Re-examining path dependence in the digital age: The evolution of connected car business models

How does China's big data policy affect the digital economy of cities? Evidence from national big data comprehensive pilot zones

Based on the panel data of 280 cities in China from 2011 to 2019, this paper examines the effects of big data policies on the digital economy development by using the national big data comprehensive pilot zones as a quasi-natural experiment. The findings of this paper are as follows. First, the big data policy significantly promotes China's digital economy development. Second, cities at a higher administrative level receive higher policy benefits than cities at a lower administrative level. Third, technological innovation and human capital are important ways for the big data policy to improve the development of the digital economy. The conclusions of this paper not only help to assess the effectiveness of big data policies and ensure the efficacy of policy implementation, but also provide policy support for local governments to fully explore the value of data elements and grasp the new opportunities for the digital economy development with the help of the pilot zones.

Start-Up’s Road to Disruptive Innovation in the Digital Era: The Interplay Between Dynamic Capabilities and Business Model Innovation

The emergence and infusion of digital technologies bring greater chances for start-ups to conduct disruptive innovation through digital entrepreneurship. Despite the existed business practices, the happening mechanism of start-up’s disruptive innovation in the digital economy context remains unclear. This study aims to understand the evolutionary mechanism and fulfillment path start-ups’ disruptive innovation in the digital era. The longitudinal case study is conducted for a Chinese Internet start-up that successfully launched disruptive innovation under the digital economy background. Adopting a process perspective, this study analyzes the evolutionary phases of digital disruptive innovation. Moreover, this study identifies the digital technologies adoption, dynamic capabilities deployment, and business model innovation as the key pillars, and their interactions. Finally, this study induces and proposes its evolution mechanism and fulfillment path models. This study enriches the research scope of disruptive innovation and digital entrepreneurship. This study can offer theoretical guidance for the start-ups’ disruptive innovation in the digital era, and practical implications for implementing a digital catching-up strategy.

Breaking a Path by Creating a New One – How Organizational Change Boosts Children’s Cancer Care

The theory of organizational path dependence helps us to understand why organizational change is sometimes extremely difficult, if not impossible. Although recent conceptualizations of path dependence allow for strategic agency, the theory is still underspecified regarding how to break an organizational path. In an attempt to develop the theory in this regard, we make use of a case in the sphere of global health with an undisputed life-saving impact. More precisely, we trace a significant improvement in the field of pediatric cancer care back to path-breaking organizational change: the successful introduction of multi¬center cooperation within a health-care system that is arguably locked-into a centralization path. Drawing on longitudinal research conducted within Russian hospitals, we conclude that path-breaking change is an intricate process based upon distinct activities, and supported by mechanisms, directed towards the creation of a new organizational path.

The Impact of Firm Heterogeneity and External Factor Change on Innovation: Evidence from the Vehicle Industry Sector

We explore the connection between firms’ technological innovation capabilities and their internal and external factors. To empirically test this relationship, we use panel data for new energy vehicle (NEV) firms and traditional fuel vehicle firms in China from 2010 to 2020. Our findings show that public subsidies do have a positive impact on firms’ technology innovation capability, and there are consistent findings for both NEV and traditional fuel vehicle firms. Firms have a supportive effect on their innovative ability when they satisfy conditions of high profitability, low leverage, high equity concentration, and highly educated employees. The inability to maximize the effectiveness of public subsidies is due to an imbalance in the internal and external factors of firms. Therefore, we innovatively analyze the internal and external factors of NEV firms as an integrated system, taking into account the high correlation between them, rather than discussing them separately. The paper is not only of academic significance to the development of NEV firms to improve their technological innovation capability and the transformation of traditional fuel vehicle firms, but also of practical significance to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the achievement of the “double carbon” goal.

Organisational agility, environmental knowledge and green product success

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to analyse the effect of organisational agility on environmental knowledge as an instrument for the successful development of eco-innovation in products.

Design/methodology/approach

This study used a cross-sectional design to collect data on the study variables from a sample of 184 Spanish manufacturing organisations. Structural equations with partial least squares were used to test the hypotheses.

Findings

Organisational agility is significantly linked to internal and external environmental knowledge. The results of this study highlight the effect of external knowledge on the success of eco-innovation. Internal environmental knowledge positively moderates the effect of external knowledge on the success of green products.

Research limitations/implications

Based on the dynamic capabilities approach, a theoretical model has been proposed in which organisational agility is configured as an effective capacity for the development of environmental knowledge. The results confirm this relationship and indicate that, although internal environmental knowledge is not decisive in developing new green products, it does enhance the effect of external knowledge on the success of eco-innovation.

Practical implications

Innovative companies must implement organisational agility practices that promote environmental knowledge for the success of new green products. They should also promote both external and internal knowledge.

Originality/value

This study addresses the little explored area of the relationship between organisational agility and the successful development of new green products. The inherent particularities of eco-innovation prompt the need for further studies on the creation of specific knowledge for its promotion. This study concludes that adopting agile practices enables key environmental knowledge for this type of innovation to be created. Additionally, it explores the tensions arising from the dichotomy between internal and external knowledge, with scarce resources allocated to the most effective source. Although both types of knowledge seem to be equally relevant, external knowledge plays a more significant role in the case of eco-innovation. A final contribution of this study is the finding that internal knowledge can further enhance the effect of external knowledge on the development of successful green products.