic rewarding-based economic efficiency vs. perception of constrained benevolence, algorithmic recommending-based economic efficiency vs. decreased perception of integrity, and comprehensive information sharing-based economic efficiency vs. decreased perception of competence. We then explore how the platform adopts a loose coupling strategy to manage these multifaceted tensions and foster platform conscientiousness and warmth for social responsibility development. Specifically, coupling approaches facilitate mutual communication, understanding, and resource commitments, while looseness creates space for small businesses to create value in ways that may diverge from platform owners’ core value proposition paths. Consequently, we propose a research model of platform social responsibility. Our study contributes to the literature on platform social responsibility and platform–complementor relationship management. Practical implications for developing platform social responsibility and mutualistic platform–small business relationships are also provided.

In the digital platform landscape, hotels, as complementors, unavoidably participate in dynamic coopetition. Prior work on dynamic coopetition has primarily focused on the role of platform owners, who command considerable power in orchestrating coopetitive dynamics. However, the way in which power-disadvantaged complementors engage in such coopetition has been neglected. Through a qualitative multiple-case study of a hospitality platform, we find that hotels can engage in dynamic coopetition under asymmetric relationships with digital platforms to survive, supported by digital innovation. We conceptualize the “dynamic digital coopetition”, and elucidate three mechanisms underlying this: phygital expanding, loose-coupled bridging, and instant shifting. These mechanisms cover spatial, relational, and temporal levels. This conceptualization represents our primary contribution, as we unveil how complementors as power-disadvantaged actors step into dynamic coopetition in digital platforms to survive. We offer practical guidance to complementors from traditional sectors to embrace digital platforms.

Manufacturing firms are increasingly recognizing the critical importance of responsible artificial intelligence (AI)-the ethical and conscientious integration of AI into business processes. While scholars have highlighted the role of responsible AI in advancing responsible innovation, conceptualized as a transparent, reflexive, and inclusive process that engages all stakeholders, existing research has concentrated on initiatives at the AI design phase. As such, the processes through which responsible AI can be collaboratively implemented with external stakeholders to facilitate responsible innovation remain underexplored. To address this gap, this study employs a mixed-methods approach, comprising in-depth interviews (N = 26) and surveys (N = 618), to examine the relationship between responsible AI and responsible innovation. Drawing upon affordance-actualization theory, our findings reveal that responsible AI catalyzes three external stakeholder affordances: joint planning, joint problem-solving, and ethical climate. These affordances lead to immediate outcomes-stakeholder engagement and collective ethical efficacy-that ultimately foster responsible innovation. This study contributes to the literature on responsible AI by identifying three affordances related to the external stakeholders and one contextual factor, organizational mindfulness. It enriches the literature on responsible innovation by advancing the digital technology view and empirically examining the stepwise process through which responsible AI affects responsible innovation.

PurposeDrawing on the social presence theory, this study aims to explore how supplier–customer social media interactions influence supplier observers’ trust in the customers and what mechanisms contribute to variation in trust experience.Design/methodology/approachA total of 36 semi-structured interviews were conducted with Chinese suppliers using WeChat for business-to-business interactions. Data were analyzed in three steps: open coding, axial coding and selective coding.FindingsFindings reveal that varied trust is based not only on the categories of social presence of interaction – whether social presence is embedded in informative interactions – but also on the perceived selectivity in social presence. Observer suppliers who experience selectivity during social and affective interactions create a perception of hidden information and an unhealthy relationship atmosphere, and report a sense of emotional vulnerability, thus eroding cognitive and affective trust.Originality/valueThe findings contribute new understandings to social presence theory by exploring the social presence of interactions in a supplier–supplier–customer triad and offer valuable insights into business-to-business social media literature by adopting a suppliers’ viewpoint to unpack the mechanisms of how social presence of interaction positively and negatively influences suppliers’ trust and behavioral responses.

While the majority of incumbents struggle with survival, a few thrive against the backdrop of a platform-dominant ecosystem. Recent studies highlight the importance of reconfiguring, especially in a complementary way, to enhance incumbent adaptation and achieve thriving. Scholars have primarily focused on either possessing or accessing resources to enhance incumbent adaptation; however, the understanding of how to reconfigure resources, especially in a complementary manner, remains limited. Based on an in-depth case study in the hotel industry, incumbents with historical roots proactively organize multiple complementarities, thanks to digital technology. This successfully gains committed relationships with customers to outcompete digital giants. This study develops a "digital complementarity" framework to describe the phenomena by which incumbents outcompete digital giants. Particularly, we trace three mechanisms"digital branching," "digital fortifying," and "datadriven intimating"-and underpin a process model to understand how incumbents achieve successful adaptation to thrive in the platform-dominant ecosystem.

Online retailers often recommend new products to consumers. The present study examined the influence of regulatory fit on consumers' click-through intentions of new products recommended by online retailers. We proposed that regulatory fit resulting from aligning the product's regulatory focus and recommendation message's regulatory orientation positively influences click-through intention of new product recommendations. In a laboratory study (Study 1), we found that regulatory fit increase consumers' click-through behaviors of new product recommendations. Study 2 replicated the findings of Study 1 in a controlled online experiment and found support for regulatory fit-click-through intentions relationship. Study 3 found that regulatory fit increases click-through intentions for new products but not for existing products. Study 4 supported the mediating role of perceived efficacy and boundary condition of consumer innovativeness in the relationship between regulatory fit and click-through intentions. This study contributes to the literature on new product adoption, regulatory focus, and product recommendation strategies. Furthermore, it helps online retailors develop effective recommendation strategies for new product recommendations.

Reshoring can be theorized as a brand-revitalizing process for fostering companies' ability to create value in the home country. The question of how to maintain sustainable reshoring implementation strategies by developing favourable brand responses is an important but underexplored field. Given that reshoring brand meanings are socially constructed and causally inferenced by consumers, we advocate that a reshoring brand revitalization should begin by understanding what constitutes customers' attributions to reshoring motives. We identify values-driven, stakeholder-driven and strategic-driven attributions as determinants of the sense of the institutionalization process (brand authenticity, legitimacy and sustainability). These institutional logics comprise drivers that influence brand love and brand advocacy. We conduct an empirical study (n = 1043) in China. The findings indicate that institutionalized reshoring branding activity is significantly influenced by customers' attributions to underlying reshoring decisions. Reshoring brands that achieve institutional recognition are more likely to generate brand love and advocacy. In addition, our study provides empirical evidence that nostalgia (1) strengthens the influences of stakeholder-driven attributions on brand authenticity and sustainability, (2) inhibits the influence of values-driven attributions on brand authenticity and (3) inhibits the influence of strategic-driven attributions on brand authenticity, legitimacy and sustainability. Reshoring brand managers should consider these connections when designing their reshoring implementation strategies in the home country.

The drastic collapse of sharing economies in the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified criticism of the sustainability of this business model (BM). This has brought a new sense of urgency for the sharing economy to search for a sustainable BM and truly fulfill its economic, social, and environmental values. However, prior studies have primarily focused on reactively reframing its sustainability claims and gaining sustainable legitimacy by aligning with institutional resources. Such a reactive defense assumption requiring abundant resources might not be applicable to a sharing economy with limited resources during a crisis. Resourcefulness—obtaining more resources proactively and creatively from less—provides a far more fundamental solution to enable the sharing economy to fulfill sustainable values. Drawing upon an inductive study of a co-work sharing company, which thrived in the post-pandemic period, we developed a framework termed “digital resourcefulness” to understand how the venture resourcefully brings, bears, and deploys resources. In particular, we critically traced three mechanisms: infrastructuring, re-imbricating, and harmonizing and developed a model to understand how to adapt a sustainable BM. Our findings shed light on the scholarship of resourcefulness, sustainable BM, and crisis management literature, and provide guidance to the sharing economy with respect to responding to crises.

Artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled technology has generated a new dynamic that empowers the advertising business and social networking environment. In terms of convenience, consumers benefit from the generation of customized ad content through their activities on social network sites (SNS). However, concerns about data privacy and impaired well-being remain, notably in relation to Generation Z consumers, who are considered tech-savvy, narcissistically-oriented, and vulnerable in their SNS usage. Drawing on cognitive dissonance theory, we show how a dilemma of convenience vs. privacy drives their technology dissonance and their dependence on SNS. Our empirical study in the US demonstrates the trade-off between convenience and privacy that results from the customizability of technology, the opposite functions of these facets in technology dissonance, and the negative impact on SNS dependence. When the key role of the ego in the dissonance in Generation Z's SNS behavior is recognized, vulnerable narcissism is found to show nuances of psychological dissonance induced by privacy concerns. Our findings enhance the discussion on the customizability of AI-enabled technology by indicating how advertisers can improve targeted marketing and ensure the well-being of Generation Z consumers.

Over the last century, technological innovation (TI) has driven an evolution in numerous industries. It is established that organizations can enhance their performance via process and product innovation; however, the psychological foundations of TI, and the way this affects employees, are underexplored in the organization and management literature. Drawing on organismic integration theory, we aim to enrich the field of innovation and employee branding studies by examining the role of innovation capabilities in employees' motivation at work and wellbeing, which results in employee brand ambassadorship. A mixed-method approach is employed. Study 1 uses a case study to explore how employees acquire knowledge as part of their exposure to TIs. A research model that captures the underlying mechanism of how TI capabilities influence employee brand ambassadorship is then developed based on findings in Study 1. Based on Study 1 results, Study 2 conducts surveys (n = 300) to test the hypothesized framework in high-tech organizations with employees in China. Results show that both product and process innovation capabilities increase employees' psychological empowerment and autonomy, which subsequently increase their psychological wellbeing. Further, employees satisfied with their jobs are more likely to act as ambassadors for their organizational brands. The paper concludes by discussing the theoretical contributions and managerial implications of these findings.