The evolution of contemporary business is remarkedly shaped by digital transformation, emerging as the primary catalyst behind innovative initiatives. The relationship between digital transformation and financial constraints influences the endeavours of dual innovation. This study examines how digital transformation influences dual innovation via financing constraints, using data sourced from manufacturing firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2012 to 2021. Data analysis underscores several noteworthy findings: firstly, digital transformation enhances firms’ capacity for both exploratory and exploitative innovations. Secondly, digital transformation’s positive influence on exploratory innovations is positively mediated by mitigating firms’ endogenous and exogenous financing constraints. Thirdly, endogenous and exogenous financing constraints do not mediate the relationship between digital transformation and exploitative innovation. Robust tests corroborate these findings. Based on the findings, the study’s theoretical contribution and implication to business management and public policy are discussed.

Existing literature highlights the relevance of technology uncertainty and processes in latecomers’ catch-up but largely ignores the potential interplay between the two as well as the catch-up cycle. Thus, the purpose of this study is to answer the research question of how process patterns throughout the various stages of the catch-up cycle hinge on technological uncertainty. Based on observations of the manufacturing industries of general equipment, pharmaceuticals, home appliances, and electronic device manufacturing in China, our findings reveal that the patterns differ in the early and late stages of the catch-up cycle, due to different technological uncertainties.We demonstrate the features of patterns in conjunction with the catch-up cycle: predictive or explanatory patterns as fundamental ones in the early stage; and convergent and divergent hybrid modes comprised of the aforementioned fundamental patterns in the late stage. Our results provide fresh insights into the catch-up process literature and offer valuable practical implications for latecomers.

Through establishing ecosystems around core technologies or products and fostering growth through investments in startups, internet platform companies make substantial contributions to the global economy. These investments often involve corporate venture capital (CVC) initiatives that support value creation. Firms must, therefore, account for the objectives of these initiatives, which aim to ensure value creation for business ecosystems, particularly in emerging markets such as China. This study presents a product-platform-ecosystem model derived from a case study of Tencent, a leading Chinese internet platform company. It analyzes seven strategic objectives of Tencent’s venture capital activities that directly influence value creation in its business ecosystem. The analysis reveals howthe strategic objectives underpinning CVC activities contribute to the value creation of platform ecosystems. The proposed value creation paradigm for internet platform ecosystems provides new insights into this rapidly growing market and offers guidelines for business managers and policymakers.

Offshoring can increase firms’ exposures to product quality risks, such that manufacturing firms need effective tactics for maintaining product quality consistency across offshoring subsidiaries. With an agency theory approach, the current study seeks novel insights into three widely used subsidiary control mechanisms for achieving product quality consistency across offshoring subsidiaries in emerging markets and developed home countries. With surveys of 150 subsidiaries of multinational corporations in heavy industries operating in China, the authors test a proposed model using hierarchical linear regression, and account for endogeneity concerns with the Gaussian copula method. The results indicate an inverted U-shaped relationship of decision autonomy with product quality consistency, that expatriate staffing positively predicts product quality consistency and attenuates the negative effect of decision autonomy, and that, compared with greenfield entry, mergers and acquisitions negatively predict product quality consistency. These findings have several theoretical and practical implications.

The established literature demonstrates the critical role of the policy mix in the formulation and implementation of government policies for industrial upgrading. However, existing studies mainly examine the policy mix from either a horizontal or a vertical coordination perspective; very few examine both dimensions. To gain further insights, the current study involves an analysis of how China’s central government manages horizontal and vertical coordination to pursue upgrading in manufacturing industries on the basis of an ambidextrous policy mix perspective and a thorough examination of both the external attributes (i.e., policy level) and content (i.e., policy instruments and themes) of policy documents. This analysis reveals several viable policy implications in relation to China’s manufacturing transformation. In particular, it finds that China’s policy mix for achieving manufacturing upgrading is highly coordinated on both horizontal and vertical dimensions. Governments at all levels apply the same set of policy instruments; environmental instruments are the most frequently used, followed by supply- and demand-side instruments. The core policy topics within the manufacturing upgrading structure include innovation, industrial transformation, industrial agglomeration, demonstration projects and service-oriented manufacturing. Therefore, this study establishes recommendations for future policies, which should focus on reinforcing guidance regarding national policies, encouraging local governments to apply innovative policy tools and increasing the use of demand-side policy instruments.