The Role and Meaning of the Digital Transformation As a Disruptive Innovation on Small and Medium Manufacturing Enterprises

Digitizing success: Leveraging digital human resource practices for transformative productivity in Chinese SMEs

Background

& Purpose: In the rapidly evolving digital landscape, digital human resource (HR) practices in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have become a vital success factor. This study adopts the resource-based view of the firm to explore the complicated relationships among digital HR practices, digital transformation, innovative work behavior, disruptive innovation, and work productivity in the context of Chinese SMEs.

Methods

This study provides fundamental insights by drawing data from Jiangsu province, China. Data from 339 managerial staff members were collected and analyzed using SmartPLS (4.0) with a partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM). Several measures, model fit, and hypothesis tests were conducted.

Findings

Digital HR practices significantly affect digital transformation, innovative work behavior, and productivity. Furthermore, digital transformation is a powerful driver that positively influences innovative work behavior and productivity in SMEs. Interestingly, innovative work behavior positively influenced work productivity, exemplifying the vital role of inspired thinking and problem-solving abilities. This study also investigates the moderating role of disruptive innovation, highlighting its influence on the association between digital HR practices and digital transformation. However, disruptive innovation does not significantly moderate the association between digital transformation and innovative work behavior, suggesting fascinating nuances for SMEs.

Conclusion/value

This research extends our understanding of the interaction between digitalization, HR, and innovation, and proposes practical implications for SMEs aiming to harness the transformative potential of digitization. Several theoretical and practical implications are developed for future studies on related SMEs.

Digital transformation and middle managers' leadership skills and behavior: a group concept mapping approach

This study, with the aim to test theory in practice, used group concept mapping to develop a comprehensive conceptualization of middle managers' leadership behaviors concerning digital transformation as a form of radical change. Participants were professionals in the largest public organization in the Netherlands (a police organization) who were dealing with digital transformation in their own practice and who enrolled in an education program on leadership and intelligence. Based on 94 unique statements, the participant-driven results revealed six thematically coherent clusters representing leadership skills and behaviors regarding improvement and results, digital technologies, cooperation, the self, change and ambivalence, and others. The stress value of 0.2234 indicated a good fit. Further analysis showed that clusters containing soft skills and people-oriented behaviors were considered the most important. These results can serve as input to support leadership development programs for middle managers to develop themselves into people-oriented, empowering leaders who can adapt their leadership approaches to fit and support change in general and technology-driven change in particular. Ultimately this will benefit their and their employees' overall well-being at work. This study is the first to investigate middle managers' leadership skills and behaviors in a large public organization that is entirely participant-driven.

Digital transformation, industrial structure change, and economic growth motivation: An empirical analysis based on manufacturing industry in Yangtze River Delta

China is in a critical stage of economic growth mode transformation. The digital transformation of the manufacturing industry may create new impetus and new models for economic growth. Taking the manufacturing industry of 25 prefecture-level cities in the Yangtze River Delta region as the research object, we explore the digital transformation process of the manufacturing industry and verifies its theoretical mechanism of promoting economic growth through the industrial structure. A panel model based on the improved Feder two-sector model and a multiple mediating effect model are established to explore the dynamic mechanism of manufacturing digital transformation to promote economic growth through industrial restructuring. The results show that the digital transformation of the manufacturing industry in the Yangtze River Delta region of China is relatively high, and the speed of digital transformation has been accelerating in recent years. The digital transformation of the manufacturing industry can promote the change in industrial structure and form a new driving force for economic growth. The key is to improve the level of industrial structure and extend the length of the industrial chain. Based on these, we propose measures to promote the transformation and upgrading of industrial structure for the sustainable development of China's economy.

Factors that favor or hinder the acquisition of a digital culture in large organizations in Chile

Organizational culture is often perceived as a valuable strategic asset supporting business transformation and the exploitation of digital technologies. Still, it can also be the source of inertia that impedes change. The research question proposed is What factors favor or hinder the acquisition of digital culture in large organizations in Chile? The aim is to rank factors that promote a digital culture based on the perception of executives using the Delphi method. The expert panel was selected with strategic criteria, considering practical knowledge, up-to-date experience on the subject, and having high decision-making positions in large companies in Chile. The main statistics used are media, maximum, minimum, and average range, along with the search for consensus determined by the interquartile range and Kendall's W concordance coefficient. Results show a high level of agreement on the importance of digital strategy and digital leadership factors when favoring a digital culture in large companies in Chile. However, large companies in Chile must pay attention to the conservative triad of elements that characterize Chilean work culture that considers the belief that changes are exclusively possible when commanded by the strategic apex, a hierarchical work culture that prevents collaborative work, and the rejection of disruptive change. These factors and cultural characteristics will likely hinder any attempt to succeed in a digital transformation plan.

Linking the trust of industrial entrepreneurs on elements of ecosystem with entrepreneurial success: Determining startup behavior as mediator and entrepreneurial strategy as moderator

Purpose

This study aimed to apply "multi-criteria decision approach and attitude-change theory" to examine post-COVID-19 impact on entrepreneurial mindset by investigating the link between entrepreneurs social capital (trust on three elements of ecosystem i.e., experts & enterprises, media, and government) and entrepreneurial success (both individual and organizational). Specifically, this study analyzed entrepreneurs' dispositional factor (startup behavior) as an underlying mechanism to bridge trust and entrepreneurial success. Furthermore, it also analyzed entrepreneurs' situational factor (entrepreneurial strategy) as boundary condition.

Design/methodology/approach

We applied time-lagged data collection from 505 industrial entrepreneurs. Survey method was used for data collection. A 7-point Likert scale was used for the respondent response. Hayes developed PROCESS models 4 and 7 were used to test the hypothesis.

Findings

The direct impact of trust on three elements of the ecosystem was found significantly positive on both startup behavior and entrepreneurial success. The direct impact of startup behavior on entrepreneurial success is also significantly positive. The impact of startup behavior on indirect mediation between trust and entrepreneurial success is visibly positive. The moderated and moderated mediation impact of entrepreneurial strategy found positively significant at low and medium values. However, this study found an insignificant moderated impact at high values of entrepreneurial strategy between trust on media and startup behavior. Furthermore, this study also found insignificant moderated mediation impact at high values of entrepreneurial strategy by interacting with two elements of ecosystem (trust on media and trust on government) through startup behavior on entrepreneurial success.

Originality/value

The authors suggested that startup behavior is an underlying mechanism through which industrial entrepreneurs trust achieved desired entrepreneurial success. The authors also suggested that the influencing role of "low level of entrepreneurial strategy" in comparison with "high level entrepreneurial strategy" is more helpful to achieve entrepreneurial success.

Implications

This study contributed to the literature on entrepreneurial strategy for its conditional indirect moderated impact on startup behavior and moderated mediation impact on firm entrepreneurial success. It also contributed to owners of the manufacturing industry for their startup behavior as an underlying mechanism through which trust influences entrepreneurial success.

The contribution of organizational culture, structure, and leadership factors in the digital transformation of SMEs: a mixed-methods approach

Contributing to the scarce literature on how companies can deal with their business model of digital transition, this work explores the digital transformation (DT) process in small and medium enterprises (SME), investigating how organizational culture, structure, and leadership influence it. While such three factors are deemed essential components to facilitate DT, how they operate and how they relate to each other are still not very well-defined issues in need of in-depth investigation. This study employed a mixed-methods approach, following an exploratory sequential design. First, a conceptual model was developed based on qualitative data collected from expert interviews and analyzed through grounded theory. This stage uncovered 25 first-order concepts about culture, structure, and leadership, further organized into 6 constructs and hypothesis paths. Then, with a sample of 192 SMEs, the structural model was measured and validated using exploratory factor analysis and PLS-SEM. As a result, our study offers robust and timely research, whose conceptual model condenses a knowledge corpus that future research can benefit from, and it provides statistical extrapolations about how and how much those factors relate to each other in SME context; moreover, given the traditional scarce resources and lack of flexibility in SMEs, it provides orientation and guidelines to managers facing DT and needing to understand the organizational factors they should be aware of, where to focus energy, and what to expect as results. From a large-scale perspective, this study carries an impactful contribution to the many countries where SMEs play a major economic and social role.

Insight into the Balancing Effect of a Digital Green Innovation (DGI) Network to Improve the Performance of DGI for Industry 5.0: Roles of Digital Empowerment and Green Organization Flexibility

Under the background of double carbon target and digital intelligence era, the innovation resources and innovation environment that manufacturing enterprises rely on have shown exponential growth. Digital green innovation (DGI) has gradually become the mainstream paradigm of innovation. How to achieve a balance between a local DGI network (LDGIN) and a remote DGI network (RDGIN) and how to use the role of digital empowerment and green organization flexibility to improve the performance of DGI are very important issues facing manufacturing enterprises at present. However, this problem has not been fully addressed in the existing research. In this study, the influence mechanism of LDGIN and RDGIN on the DGI performance of manufacturing enterprises was revealed, considering the moderating role of digital empowerment and green organization flexibility. The linear regression method was used to analyze the 562 valid data obtained by questionnaire survey. The results of this study are as follows. The effect of the DGI network on manufacturing enterprises’ DGI performance is heterogeneous because of LDGIN and RDGIN. The establishment of embedded links in a DGI network inevitably requires manufacturing enterprises to pay the corresponding costs. The over-embedding of manufacturing enterprises into RDGIN will have a negative impact on DGI performance. The balance between LDGIN and RDGIN has an important impact on manufacturing enterprises’ operation. The comprehensive balance and relative balance indexes constructed in this paper show that an appropriate balance can promote the improvement of the DGI performance of manufacturing enterprises. Digital transformation and organizational structure innovation are changing the business model of manufacturing enterprises and can regulate the relationship between the LDGIN and RDGIN and the DGI performance of manufacturing enterprises. The balance of DGI network embedding in practice shows the important role and enlightening significance of local and remote search in developing countries.

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.

Digital Transformation and Corporate Social Performance: How Do Board Independence and Institutional Ownership Matter?

This study addresses a gap in the literature on corporate governance and corporate social responsibility (CSR) by investigating whether and how board independence and institutional ownership moderate the relationship between digital transformation and corporate social performance (CSP). We find that digital transformation increases CSP using a panel dataset of Chinese publicly listed firms between 2014 and 2018. Moreover, we show that this positive impact is more pronounced when firms have higher proportions of independent directors on the board and institutional owners. These findings contribute to a better understanding of CSR dynamics, supporting the formulation and implementation of efficient CSR strategies in the digital era.

The Impact of Specialized Knowledge Search on Enterprise Innovation

Against the backdrop of the fierce competition in the market nowadays, a closed innovation model based on internal knowledge is no longer sufficient to support enterprises in search of high-performance innovation. Instead, corporations are desperately required to search for resources of external knowledge to meet their innovation goals. Existing studies on open innovation in corporate management failed to fully elaborate on the mechanism of how the external knowledge search could impose an impact on sustaining innovation and disruptive innovation. In this study, the external knowledge search was divided into three categories according to the knowledge-based theory, namely, the scientific knowledge search, the market knowledge search, and the supply-chain knowledge search. While taking into account the moderating role of the focus of attention of the manager, we analyzed the statistical results of 485 questionnaires collected from manufacturing enterprises to elaborate on the mechanism of how the specialized knowledge search could impose an impact on sustaining innovation and disruptive innovation. Our research conclusions are expected to enrich existing studies on the factors contributing to corporate innovation, including but not limited to sustaining innovation and disruptive innovation. In addition, the research findings are expected to lay an empirical foundation by summarizing previous theoretical opinions while providing references for subsequent in-depth studies in the meantime. Moreover, the paper has put forward practical management measures and suggestions that could enable enterprises in developing countries to search and effectively transform the external knowledge into innovative outcomes. Last but not least, this study is expected to provide both theoretical and practical guidance for enterprises to further facilitate innovation by means of knowledge search.