Ties with government,strategic capability,and organizational ambidexterity: evidence from China’s information communication technology industry

Organizations that are capable of pursuing exploration and exploitative innovation strategies simultaneously have demonstrated superior performance. For information and communication technology (ICT) firms, it is especially critical to achieve such organizational ambidexterity in order to both allocate limited resources and pursue different innovation strategies appropriately. As the ICT industry in China faces higher environmental uncertainty, a less developed institutional framework, and increased power of market competition, we explore the antecedents of ambidexterity conjointly, considering the effects of institutions and organizational capabilities. Building on ambidexterity literature, we develop a capability-building framework to explore firms’ strategic choice-making between exploratory innovation strategy versus exploitation innovation strategy, and their orientation to pursuit one, or both. With survey data from China’s ICT industry, we find that ties with government promote an ambidextrous focus on both types of innovation strategies. In addition, we find that strategic capability partially mediates the main effects of ties with government on both exploratory and exploitative innovation strategies. Implications for organizational ambidexterity in China’s ICT industry are discussed.     

The relative values of big data analytics versus traditional marketing analytics to firm innovation: An empirical study

Although big data analytics (BDA) does enhance innovation performance, it remains unclear whether BDA contributes more or less than traditional marketing analytics (TMA) to firm innovation. This study tests hypotheses based on data collected from multiple sources by using four-wave survey and archival data from 201 firms. The results indicate that BDA has a stronger positive effect on new product development (NPD) performance than TMA, over time. However, TMA, when coupled with exploitative innovation strategy, has a stronger positive effect on NPD performance than if coupled with exploratory innovation strategy. Conversely, BDA, when coupled with exploratory innovation strategy, has a stronger positive effect on NPD performance than if coupled with exploitative innovation strategy.     

Supply chain management information systems capabilities. An exploratory study of electronics manufacturers

Supply Chain Management Information Systems (SCM IS) play an increasingly critical role in the ability of firms to reduce costs and increase the responsiveness of their supply chain. This paper develops an empirically supported model of the organizational capabilities enabled by SCM IS. The model integrates and enriches theoretical and empirical studies of competitive strategy, supply chain management, and interorganizational information systems. Evidence from an exploratory case study of three large firms in the electronics manufacturing industry is examined to build a better-supported theory of SCM IS capabilities. The findings suggest the organizational capabilities enabled by SCM IS can be conceptualized as the level of support provided for: operational efficiency; operational flexibility; internal planning and analysis; and external planning and analysis. The theoretical model furthers an understanding of SCM IS capabilities and is sufficiently developed to permit operationalization for future studies evaluating the effectiveness of SCM IS.     

Competing in the Brazilian real-time financial information services industry: Commitment and adaptation

In this study, we examine two very different firms operating in the Brazilian real-time financial information services (RTFIS) industry. We conducted two separate qualitative studies 7 years apart analyzing how a technology-based incumbent reacted to the entry of a challenger with better content-generation capabilities. We concluded that even when facing an entrant with new technologies and environmental changes, commitment to its own IS resources represented the best long-term strategy for the incumbent firm, because the incumbent kept focused on what it did best and invested in the redeployment of its flexible IS resources to redefine its industry processes and activities.     

Counterbalancing Exploitative Knowledge Search during Environmental Dynamism: Reinforcing New Ideas for Existing Products

Established firms face the challenge of counterbalancing their predominant focus on exploitation with exploration. This paper explores how these firms can reinforce new exploratory ideas for existing products, especially during periods of environmental dynamism. The study is based on an action research study at a new product development (NPD) department at an international manufacturing firm operating in a cyclical market. The results show that increased environmental dynamism opens new opportunities for counterbalancing exploitative approaches by building exploratory skills. The action contributed specifically to breaking with old traditions in the NPD organization, and resulted in actionable knowledge in terms of an ideation approach. However, the study also shows that fast industry cycles that do not match the remote returns of exploratory knowledge searches diminish the possibility to sustain exploratory knowledge searches in organizations. The paper identifies important problems related to the long‐time horizon of exploration and the cyclical nature of industries.     

Experience-Oriented Intelligence for Internet of Things

ABSTRACT

The Internet of Things (IoT) has gained significant attention from industry as well as academia during the past decade.The main reason behind this interest is the capabilities of the IoT for seamlessly integrating classical networks and networked objects, and hence allowing people to create an intelligent environment based on this powerful integration. However, how to extract useful information from data produced by IoT and facilitate standard knowledge sharing among different IoT systems are still open issues to be addressed. In this paper, we propose a novel approach, the Experience-Oriented Smart Things (EOST), that utilizes deep learning and knowledge representation concept called Decisional DNA to help IoT systems acquire, represent, and store knowledge, as well as share it amid various domains where it can be required to support decisions. Decisional DNA motivation stems from the role of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in storing and sharing information and knowledge. We demonstrate our approach in a set of experiments, in which the IoT systems use knowledge gained from past experience to make decisions and predictions. The presented initial results show that the EOST is a very promising approach for knowledge capture, representation, sharing, and reusing in IoT systems.     

Re‐orienting the Corporate Entrepreneurial Journey: Exploring the Role of Middle Management

In this article we report research on the implementation of an increased exploitative market orientation in explorative technology‐driven firms, and how the interaction between middle management and the internal context shapes this process. It appears that middle managers play an important role in balancing planned and emergent activities, reconciling market and technological understandings, and negotiating and sanctioning ideas. These roles do not happen automatically. Dominant logics, mindsets and meanings, developed and successful in the past, ‘talk back’. Managerial systems and processes supporting the transition to more and more successful market exploitation are not automatically accepted. Rather, all these and similar changes need to be socially negotiated. In that process, the opportunities and incentives for middle managers to reach beyond their formal job and to engage in the organizational sense‐making process play a key role.     

Leveraging internet of things and big data analytics initiatives in European and American firms: Is data quality a way to extract business value?

Big data analytics (BDA) and the Internet of Things (IoT) tools are considered crucial investments for firms to distinguish themselves among competitors. Drawing on a strategic management perspective, this study proposes that BDA and IoT capabilities can create significant value in business processes if supported by a good level of data quality, which will lead to a better competitive advantage. Responses are collected from 618 European and American firms that use IoT and BDA applications. Partial least squares results reveal that better data quality is needed to unlock the value of IoT and BDA capabilities.     

物联网发展关键技术研究

物联网发展的关键在于解决核心技术中存在的难点。重点研究了RFID、无线传感器网络和语义网格等物联网关键技术,采用融合多种关键技术解决了物联网应用难的问题。语义网格融合了语义Web机器可阅读和网格技术强大的计算能力;语义P2P技术解决了信息过载通信瓶颈问题,大大方便了传感器节点的部署以及传感器网络的扩展;采用本体技术实现了物联网中的信息语义的交互和共享,为物联网中信息的及时、无歧义理解提供了便利。     

Assessing the importance of industry in the adoption and assimilation of IT: Evidence from Italian enterprises

We analysed the role of industry in determining the diffusion and business value created by IT. Data was collected for this purpose by surveying 192 large enterprises in Italy. Our research revealed three findings. First, in the material services and non-hi-tech manufacturing industries, firms had a relatively limited adoption of IT, resulting in little business impact. Second, firms’ IT spending behaviour depended on their industry type and not on their IT capabilities. However their capabilities were more important than industry in explaining why firms achieved benefits from IT adoption that depended on the previous accumulation of IT resources and other capabilities. Third, industry type determined the degree to which IT affected profitability and its effectiveness in helping firms to defend their competitive advantage. Specifically, the slower the adoption of IT in an industry, the greater its impact on the firm's profitability.The implications of these findings for managers and policy-makers are discussed.     

物联网技术研究进展

目前,物联网因其巨大的应用前景而受到各国政府、学术界和工业界的广泛重视,成为国内外信息通信领域的新研究热点;物联网产业己经成为推动世界经济增长的重要新兴产业,我国已将物联网的发展列为信息产业发展的下一个战略高点;首先总结了物联网的国内外研究进展,其次对物联网的概念、实现原理与体系结构进行了分析,归纳了物联网涉及的关键技术,然后介绍了物联网的一些典型应用,最后指出了物联网进一步研究的方向以及制约国内物联网发展的问题及解决对策。     

How should companies deploy their digital supply chain platforms to gain competitive advantages? An asset orchestration perspective

Although many companies have deployed digital supply chain platforms (DSCP), not all obtain the anticipated benefits. This study explores how different deployment strategies of DSCP affect competitive advantages. The empirical results show that DSCP deployment breadth positively relates to exploitative and exploratory innovations for both manufacturing companies and service companies. DSCP deployment depth positively affects exploitative and exploratory innovations for manufacturing companies but exploratory innovation for service companies. Although exploitative and exploratory innovations both incur competitive advantages, exploitative innovation is more important for service companies. These findings provide theoretical and practical implications by unraveling the puzzle of the DSCP-performance association.     

EPCglobal 框架在物流系统的应用和实现

我国“十二五”规划中把物联网技术作为重要的战略技术,而RFID技术为物联网技术的发展打下良好基础,目前该技术已经广泛用于交通运输、物流产业以及智慧城市等应用领域中,在日常生活、工业生产中发挥着重要的作用。GSl组织提出的EPCgtobal框架的主要目的是在全球范围内为各个行业建立和维护EPC网络,采用全球统一的标准保证供应链各环节信息的共享和实时识别。本文提出一种基于EPCgtobal框架的物流系统设计方案,设计出该方案物流系统的总体框架图,并详细描述其中事件周期管理模块等的设计方案,目的是实现物流自动化和科学化管理等功能。经过测试,该系统运行稳定,可扩展性强,达到预期的目标。     

基于物联网的集成化港口供应链协同管理探析

物联网作为新一代信息技术,在协同管理方面发挥着越来越重要的作用。同时,作为集成化程度要求较高的港口供应链,运用物联网技术进行协同管理,则是一种新的突破。拟通过分析基于物联网的集成化港口供应链协同管理的概念,设计或提出基于物联网的集成化港口供应链协同管理模式、协同管理平台及其对策。     

Controllable accountabilities: the Internet of Things and its challenges for organisations

Current expectations are that the use of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies (e.g. radio frequency identification devices (RFID) in supply chains) will improve accountability in organisations. However, it remains unclear if, why and when such expectations will actually be met. This is because new technologies not only address, but also produce new accountability demands and human actors might experience difficulties in satisfying these accountabilities. This article presents a theoretical framework for understanding how IoT technologies enable or constrain control capabilities of actors and how this influences actors' capabilities to satisfy accountability demands. We discuss multiple dimensions of accountability (i.e. visibility, responsibility and liability) and control (i.e. transparency, predictability and influence), and explain how control and accountability are constitutively entangled with the capacities of IoT technologies (i.e. informate, automate and transform). To illustrate the framework, we provide vignettes from an IoT application used to detect counterfeits in the supply chain. The article contributes to the on-going debate on benefits and risks of IoT technologies and emphasises the importance of predicting organisational issues already in early stages of technology development.     

Better the devil you know: Inter-organizational information technology and network social capital in coopetition networks

By enabling more efficient information and knowledge sharing and reinforcing the shared goals for participating members, inter-organizational information technology (IT) becomes instrumental to both accomplishing coopetitive outcomes and avoiding the pitfalls of partner opportunism. We posit that as network social capital is accumulated in technology-enabled coopetition networks, collaboration will enhance the strategic value of outcomes and positively affect goal convergence among network users. Our findings illustrate that the role of technology in coopetition extends beyond facilitating knowledge exchange and may play a vital role in the strategic development of firms pursuing coopetitive options.     

Exploring and Modelling IoT Offloading Policies in Edge Cloud Environments

The Internet of Things (IoT) has recently become a popular technology that can play increasingly important roles in every aspect of our daily life. For collaboration between IoT devices and edge cloud servers, edge server nodes provide the computation and storage capabilities for IoT devices through the task offloading process for accelerating tasks with large resource requests. However, the quantitative impact of different offloading architectures and policies on IoT applications’ performance remains far from clear, especially with a dynamic and unpredictable range of connected physical and virtual devices. To this end, this work models the performance impact by exploiting a potential latency that exhibits within the environment of edge cloud. Also, it investigates and compares the effects of loosely-coupled (LC) and orchestrator-enabled (OE) architecture. The LC scheme can smoothly address task redistribution with less time consumption for the offloading sceneries with small scale and small task requests. Moreover, the OE scheme not only outperforms the LC scheme in the large-scale tasks requests and offloading occurs but also reduces the overall time by 28.19%. Finally, to achieve optimized solutions for optimal offloading placement with different constraints, orchestration is important.     

物联网设备管理系统的设计与实现

物联网设备已经被广泛应用于各种产业场景中,中立的物联网设备和连接管理是物联网产业中急需突破的一个方向.本文首先分析了物联网设备管理的需求,介绍了一个实际的物联网设备管理系统的设计方案(包括服务器侧和网关的设计);其次,展示了该物联网设备管理系统的数据能力和性能测试结果;最后,对物联网设备管理系统的扩展需求进行了展望.     

物联网信息模型与能力分析

虽然近几年物联网技术开发与应用快速增长,但物联网理论研究仍然处于发展阶段.物联网作为一个典型的信息与通信系统,不仅具有现有互联网的信息存储和传递的能力,而且具有物品信息的自动采集和处理能力.构建物联网信息模型是分析物联网特征能力的一种有效方法.根据国际电信联盟有关物联网的定义和特征描述,通过采用统一建模语言构建物联网信息模型,分析和验证了物联网的物品相关能力、自主操作能力以及隐私保护能力,讨论了物联网信息模型在物联网技术标准方面的指导性结论,分析了物联网信息模型在讨论有争议的物联网概念或观点方面的应用价值.     

Knowledge sharing,innovation and firm performance

This study investigates the quantitative relationship between knowledge sharing, innovation and performance. Based on the literature review, we develop a research model positing that knowledge sharing not only have positive relationship with performance directly but also influence innovation which in turn contributes to firm performance. This model is empirically tested using data collected from 89 high technology firms in Jiangsu Province of China. It is found that both explicit and tacit knowledge sharing practices facilitate innovation and performance. Explicit knowledge sharing has more significant effects on innovation speed and financial performance while tacit knowledge sharing has more significant effects on innovation quality and operational performance.