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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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the combined effects of different modalities of long-term knowledge accumulation and short-term knowledge searching on the generation of high-impact ideas. The authors aim at providing useful conclusions for academic scholars.

Two dimensions of the cumulative knowledge structures of researchers are measured: knowledge depth and knowledge breadth. The search strategies employed by researchers are classified as local search and distant search. The authors use researchers’ historical publications to measure cumulative knowledge structures. References contained in these publications serve as an indicator of knowledge searching behaviors and are used to measure search strategies. Highly cited papers with random-but-matched papers from the same journal published in the same year are adopted to test the hypotheses.

The knowledge depth of researchers positively predicts the generation of high-impact ideas. Knowledge breadth has a bell-shaped relationship to the generation of high-impact ideas. Two instances of “strategic fit” between the knowledge structures and search strategies of researchers are identified; namely, knowledge breadth combines most effectively with local search, and knowledge depth combines most effectively with distant search in generating high-impact ideas.

Using article references to measure authors’ knowledge search behaviors may lead to biases. Future research should perform a survey to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the knowledge search behaviors of scholars.

A “T-shaped” knowledge structure in the long run is recommended for maximal generation of high-impact ideas. Researchers who have not adopted this optimal knowledge structure can employ a matched search strategy to leverage their existing knowledge structures.

This paper is among the first to examine the interactive effects between the cumulative knowledge structures and short-term knowledge searching strategies of researchers. The authors have enriched the exploration and exploitation theory by adding the dimension of time into the analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the antecedents of self-disclosure intention on mobile social applications. This study integrates privacy calculus model and elaboration likelihood theory to reconcile the rational and heuristic views of privacy decision making.

Using a “random dialing” sampling method, an empirical survey with 913 respondents was conducted. A series of regression models were employed to test the proposed relationships. Robust checks with sub-group analysis were conducted.

Self-disclosure intention develops along a dual route including the central route and the peripheral route. When the central route predominates, social media users form their attitudes toward self-disclosure based on a rational calculus of the privacy concern and perceived rewards. When the peripheral route predominates, users perform a more heuristic evaluation of relevant informational cues (information about privacy harms, the extent of information asymmetry between users and operators) and contextual cues (flow experience, privacy disclosure of friends). Peripheral cues moderate the relationships between central cues and self-disclosure intention.

This paper extends the Elaboration Likelihood Model by investigating the interaction between the central route and peripheral route. The results provide alternative explanations on the renowned “privacy paradox” phenomenon.

The purpose of this paper is to facilitate understanding of how to convert free players to paid consumers in free-to-play games.

Drawing on the consumption value framework and affordance theory, the present study argues that in-game purchase behaviors are determined by multiple consumption values of in-game items. The perceptions of consumption values were influenced by game affordances. The model was tested, using data from an empirical survey with 2,006 free-to-play game players.

Monetary, enjoyment and social values of in-game items positively predict purchase behaviors in free-to-play games. Game fairness and balance of challenges and skills significantly influence perceived enjoyment value.

The findings of this study provide operable implications to facilitate in-game consumption. The model was tested within the context of free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games; however, caution is advisable when generalizing the findings to other subgenre of games.

This study extended and thus validated the consumption value framework in the context of free-to-play MOBA games. This study explored the antecedents of consumption values from the perspective of game affordance.