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Innovation ambidexterity is crucial for fostering growth and gaining a competitive advantage in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Previous research indicates that achieving a balance between exploration and exploitation is a multifaceted phenomenon occurring across various levels. This paper aims to examine the influence of individual, organizational and institutional factors on the ambidextrous innovation of Chinese niche leaders using a configurational perspective.

This study uses secondary data collected from 69 Chinese niche leaders in the new equipment manufacturing industry. The authors use fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to investigate how owner openness, age, digitization, the formal institutional environment and the informal institutional environment jointly influence innovation ambidexterity.

By using fuzzy set analysis, this study categorizes combinations of interdependent factors that promote innovation ambidexterity. In particular, the authors pinpoint three configurations that foster high innovation ambidexterity and two configurations that lack such high levels of innovation ambidexterity. The analysis results suggest that innovation paradoxes in SMEs are linked to a nested system comprising leadership, organizational factors and the institutional environment.

This study elucidates the mechanism of innovation ambidexterity through a configurational perspective. This research proposes and validates a framework that enables SMEs to develop ambidextrous innovation capabilities, thereby integrating organizational ambidexterity theory and shedding light on the intricately complex nature of innovation ambidexterity.

The study aims to empirically study the effect of venture capital on open innovation of China's enterprises.

This paper selects China's A-share listed companies on the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) board and the Growth Enterprise Market from 2014 to 2018 as research samples to empirically study the effect of venture capital on open innovation of China's enterprises.

The authors find that venture capital can significantly promote open innovation of enterprises. This promoting effect is more significant when the venture capital institutions have profounder industry experience, higher shareholding ratio and are syndicated. Further research finds that venture capital mainly promotes open innovation through three mechanisms: increasing monetary funds, improving absorptive capacity and strengthening executive incentives, and the effect of venture capital on open innovation is significantly different under the conditions of different regions, industries and property rights.

This paper not only reveals the effect of venture capital on enterprises' open innovation and the specific mechanism, but also provides empirical evidence for emerging economies to build a national innovation ecosystem and make use of capital markets to accelerate innovation strategies.

This study investigates firms' innovation behaviour under environmental change. Therefore, it examines the effect of trade disputes on corporate technological innovation and how product market competition moderates this relationship.

This research tests the hypotheses using the fixed effects model based on panel data of publicly listed enterprises in China from 2007–2020.

The empirical results validate the positive association between trade disputes and corporate research and development (R&D) intensity as well as the U-shaped relationship between trade disputes and radical innovation. Additionally, the moderating effect of product market competition is verified: a concentrated market with less competition flattens the U-shaped curve of radical innovation induced by trade disputes; as the market becomes more concentrated and less competitive, the U-shaped relationship eventually turns into an inverted U.

First, this study contributes to the corporate innovation and trade dispute literature by expanding the environmental antecedents of technological innovation and the firm-level consequences of trade disputes. Second, this study enriches the theoretical framework of the environment–innovation link through an integrated perspective of contingency theory and dynamic capabilities view. Third, instead of the traditional linear mindset which had led to contradictory results, this study explores a curvilinear effect in the environment–innovation relationship.

Under extensive pressure from normal market competition, frequent technological change and extreme exogenous shock, firms are facing severe challenge nowadays. How to withstand discontinuous crises and respond to normal risks through improving resilience (RE) is an important question worth researching. Thus, drawing on the strategic entrepreneurship theory, the purpose of this study is exploring the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and RE, and combining digitization to discuss the role of digital business capability (DBC), digital business model innovation (DBMI) and environmental hostility (EH).

Based on survey data from 203 Chinese firms, using the methods of linear regression and bootstrap to test our hypothesis. Furthermore, fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (FsQCA) is used to identify previously unknown combinations which lead to strong/weak RE in digital context.

First, EO positively influenced DBC and RE. Second, DBMI promoted RE, DBC and DBMI served as sequential mediators that linked EO and RE. Third, EH positively moderated the effects of EO on RE. Further the study revealed that different configuration of DBMI and dimensions of EO and DBC can explain RE.

The study explains mechanism of RE from perspective of digitization. The conclusion is good for further consolidating strategic entrepreneurship theory, and providing a new frame for firms to build the ability of antifragile.

This study aims to examine whether, in the opinion of patients selected in 13 hospitals of Hubei province, China, hospitals are smoke free. Patients were also asked whether their physicians had inquired about their smoking status.

Patients were recruited through an intercept method (i.e. stopped by the interviewer while in the hospital); data were collected through interviews, with a response rate of 96.1 percent.

Among the intercepted patients, 48.3 percent reported having seen people smoking in hospitals; 22.3 percent had seen a doctor and/or nurse smoking; 23.8 percent had smelled tobacco in hospitals; 68.4 percent reported having seen “no‐smoking” signs in hospital settings; 42.6 percent reported having been asked about smoking status in their latest visit to a doctor and 23.8 percent reported receiving tobacco cessation counseling. Compared to hospitals in large cities, patients from medium/small city hospitals reported significantly higher levels of cigarette smoking among physicians, and poorer implementation of regulations for a smoking‐free hospital, and less smoking cessation counseling by physicians.

Findings of this study point to the need for greater efforts to be made in promoting a smoke free environment in hospitals, as well as encouraging physicians to provide more smoking cessation counseling to smoking patients, particularly physicians in small and medium hospitals.

How to successfully drive open innovation (OI) has become an important issue. However, the existing literature on the determinants of OI focuses on organizational and situational factors, while the “human side” of it remains poorly understood. To address such problem, this paper examines the impact of two core qualities of CEOs – CEO power and social capital – on three representative OI modes from a micro-level perspective.

This paper uses the data of 4,213 firm-year observations from Chinese A-share listed companies. A panel logit model is used to test the hypotheses, and the author also uses clustering robust standard errors to ensure the robustness of the model.

A powerful CEO can drive the firm's adoption of technology, organization and market-oriented OI, and different types of social capital have a differential impact on such relationship. Specifically, the CEO's political social capital has a negative moderating effect, while his/her stronger business social capital can enhance the positive relationship between CEO power and various types of OI activities, as well as mitigate the negative effect of political social capital.

This paper echoes the call for more attention to be paid to the microfoundations of OI and provides theoretical implications for research on the convergence of OI and strategic leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of the crowdfunding platforms on reward-based crowdfunding projects. This study offers guidance for the creator on how to choose among platforms and how to make optimal product and pricing decisions.

Usually, crowdfunding platforms are able to help creators to lower unit costs and charge platform fees in return. In this paper, the reduction of the unit cost and the platform fee are selected for determining the competitive strength (CS) of a platform. Then, the CS affecting the creators and the backers of the projects is analyzed.

In the basic model, when the product quality level is exogenous, the optimal price increases in the product quality level and decreases in the difficulty level of the project, while the corresponding expected profit is a unimodal function of the product quality level and the difficulty level. In the endogenous case, the optimal price is exactly twice the unit cost. With the influence of platforms, platforms with higher CS tend to help the creator to lower the prices and to achieve higher profitability. Moreover, platforms with higher CS usually help the creator to offer higher quality products and to charge higher prices.

The opportunity cost is zero in this paper. In reality, backers arrive at the project in different order. Usually, earlier backers bare more opportunity cost and risk.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first one to offer suggestions for creators on how to choose among crowdfunding platforms. The study provides theoretical guidance on product and pricing decisions on an analytical side.

Two corrosion inhibitors for closed cooling water systems, nitrite-based and mixture of nitrite and molybdate corrosion inhibitor, are often compared to each other. This study aims to optimize these two inhibitors in terms of concentration and pH for carbon steel protection, with insights into the double layer structure on surface and its impact on corrosion inhibition.

Electrochemical analysis including electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and potentiodynamic test are carried out for quick assessment of corrosion inhibition efficiency and optimization, which is confirmed by immersion test and microscopic analysis. The electronic properties of the surface film are analyzed through Mott–Schottky method which provides new insights into the inhibition mechanism and the role of each component in mixture inhibitor.

Mixture of nitrite and molybdate is shown to present higher inhibition efficiency, owning to the double layer structure. Nitrite alone can form a protective surface film, whereas molybdate leads to an n-type semiconductive film with lower donor density, hence giving rise to a better inhibition effect.

Surface after inhibitor treatment has been carefully characterized to the microscopic scale, implying the effect of micro-structure, chemical composition and electronic properties on the corrosion resistance. Inorganic corrosion inhibitors can be tuned to provide higher efficiency by careful design of surface film structure and composition.

Almost every study on corrosion inhibitor applies such method for quick assessment of corrosion inhibition effect. Mott–Schottky test is one of electrochemical methods that reveals the electronic properties of the surface film. Previous works have studied the surface layer mainly through X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. This study provides another insight into the surface film treated by nitrite and molybdate through Mott–Schottky analysis, and relates this structure to the corrosion inhibition effect based on multiple analysis including electrochemistry, microscopic characterization, thermodynamics and interface chemistry.

The purpose of this study is to develop a novel hybrid approach that incorporates the structural equation model (SEM) and fuzzy cognitive map (FCM) to investigate the impacts of the variation in project complexity on project success.

This study adopts SEM to identify and validate a correlation between project complexity variables and PS. Standardized causal coefficients estimated in SEM are used to construct an FCM model to illustrate the effect of complexity on PS with linkage direction and weights. Predictive and diagnostic analyses are performed to dynamically model the variation in project complexity on the evolution of PS.

Results indicate that (1) the hybrid SEM–FCM approach is capable of modeling the dynamic interactions between project complexity and PS; (2) information, goal and environmental complexities are negatively correlated with PS, and technological, task and organizational complexities are positively correlated with PS and (3) the recommendations of complexity management for construction projects are put forward under the guideline of success monitoring.

This research contributes to (1) the state of knowledge by proposing a hybrid methodology that can model the dynamic interactions between project complexity and PS and (2) the state of practice by providing a new perspective of PS evaluation to enhance the probability of success in complex construction projects.

Given the heavy pollution feature of the construction industry, construction corporations need to adopt an effective environmental governance strategy. The quality and quantity of environmental information disclosure (EID) implementation, as an essential part of a corporate environmental governance strategy, is impacted by the characteristics of the top management team (TMT). This paper aims to analyze the relationship between the demographic characteristics of the TMT (i.e. gender, age, tenure, educational level, and duality) and corporate EID.

Using data from listed construction corporations generated between 2014 to 2018 in China, this study employs the Tobit regression model to test the research hypotheses. Also, this study applies a novel analytical approach, necessary condition analysis (NCA), to conduct a series of additional tests.

The results reveal that tenure and educational level are significantly and positively related to EID, while gender, age, and duality in the executive role are not significantly related to EID. When considering the TMT size as a moderator, the TMT age is positively related to the corporate EID, and the size of the TMT acts as a moderator to weaken the positive effect of the TMT age on the EID. The NCA results show that TMT gender, age, tenure, and educational level are necessary when the levels of EID exceed 40%.

Our findings suggest that TMT characteristics have a relatively significant effect on corporate EID levels, which extends EID research to the construction industry. Corporate planners can endeavor to shape TMT characteristics to improve EID levels. The results of NCA provide insights into what TMT characteristics construction corporations need to satisfy in their pursuit of transparent EID, as well as the levels at which these characteristics are desired.