Search Results (1,447)

In the digital era, intelligent applications play an increasingly pivotal role in restructuring supply chain cost management. Using panel data from Chinese-listed firms between 2010 and 2024, this study examines the impact of customers’ Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption on the cost stickiness of their suppliers. The findings indicate that customers’ AI adoption mitigates suppliers’ cost stickiness. This effect is more pronounced for larger suppliers, those with shorter geographic distance to customers, and those in highly competitive industries. Furthermore, customers’ AI adoption alleviates suppliers’ cost stickiness by promoting flexible production modes, enhancing production information flexibility, and raising production efficiency. Moreover, a two-stage model suggests that this alleviation of cost stickiness enhances suppliers’ corporate resilience, offering directional insights for transmitting within supply chain systems. In summary, this paper expands the theoretical understanding of intelligent applications in supply chain systems, by substantiating cross-firm spillover effects and interactive behaviors among supply chain stakeholders. Full article

This study investigates the determinants and predictability of stock return volatility by integrating firm-specific financial characteristics with advanced econometric and volatility modeling techniques. Using an unbalanced panel dataset comprising 1596 firms and 19,752 firm-year observations from MENA stock markets over the period 2010–2024, the analysis employs fixed-effects panel regression models, conditional volatility models, and machine learning-based forecasting approaches. Following extensive diagnostic testing, including tests for heteroskedasticity, serial correlation, cross-sectional dependence, and model specification, a two-way fixed-effects model with Driscoll–Kraay standard errors is adopted as the preferred estimation framework. The results indicate that liquidity ratio, cash ratio, sales growth, firm age, lagged volatility, and lagged returns are significant determinants of stock return volatility, whereas leverage, tangibility, board independence, firm size, Tobin’s Q, and profitability do not exhibit statistically significant effects after controlling for firm-specific and time-specific heterogeneity. The volatility analysis reveals substantial persistence in stock return volatility, with the EGARCH-t specification providing the best fit among the competing GARCH-family models according to the Akaike Information Criterion. The estimated asymmetry parameters indicate that volatility responds differently to positive and negative shocks, supporting the presence of asymmetric volatility dynamics and the suitability of asymmetric volatility models. The forecasting analysis shows that advanced machine learning and deep learning models achieve competitive predictive performance; however, differences in predictive accuracy across models are generally modest. Full article

As a cornerstone of global technological advancement, the semiconductor industry depends critically on supply chain stability, which directly influences the global economy and technological innovation. To address uncertainty in semiconductor supply chains, this study develops a Stackelberg game model incorporating Nash bargaining fairness concern to examine pricing strategies, ESG effort decisions, and their implications for supply chain stability under different fairness concern scenarios. A cost-sharing contract-based coordination mechanism is proposed, and numerical simulations verify the effects of fairness concern and ESG effort on stability, as well as the coordinating role of the cost-sharing contract under market uncertainty. The results show the following: (1) Manufacturer fairness concern boosts its profit and ESG effort, but excessive price hikes erode retailer profit and undermine stability. (2) Retailer fairness concern prompts the manufacturer to rebalance profit allocation via lower wholesale prices and reduced ESG effort, weakening supply chain competitiveness. (3) Cost-sharing contracts effectively mitigate the adverse effects of fairness concern and enhance semiconductor supply chain stability. This study provides a verifiable framework for semiconductor firms to improve cooperative stability and sustainable development. Full article

This study examines whether digital capabilities constitute a necessary condition for green innovation and firm competitiveness in the context of increasing sustainability and digital transformation pressures. Although prior research frequently links digitalization to improved environmental and business outcomes, limited evidence exists on whether firms must achieve a minimum level of digital capability to successfully generate green innovation and sustain competitive performance. To address this gap, the study investigates the relationships among digital capabilities, green innovation, and firm competitiveness using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) and Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA). Using survey data from 740 firms across Hungary, Romania, Poland, Austria, and other Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, the findings demonstrate that digital capabilities significantly enhance both green innovation and firm competitiveness. Green innovation further acts as a mediating mechanism through which digital capabilities translate into superior competitive outcomes. Importantly, the NCA results reveal that digital capabilities are not merely beneficial but represent a necessary condition for achieving high levels of green innovation and competitiveness within the studied sample of CEE firms, suggesting a threshold relationship that warrants further causal investigation. Firms with higher digital maturity consistently outperform less digitally developed firm. Firms with higher digital maturity consistently outperform less digitally developed firms in leveraging sustainability-oriented innovation strategies. The study contributes to the literature by advancing understanding of how digital transformation capabilities support sustainable competitiveness and by combining sufficiency and necessity analytical approaches to examine these relationships. The findings also provide practical implications for managers and policymakers by highlighting the strategic importance of investing in digital capabilities to simultaneously support environmental sustainability and long-term competitive performance. Full article

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operate under conditions of rapid change, competitive pressure and growing informational complexity, while their owner-managers often have limited time and cognitive bandwidth to interpret emerging strategic possibilities. Artificial intelligence (AI) is beginning to change this by extending how firms detect signals, interpret shifting environments and evaluate possible strategic responses. However, existing work in dynamic capabilities, sensemaking and microfoundations does not fully explain how AI-augmented cognitive systems shape organisational interpretive capacity, strategic adaptability and sustainable competitive positioning. This article addresses that gap by developing Strategic Edge Architecture (SEA), a sociotechnical microfoundational theory of how AI-augmented cognitive infrastructure enhances environmental sensing, prospective sensemaking, adaptive strategic response and sustainability integration in SMEs. Drawing on a multiparadigm theoretical synthesis, this article integrates insights from strategic management, organisational cognition, microfoundations, AI governance and sustainability strategy. SEA conceptualises strategic capability as an emergent property of cognitive infrastructure within which human and AI systems interact to support environmental interpretation, strategic adaptation and sustainable growth. The framework proposes a causal pathway through which AI augmentation strengthens sensing and sensemaking, with human-in-the-loop governance acting as a key moderating condition. The article concludes with formal propositions to guide future empirical research on AI-augmented organisational cognition, whilst recognising that the framework’s claims remain inferential and require empirical examination before SEA’s explanatory power can be assessed. Full article

Firms can gain a competitive advantage through a strategic patent portfolio, wherein patents elucidate technological advancements and establish legal barriers that keep competitors out. However, patents do not provide a perpetual monopoly within the prevailing open innovation paradigm, which means that firms should keep up with innovation input and patent applications to preserve their market dominance. Fostering technological breakthroughs in the patent network thus becomes a critical issue. Anchored in the theoretical views of open innovation, this study conducts an empirical analysis of patent data to examine how patent network structural features influence the technologies’ breakthrough tendency in the field of autonomous driving (AD). The findings indicate that centrality metrics such as degree centrality, harmonic centrality, and betweenness centrality within AD patent networks exert significant influence on technological breakthrough tendency, and the patent family size plays a moderating role in these relationships. Moreover, this research advances theoretical insights for patent strategy formulation in emerging firms of AD, with broader implications for other technology-intensive sectors. Full article

This study develops a game-theoretic framework to analyze collaborative advertising decisions between manufacturers and retailers in seasonal product supply chains characterized by competitive–cooperative channel relationships. We formulate a mathematical programming model to jointly optimize advertising efforts, the manufacturer’s advertising cost-sharing rate, order quantities, and inventory decisions across distinct channel configurations—including a single manufacturer–retailer dyad and a competitive multi-channel market. Numerical experiments and sensitivity analyses are conducted to investigate how key structural parameters—particularly demand elasticity and channel power asymmetry—influence overall system performance and equilibrium decision outcomes. Results indicate that well-designed collaborative advertising mechanisms enhance total channel profitability and, under specific conditions, yield Pareto-improving outcomes for both parties. This study makes three primary contributions: (i) it integrates inter-firm competition with intra-channel cooperation within a unified strategic framework; (ii) it jointly coordinates advertising and inventory decisions—two critical operational levers—rather than treating them in isolation; and (iii) it embeds financial arrangements (e.g., cost sharing) endogenously into the analytical model, thereby offering a novel, theoretically grounded, and practically implementable decision-support framework for distribution systems operating in complex, dynamic market environments. Full article

This review examines the relationship among foreign direct investment (FDI), trade openness, and economic growth, with emphasis on the channels through which external integration influences development outcomes. The literature generally suggests that FDI can raise growth through capital accumulation, technology transfer, productivity gains, and stronger linkages with domestic firms, while trade openness can promote growth by expanding market access, increasing competition, and improving resource allocation. However, the evidence is not uniform: some studies report that trade openness is the main driver of growth, while others find that FDI has a stronger effect, or that both variables matter only under favorable macroeconomic, institutional, and financial conditions. This review synthesizes theoretical arguments and empirical findings, identifies major transmission mechanisms and conditional factors, and highlights the policy environment needed for FDI and trade liberalization to translate into sustained economic growth. Full article

The advent of digital technologies, increasing competition, market globalization, and the fourth industrial revolution compel organizations to rethink their operating models to sustain competitive advantage. At the same time, increasingly informed consumers expect higher levels of personalization, responsiveness, and cost efficiency. In this context, mass customization has emerged as a strategic response enabling firms to deliver tailored products while maintaining acceptable levels of cost, lead time, and operational efficiency. However, operationalizing mass customization remains particularly challenging for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), especially within normative environments characterized by regulatory and compliance requirements affecting product architectures and manufacturing processes. Although the literature highlights modular product design and product configuration as key enablers, it lacks a structured strategy for their implementation in such contexts. This article aims to develop and validate an operational strategy for mass customization based on these two levers. The methodology adopts an action research approach structured through a hybrid Agile–Stage-Gate framework and validated through its application to a representative portion of the product architecture within a case study. The results highlight the structured integration of variability analysis, modular product design, and configuration logic into an operational process, supporting the management of complexity and the implementation of mass customization in manufacturing SMEs. Full article

The circular economy (CE) is increasingly recognized as a strategic approach that enables firms to address environmental challenges while enhancing competitiveness and long-term value creation. However, evidence regarding its impact on business performance remains fragmented across sectors, performance dimensions, and organizational contexts. This study presents a systematic literature review conducted in accordance with the PRISMA 2020 guidelines to examine how CE practices influence business performance. The review synthesizes evidence from 79 peer-reviewed publications published between 2015 and 2025. The findings identify five major channels through which CE practices affect business performance: (1) economic, environmental, and social performance, (2) operational and supply chain performance, (3) competitive advantage and strategic positioning, (4) financial and environmental performance, and (5) barriers and performance in SMEs. Across these dimensions, CE practices are frequently associated with improved resource efficiency, cost reduction, innovation capacity, supply chain resilience, and enhanced environmental outcomes, including waste reduction and lower emissions. The review suggests that the performance effects of CE are contingent upon contextual factors such as firm size, ownership structure, industry characteristics, regulatory environment, and digital capabilities. While large firms often benefit from greater resources and organizational capacity, SMEs face significant barriers related to finance, technology, and governance, although these can be mitigated through collaboration networks and digitalization. The study contributes to the Strategic Environmental Management literature by indicating that CE practices may function not only as environmental initiatives but also as strategic capabilities that support competitiveness, resilience, and sustainability transitions. The findings provide implications for managers seeking to integrate circularity into business strategy and for policymakers designing institutional conditions that enable circular business transformation. Full article

With the rapid development of e-commerce, data-driven models have significantly enhanced service experience. We can obtain the optimal values for the price but have also intensified consumer privacy concerns. Among various privacy protection policies, which are more effective? Is there a governance framework that balances commercial efficiency with privacy safety? To address this, we develop a duopoly game-theory model that analyzes consumer behavior characterized by heterogeneous privacy costs and preferences, aiming to evaluate the impact of differentiated privacy protection policies within digital ecosystems. We analyze whether opt-in requirement or inference regulation is more advantageous for consumer and firm competition. We find that, in a competitive environment, imposing opt-in requirement on one party can yield competitive advantages and profit increases, whereas imposing inference regulation on the other may result in a competitive disadvantage. Such differentiated policies create an asymmetric competitive landscape, effectively avoiding a prisoner’s dilemma and, under certain conditions, increasing both consumer and total surplus. Furthermore, our study reveals significant differences in the impact of these policies on data-driven and usage-driven firms. Based on these findings, we recommend that regulators carefully tailor privacy protection policies according to industry-specific data characteristics, adopting differentiated regulatory strategies when appropriate and providing compensation mechanisms for disadvantaged firms to optimize total welfare. Full article

Against the backdrop of artificial intelligence technology deeply empowering the digital development of the manufacturing industry, enterprises can use AI capability as a crucial source to improve their competitiveness and play a key role in promoting high-quality corporate development. Although the existing literature has revealed the effect of AI capability on organizational performance or other factors, in-depth research remains insufficient regarding whether AI capability can effectively improve firm competitiveness through organizational learning and organizational resilience. Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV), this study constructs a relational model linking AI capability to firm competitiveness via organizational learning and organizational resilience, alongside an investigation into the moderating effect of digital innovation. Using questionnaire surveys of Chinese manufacturing firms, we obtained 304 valid samples. Regression analysis was used to analyze the effect of AI capability on firm competitiveness via organizational learning and organizational resilience. The process-bootstrap method was used to examine the sequential mediating effects of organizational learning and organizational resilience. The results show that AI capability has a direct effect on firm competitiveness, and can also influence firm competitiveness via organizational learning and organizational resilience. AI capability affects firm competitiveness sequentially through organizational learning and organizational resilience. The correlation between exploratory learning and organizational resilience gets moderated by digital innovation. Meanwhile, digital innovation presents a moderated mediating effect on the relations between AI capability and firm competitiveness through exploratory learning and organizational resilience. This paper empirically reveals the “capability-learning-resilience” mechanism through which AI capability affects firm competitiveness, thus further supplementing the study on the effect factors of firm competitiveness. The findings provide theoretical implications for manufacturing enterprises to strategically develop AI capability, implement organizational learning, actively cultivate organizational resilience, and integrate digital innovation to further enhance firm competitiveness. Full article

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly adopted by small and micro-enterprises to enhance international competitiveness. However, limited research examines how internal AI capability and external AI tool utilization jointly shape export performance. Drawing on the resource-based view and digital resource configuration perspective, this study conceptualizes internal AI capability and external AI tool utilization as distinct but potentially overlapping AI-related resources. Using survey data from 475 exporting small and micro-enterprises in Yiwu International Trade City, we conduct regression analyses to investigate the individual and interactive effects of these two AI-related resources on export performance. The results indicate that both internal AI capability and external AI tool utilization positively affect export performance. Importantly, their interaction is negative and significant, suggesting diminishing marginal returns when both resources are highly developed. This finding indicates that overlapping AI-related investments may reduce each resource’s incremental contribution under resource-constrained conditions. By clarifying how internally developed AI capability and externally accessed AI tools interact in export settings, this study advances understanding of digital resource configuration and provides practical guidance for AI-related investment decisions in small firms. Full article

The transition toward circular economy (CE) models has become a global priority for overcoming the limitations of linear production systems. However, CE adoption remains constrained by limited conceptual understanding, weak strategic alignment, and insufficient communication processes within organizations. This study develops a strategic communication model to support the adoption and implementation of CE practices in industrial clusters. The model is based on previous empirical findings, which were analyzed by a group of experts. These findings revealed significant gaps in CE knowledge, low levels of strategic integration, and limited communication structures within firms. In response, the study proposes a multi-level communication framework structured around internal and external dimensions, designed to influence decision-making, foster organizational alignment, and enhance stakeholder coordination. The findings suggest that strategic communication can serve as an important enabler of CE transition by facilitating knowledge transfer, supporting organizational learning, and promoting collaboration across value chains. The proposed framework provides a structured and adaptable tool that may support the advancement of circular practices and enhance competitiveness in industrial clusters. Full article

The tension between corporate growth and sustainability is a common governance dilemma faced by transitional economies in their green development. This study incorporates corporate ESG performance and its potential influencing factors into the analysis framework and constructs a theoretical model to capture the relationship between China’s National Demonstration Base policy for Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation (MEI) and corporate ESG performance, based on the framework that integrates resource enablement, reputation accumulation and information governance. Leveraging the quasi-natural experiment provided by China’s National Demonstration Program for Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation (MEI), this study systematically evaluates the impact of China’s demonstration policy on corporate ESG performance, drawing on data from A-share listed companies spanning 2010 to 2024. The study finds that the demonstration policy significantly improves enterprise ESG performance, which remains robust after a series of robustness tests. The mechanism test reveals that the policy promotes firms’ green technology innovation by lowering innovation costs, facilitates the accumulation of social reputational capital by incentivizing charitable donations, and compels improvements in information disclosure quality by strengthening market-oriented oversight. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the policy effects are more prominent among heavy polluting industries, large-scale enterprises and firms at the mature stage. Moreover, industry competition intensity and digital transformation have a positive moderating effect on the policy effects. This paper enriches the theoretical dialogue between institutional innovation policy and enterprise sustainable development, providing empirical evidence for the development of a collaborative ESG governance mechanism characterized by an active government and an efficient market. Full article