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This study aims to use the new product development (NPD) perspective to understand why traditional leading telecom equipment companies, such as Alcatel-Lucent (ALu), have stagnated but the newcomer Huawei has achieved steady growth.

This paper takes the form of a comparative case study.

Three significant differences in NPD process between the companies were discovered: first, although both companies claim that they are market-oriented, Huawei’s NPD projects are customer-driven, and ALu projects are joint considerations of customer demand and technology leadership; second, Huawei uses a design-to-value strategy, and ALu applies a design-for-quality-premium strategy; third, resources are allocated and shared at the corporate level in Huawei and at the business division level in ALu.

This study offers several implications for NPD managers. First, holding a market leader position is more important than being a technology leader. Companies must fundamentally change their mind-sets, restructure NPD models and prioritize and empower marketing and sales departments in the decision-making and management of NPD projects. Second, to maximize customer value, managers must balance cost and quality and avoid overengineering. A quality premium no longer necessarily leads to product competitiveness. Third, to improve the efficiency of NPD performance, companies must build up a mechanism to enable across-boundary resources.

This study highlights a number of key NPD strategy issues. It was conducted in the telecom equipment industry, but NPD managers of other industries will also gain useful insights from the discussion.

This paper aims to understand the role of government played in the innovation process during the social crisis, and to investigate the innovation activities of the authoritarian state when dealing with social crisis.

Secondary data pertaining to eight impactful technological innovations in China during the COVID-19 crisis reveal how interactions and joint efforts by commercial firms and government organizations emerged as spontaneous responses.

The analysis of eight innovations – health code adoption, health omnichannel construction, noncontact service provision, distance education provision, public emotion consolation service, cross-boundary project promotion, cloud office adoption and medical material production – reveals a matrix of best practices that details the roles of government (controller or endorser) and the value creation orientation (pro-social or pro-economic value).

This study enriches innovation literature by providing a new perspective on the relationship between governmental force and technological innovation during social crises. As these new insights reveal, technological innovation can contribute to social crisis management. China’s example provides helpful implications for other countries suffering from the COVID-19 crisis.

In the ongoing Industry 4.0 era, the internet of things (IoT) has become a global race in the current information technology climate. However, little is understood about the pattern of the global competitive arena or its players’ set up strategy. This paper aims to attempt to compare the cross-country development of the IoT industry. In particular, from the lens of industrial policies, this paper highlights how China, as a latecomer, gains momentum to emerge victorious as a leader in this global race.

Based on five dimensions, namely, foundation, trajectory, characteristic, application and social impacts, this paper presents the evolution of the IoT industry in the USA, European Union, Japan, South Korea and China. From the lens of windows of opportunities, this paper analyzes how China seized the opportunity with the emerging technology, thereby, enabling it to create a competitive advantage.

This paper finds that China’s IoT industry takes a distinct trajectory, where scientific institutions, enterprises and governmental policies collaborate in unison, during which the first phase was when scientific research institutions introduced the conceptual new technology from developed countries. This technological foresight allowed for the identification and realization of critical technologies, strategic fields and technological trends. The second phase was the continuous dissatisfaction of capabilities of critical technologies, which creates disruptions that significantly altered the environment of technological competition.

This paper provides a comprehensive and comparative review of IoT industries in a global context, with the critical and influential role of the windows of opportunities on those enterprises lagging behind the technological wave.

Environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs), one of the major forces in environmental protection, have developed rapidly in the past few years, especially in developing countries such as China. This paper aims to reveal how the ENGOs select their focuses, specifically if they only concentrate on one focus or on contexts in which they obtain various focuses and the motivations behind their choosing strategies.

The current research interviewed 103 leaders of ENGOs covering every province in mainland China and adopts existing theories of NGOs alongside diversification strategy from a management perspective.

The results showed that most Chinese ENGOs now tend to be diversified but face different challenges. This research highlights the importance of ENGOs’ resources and capacities in facing current challenges and suggests directions to improve their diversification strategy.

This research adds value to the research of environmental NGOs and gives suggestions to environmental NGO practitioners, in particular to those in emerging markets.

After three decades of development, the Chinese electric vehicle industry became the world’s largest electric vehicle market in 2015. However, little is understood about how the Chinese electric vehicle industry, as a latecomer in this strategic newly emerged industry, could catch up with international incumbents. The purpose of this paper is to study how the windows of opportunity emerge and interactively influence the catch-up process of Chinese electric vehicle industry.

This paper conducted a case study to examine how Chinese electric vehicle latecomers use the windows of opportunity along with the development of a sectoral system of innovation to reduce the gaps.

The results indicate that windows of opportunity appeared in the introduction stage (2005) and the transition from the introduction stage to the growth stage (2015) because of the sectoral changes in technologies, demand, policies and the interaction among these factors. Domestic electric vehicle latecomers currently follow the catch-up pattern of duplication, creative imitation and innovation.

To capture the previous windows of opportunity, domestic electric vehicle latecomers rely on technology transfer through international joint ventures, government support and local advantages from cheap labor. To seize future windows of opportunity, apart from progressively accumulating innovation capabilities, it is also essential for managers to recognize, break through and extend the windows of opportunity by anticipating and monitoring the process of changes of the sectoral system.

This paper provides a fine-grained study on how latecomers in a new industry with emerging markets can seize windows of opportunities to catch up with the international leaders.

Buoyed by the desire to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and develop sustainable urban transportation, the dockless bike-sharing industry boomed in China during 2017–2018. To the surprise of the stakeholders, this industry dramatically ebbed in 2019. The dockless bike-sharing system deviated from a problem-solver to a troublemaker in a very short period. The oversupplied and excessively discarded shared bikes caused a big waste of resources and serious pollution to the environment. In this paper, the decision-making of the key players of the industry, i.e. business operators, investors, customers and government, is analyzed through the lens of the cognitive bias. This paper aims to illuminate the process of how this innovative transport solution turned to a disastrous ending, which caused damage to urban environment and financial loss to investors.

In this study, a qualitative analysis based on the rich secondary data sources is conducted. A rich amount of qualitative data including news reports, government policies, consulting reports and companies’ annual reports etc. were collected.

The study shows, in the product introduction period, the government, business operators, investors and consumers fell into the cognitive bias. They over focused on the positive side such as high-tech, eco-friendly, convenient image of the dockless bike-sharing solution. Thereby, the key stakeholders made irrational decisions in product adoption and management. This study moves toward increasing key stakeholders’ awareness of the imperative to reduce these biases when promoting eco-innovations. This study also recommends a prudent attitude with a rational and comprehensive thinking style in dealing with eco-innovation and the emerging sharing economy.

To solve the cognitive biases, this study recommends that people use rational decision-making style to examine and adopt the dockless bike-sharing solutions. Practical recommendations to tackle the existing recycling crisis of the dockless bike-sharing industry are also discussed.

This study aims to investigate the historical technological catch-up processes with particular attention to the role of windows of opportunity (WoO). As Industry 4.0 becomes the benchmark of many latecomer countries, this paper may provide guidelines to both policymakers and business practitioners. For clarifying how to catch up with the incumbents and leaders, the authors summarize the lessons based on the historical observations to conclude the pathways for latecomers who aim to reduce the gaps to leaders and manage catch-up. This study enriches the literature of catch-up from a holistic view with fresh insights into how and where to catch up.

The authors analyze the technological catch-up processes emerged in advanced industrial powers, newly industrialized countries (NICs) and emerging economies (EEs). By categorizing the countries into three kinds, they summarize the processes of catch-up along with the industry evolutions. Moreover, they explore how WoO may facilitate the catch-up processes from one stage to the next in above-mentioned categories. Doing so helps to further examine how technological catch-up and WoO interplay and differ among countries. Then, the authors further investigate the latecomers and incumbents and conclude the target choosing, path setting and direction selecting when implementing a catch-up strategy.

This study shows that technological catch-up emerged first in advanced industrial powers (AIPs), then in NICs and recently in EEs. Technological catch-up processes in AIPs and NICs take longer time than those in EEs. WoO from policy, market and technology usually collaboratively facilitate the technological catch-up processes in AIPs and NICs. However, in EEs, single WoO can lead to a successful catch-up. The authors further summarize the directions and pathways of catch-up: AIPs and NICs are normally considered by some latecomers to catch up with, while EEs are not.

This study is among the first to systematically review the historical developments of industry evolutions by focusing the technological catch-up based on the different categories of countries: AIPs, NICs and EEs. Moreover, the authors are also among the first few integrating the WoO and technological catch-up processes in different kinds of countries. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, they are also one of the pioneers who highlight the directions and pathways of latecomers and target choosing to catch up with. They also explore the possibility of selecting EEs as catch-up targets.

Recent studies have indicated that digital transformation can benefit an organization’s strategic renewal. However, there is little knowledge on how business executives engage in digital transformation for this purpose, especially in the service sectors of emerging markets. Therefore, this study aims to examine how business managers accomplish strategic renewal through digital transformation in emerging markets.

The authors conducted a longitudinal single case study of a leading business firm in China’s real estate industry, China Overseas Land & Investment Ltd. (COLI). Results of the analysis of semistructured interviews and rich secondary data allowed us to better understand how business managers react to changing customer demands by building and implementing divergent digital tools to fulfill strategic renewal.

The results showed that business executives of COLI developed the Whole Life Cycle Management System, to achieve strategic renewal. The system benefits resource allocation and potential adjustments to strategic goals. This study also helps update the organizational structure of the marketing and consumer services departments, helping better satisfy consumers’ demands and waste fewer resources. Thus, COLI accomplished structural, contextual and leadership-based ambidexterity.

This study provides a fresh understanding of the link between digitalization and strategic renewal by providing a fine-grained analysis of leading service providers in emerging markets. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to investigate the role of digital transformation in strategic renewal from an ambidexterity perspective.

How to enter and expand in a newly emerged foreign market is less understood. Should multinational enterprises move fast or slowly? In this study, the authors take China as the context to investigate what factors will lead to a fast expansion strategy in a foreign market. The purpose of this paper is to understand whether fast expansion benefits firms’ performance in a rapidly emerging market.

Based on insights from field interviews, the authors developed a theoretical framework. Then, the authors collected data from surveys of managers of multinational enterprises from Western countries to test their hypothesis. This research context is based on the experience of multinational enterprises in China which opened up to foreign direct investment in 1979.

This study shows that internally, strategic long-term investment goals, top management team commitment and externally switching costs and the growth in the demand market which will push firms to expand fast in the newly emerged China market. Faster pace of expansion benefits the performance of multinational enterprises in a newly emerged market.

Based on the onsite interviews followed by the survey of top managers of multinational enterprises located in China, this study provides a fine-grained analysis of the importance of pace and its key antecedents. Thus, the results provide new insights to decision-makers of multinational enterprises when considering expanding in an emerging market at its early stages of growth.

Many public sector organizations have shown a consistent lack of capability to execute their strategic plans compared with private sector organizations. This failure explains why most public sector organizations are grappling with the dynamics of the twenty-first century in service delivery. Further, the strategy execution gap is vast in the public sector organizations than in the private sector organizations. The purpose of this paper is built based on the curiosity to develop a conceptual model that can close the strategy execution gap in public sector organizations.

The research adopted a qualitative research design, particularly, a case study research design approach as an ideal tool to conduct a holistic and in-depth survey of the trends in strategy execution in the public sector.

From the findings of the study, it has been found that five out of the nine strategy execution components that were investigated showed higher scores. These strategy execution components perceived to be vital by this study and were integrated into the MERIL-DE model, which will significantly contribute to closing the strategy execution gap in the public sector.

This research was built based on the curiosity to develop a conceptual model, the MERIL-DE model that can close the strategy execution gap in public sector organizations.