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Via dialectical perspective and configurational approach, this paper aims to explore the relationship between female representation and long-term firm performance when combined with environmental conditions.

For necessary condition analysis and time-series qualitative comparative analysis, a sample of 614 listed Chinese manufacturing firms between 2017 and 2020 was obtained.

The inclusion of female executives can aid firms in their long-term performance and resilience. Seven configurations, categorized as chimpanzee type, African elephant type and queen bee type, can prompt long-term firm performance. Chimpanzee-type configuration is the most prevalent path for firms to achieve long-term performance.

Firms could reconsider the role of female executives in achieving long-term success, assist in breaking the invisible “glass ceiling” and “glass cliff,” and refrain from viewing them as mere “tokens.” Policymakers can improve female representation by institutionally guaranteeing women’s opportunities for empowerment, education and promotion.

This study presents evidence for the legitimacy of female representation by demonstrating the intricate causality between female representation and firm performance beyond the controversy between business ethics and coercive policy. This paper also builds upon and extends the literature on female representation and provides alternative ways to improve female representation by combining female executives’ percentages, professionalism and positions.

Based on theories such as knowledge management and resource base, this paper explores the effect of knowledge domain coupling on R&D team innovation performance under the perspective of technological innovation networks as well as the mediating role of digital transformation, and further validates the moderating role played by organizational innovation climate and environmental turbulence.

Taking the data of 239 Chinese enterprises with high R&D intensity and strong innovation ability as samples, SPSS and AMOS are used for empirical testing.

The findings suggest that knowledge domain coupling and its decomposition variables (complementary knowledge coupling and iterative knowledge coupling) have a significant positive effect on R&D team innovation performance, digital transformation partially mediates the relationship between knowledge domain coupling and R&D team innovation performance, and that there is a positive moderating effect of organizational innovation climate and environmental turbulence in the influence path.

The study has enlightening value for innovative enterprises and their R&D teams on how to effectively couple the knowledge, make reasonable use of iterative technologies and promote digital transformation practices to enhance innovation performance.