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Developing technological capabilities to enhance innovation performance is essential for firms to respond to external changes and competition. Based on the effect of organizational structure on organizational capability development, this study assesses whether a specific R&D organizational structure design can be used to develop different technological capabilities.

Combining organizational theory and the resource-based view as an integrated view, we propose several contrasting hypotheses to show the effects of three general R&D organizational structure designs (centralized, decentralized, and hybrid) on developing exploitative and explorative capabilities. We propose R&D slack as a moderator. 82 Taiwanese listed manufacturing firms were selected. Data on the firms' annual reports and their patent applications to the Taiwan Patent Office from 2005 to 2017 were collected.

Firms’ adoption of centralized and decentralized R&D structures has a significant positive effect on developing exploitative capability and an opposite effect on developing explorative capability. A high or low R&D slack can moderate the impact of R&D organizational structure on non-routine capability development.

This study concludes that R&D organizational structure affects the development of different technological capabilities and that the effect of R&D organizational structure on the development of technological capabilities can be changed under the moderation of R&D slack, which means that the possibility of developing different technological capabilities under the same organizational structure will increase.

The top manager should consider the relationship between R&D structure design and technological capability development to manage the R&D routines to influence the generation of technological capabilities. Also, they must utilize the provision of R&D slack to modulate technological capability development.

This study reexamines the relationship between organizational structure and capability development. It shows that organizational structure can shape unique technological capabilities and that firms may be able to change structural elements through slack resources, enabling ambidexterity or dynamic capability development without organizational change.

This study aims to explore the innovative strategies of business model of the free-to-fee switch, the relationship between the business model innovation and customer knowledge and further develop a conceptual model.

This study adopts a multiple case study method with abductive research logic, following the replication logic to select samples. A total of eight outstanding companies with altogether 312 free-to-fee switch events were selected from 1998 to 2021.

A strategic matrix with four innovative business models for the free-to-fee switch is generated. The parallelism between the models and customer knowledge orientations is also found. Further, the study develops the conceptual model regarding customer knowledge orientation as a key mediation.

The study highlights the conceptualization definition of customer knowledge orientation and its mediation effect to the business model innovation of free-to-fee switch, which is a new issue compared with previous research. Furthermore, it reveals that there exists organizational ambidexterity, which brings a new definition of customer knowledge orientation.

This study suggests how to integrate customer knowledge orientations to support the marketing process of the business model of free-to-fee switch. It also proposes a specific mechanism to conduct the free-to-fee switch with the introduction of four innovative strategic models and eight evolutional paths.

This study creatively proposes the strategic matrix and the conceptual model of business model innovation of free-to-fee switch. Moreover, a new conceptual definition of customer knowledge orientation is specified.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of mediation and moderation mechanisms between firm-level effects of transformational leadership (TFL) on unit-level performance across levels.

The authors used surveys to collect data from 800 senior managers at the firm level and 1,377 unit managers from 800 units of 100 firms from semiconductors, optoelectronics, computer electronics, and telecommunications industries. The industries were chosen because these firms focus on expanding their businesses and encourage extensive knowledge sharing among the firms and at all levels within the organizations.

In this study, the authors theorized that firm-level effects of TFL on unit-level performance across levels were positively related to unit-level performance. Unit-level knowledge sharing mediates the positive relationship between firm-level TFL and unit-level performance. A cross-level interaction effect of firm-level TFL and unit-level absorptive capacity showed that a positive unit-level absorptive capacity enhanced firm-level influence of TFL on unit-level knowledge sharing. Unit-level absorptive capacity moderates the positive relationship between unit-level knowledge sharing and unit-level performance.

First, the authors attempt to integrate the leadership and knowledge management research by exploring the critical mediator of unit-level knowledge sharing in explaining the effects of firm-level TFL on employees’ performance at the unit level. This approach is important because it extends the research areas of the two fields, and also clarifies issues regarding how and why TFL at the top of the organization positively impacts the performance of employees at a lower level of the organizational hierarchy. Second, the effectiveness of firm-level TFL depends on the absorptive capacity of each unit. The importance of absorptive capacity and the consequences of leadership behaviors have been emphasized in studies.

This study aims to explore how manufacturing firms master customer lock-in through value creation by servitization innovation strategies from the perspective of asset specificity.

A multiple case study with triangulation fashion is adopted to identify servitization innovation strategies. Several manufacturing firms were investigated, which are distributed in different positions of the value chain. Content analysis and abductive approaches are adopted to analyze the data. Moreover, an in-depth interview and participatory observation were conducted to refine the analysis results.

This study identified four different focusing points of servitization operations. Based on these, the paper further induces an innovative servitization strategy matrix of customer lock-in, concerning communion, intellectual, existential and insubstantial strategies. Furthermore, a conceptual model of customer lock-in by servitization innovation from the perspective of asset specificity is elaborated. It is suggested that companies can use tangible or intangible resources by sharing or storing operations to create servitization value.

This study theoretically proposes a conceptual model to extend servitization innovation as an intangible asset and adopt the new perspective of asset specificity to illustrate the value creation in servitization to generate customer lock-in.