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Purpose: Technological innovation, digitalisation and the Industry 4.0 revolution radically changed business management and contributed to the achievement of sustainability goals. While many studies analyse technological innovation, and Industry 4.0 in particular, the technical aspects of its contribution/impact on sustainability remains partially analysed, especially in relation to Industry 4.0 enabling technologies. This study investigates the contribution of Industry 4.0 enabling technologies on sustainability in innovative firms. Design/methodology/approach: The sustainability reports of the 50 most innovative companies based on Boston Consulting Group (BCG)'s 2022 raking is analysed through a content analysis. In the reports, enabling technologies are analysed in relation to their contribution to sustainability. Findings: The results shed light on the application of Industry 4.0 enabling technologies in sustainability practices based on the communication in the firms' sustainability reports. The results indicate that enabling technologies support the three pillars of sustainability in different business processes. Research limitations/implications: The results have theoretical and managerial implications that broaden the study of enabling technologies and sustainability while also suggesting a future research agenda. Originality/value: This study aims to address the gap in the literature regarding the contribution of Industry 4.0 enabling technologies to sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study investigated the internal factors that influence the adoption of cryptocurrencies for remittance transactions in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by examining the relationships between behavioural intention (BI) and perceived risk (PR), as well as the mediating effect of consumer innovation (CI). Design/methodology/approach: The authors developed a structural model using scales from the literature. The authors distributed an online questionnaire, evaluated by five cryptocurrency experts, using a snowball approach and collected 270 responses. Findings: The results revealed that CI mediates the relationship between PR and BI. Also, CI enhances intentions to use cryptocurrencies for remittance transactions. However, PR has a negative impact on BI. Research limitations/implications: This research adds to the body of knowledge by examining the acceptance and implementation of cryptocurrencies in the UAE and by developing and evaluating new constructs based on current notions. The study also contributes to the current understanding of cryptocurrencies and blockchain adoption. This article focusses on the mediating impact of CI on intentions to employ cryptocurrency instruments for international money transfers. Practical implications: The conclusions of the research give advice for marketers on how to boost the commercialisation of cryptocurrencies in the UAE remittance market and may pave the way for other studies to assist impending developments in the UAE cryptocurrency industry. Originality/value: This research offers novel insights into CI as a significant predictor of bitcoin product uptake in the remittance business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In times of crisis, innovation management and specifically Research and Development (R&D) investments are critical to temper company losses and stimulate higher revenues. Environmental policies, for their potential to stimulate environmental innovations and efficient management of resources, may hold a magnifying role in this relationship. By relying on the distinction between regulatory policies and institutional incentives, this paper argues about the moderating role of environmental policies between a firm's R&D expenses and its performance. Design/methodology/approach: Hypotheses are tested on data collected from a sample of small and medium-sized Chinese enterprises after the 2008 financial crisis. Findings: Findings reveal positive moderating effects of both regulatory pressures and institutional incentives, with a more significant effect of government support. The highest impact is reached when both these types of policies are present. Originality/value: The theoretical and methodological relevance of this distinction, the importance of an appropriate mix of environmental policies in policymaking and their resilience building role in stimulating environmental innovations in the aftermath of crises are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine stock market reactions to the news about innovations and other types of publications for illiquid stocks. Design/methodology/approach: (1) The authors opt for machine learning techniques and expert analysis and propose their own lexicon of innovations based on the news articles published on the professional website; (2) the dataset consists of the data on 2,000 US companies for 6 years; (3) the text analysis including BERT and Top2 Vec models which are superior to Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) in information criteria allows for more accurate evaluation of news sentiment and idea; and (4) furthermore, random forest and gradient boosting were applied to increase validity of results and demonstrate factor importance. Findings: (1) The paper presents theoretical findings adding to signalling theory and efficient market hypothesis for US illiquid stocks; (2) this study suggests that information on product innovations (unlike other types of innovations) has a direct and significant effect on the return of illiquid stocks; (3) the results also give evidence that under uncertainty innovation-related publications do not affect the return of illiquid stocks; and (4) the analysis of the news topics (narratives) demonstrates that only the narrative related to important corporate announcements has a positive impact on the return of illiquid stocks. Originality/value: (1) The authors are the first to conduct a large-scale study of the impact of various information on the return of illiquid stocks; (2) the paper focuses on information on several types of innovations with regard to the return of illiquid stocks; (3) based on Top2 Vec model, this study identifies the key topics-narratives discussed by investors and assesses their impact on the return of illiquid stocks; and (4) as an information source, the authors use the sample comprising a total of 1.4m news articles released on the professional website for investors "Benzinga". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: There are many studies explaining the innovation activity determinants. Nowadays, the digitalization of sales, the influence of social media, user-driven innovation (UDI) activity might be considered as one of the crucial sources for the development of new products within the research and development activity. Undertaken research is therefore aimed at determining whether the marketing orientation, i.e. the purchasing behavior of customers, affects the innovation activity of R&D departments that work under the usage of UDI concept. Design/methodology/approach: 57 R&D departments operating in Poland participated in the study. Correspondence analysis based on the Burt matrix and Cramer's V correlation coefficients was used for the analysis. Findings: The analysis shows that R&D departments in Poland using marketing research and examining consumer purchasing behavior, positively assess the effects of using the UDI concept in R&D departments. They implement it to create or improve products or services offered on the market, especially in the field of customization, while using information from national research and development units in Poland. The motivation for these activities is mainly to increase the assortment level. Research limitations/implications: The conducted study covers only R&D departments in Poland, thus it is worth extending the generalization of the results. In terms of future research directions, it's worth to analyze the data from R&D departments in other countries. The results of such studies could be used for comparative analyses. The main limitation of the research is that the research sample was 57 R&D departments of enterprises operating in Poland. Therefore, the research results can't be generalized to all the R&D departments in Poland. Practical implications: The findings could help researchers and practitioners improve their understanding of the determinants of innovation activity, especially its relationship to marketing orientation and UDI practices. Originality/value: The research regarding marketing orientation of enterprises and its influence on innovation activity is extremely important due to the general change of the conditions for the functioning of enterprises and building their competitive advantage. Knowledge in this area is still insufficient and research gaps are still being exposed. The article presents the correlation between the marketing orientation and customer behavior within the UDI activity and effects of innovation activity of R&D departments being under investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study analyses the link between product/service innovation, partnerships and Managerial Control System (MCS). Particularly, it aims to analyse empirically the role of MCS in supporting the innovation partnership successful functioning and management. Design/methodology/approach: The sample of this study consists of 106 Italian manufacturing firms belonging to the sectors of the Italian economy with the largest number of registered patents according to the European trend chart on innovation. Findings: The results show that MCS may play a key role in reducing risks and lowering the likelihood of failure of innovation partnerships. Particularly, the authors found a positive correlation between the use of informal control mechanisms and a partnership's successful performance. Moreover, among informal control, the findings show that trust is the only true informal mechanism that can guarantee a successful collaboration. The results of this study may offer relevant implications for practitioners. With regard to the control of the partnership's activities, the initiatives and creativity of those who are actively involved in the innovation process should not be inhibited; therefore, stifling them with strict rules and procedures would be ineffective but if a firm is not willing to give up formal control mechanisms altogether because it does not believe that a trust-based coordination is sufficiently reassuring, it should opt for "weak", albeit formal, control mechanisms based on a shared production and management of plans and reports, thus ensuring a perfect information symmetry among different partners. Originality/value: Notwithstanding the different opportunities provided by partnerships and strategic alliances to support there is a growing body of evidence of a high failure rate in such organisational forms. One of the causes cited in the literature is the high level of risk associated with alliances as compared to internal development of innovation. The risks mainly arise from the difficulties to obtain cooperation with partners that might have different objectives, and from the potential opportunistic behaviour of some of the partners. This is particularly true in innovation networks where the uncertainty of producing an interesting result is very high and the investments that the partners make are considerable. In this context, MCS could play a relevant role in reducing the risks and decreasing the likelihood of failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This article aims to investigate the status of and the trends in the intertwining of crowdfunding and innovation literature by identifying, evaluating and synthesizing the findings from previous research. This paper provides a bibliometric meta-analysis of the already substantial and growing literature on innovation and crowdfunding research. Design/methodology/approach: Using a bibliometric approach, this research scrutinizes all articles that include terms related to "crowdfunding" and "innovation" (in their title, abstract or keywords) in Elsevier's Scopus database. VosViewer and Bibliometrix package in R have been used to analyse 150 articles. Findings: The results suggest that there are three main research clusters in the innovation and crowdfunding literature. The first cluster highlights the role of crowdfunding in fostering radical and incremental innovation. The second cluster focuses on the concept of openness and its effect on innovation in crowdfunding campaigns, while the third cluster explains the role of platforms' innovation in crowdfunding success. Originality/value: Taking a holistic perspective, this contribution advances new knowledge on the intertwining of crowdfunding and innovation research fields. It implies that crowdfunding is facilitating the flow of knowledge between different stakeholders, including project initiators and crowd investors, among others, as they all benefit from open innovation platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The main purpose of this paper is to explore whether the nature of innovation is accumulative or radical and to what extent past year accumulation of technology stock can predict future innovation. More importantly, the authors are concerned with whether a change of policy regime or a variance in the quality of technology will moderate the nature of innovation. Design/methodology/approach: The authors examined a dataset of 3.6 million Chinese patents during 1985–2015 and constructed more than 5 million citation pairs across 8 sections and 128 classes to track knowledge spillover across technology fields. The authors used this citation dataset to calculate the technology innovation network. The authors constructed a measure of upstream invention, interacting the pre-existing technology innovation network with historical patent growth in each technology field, and estimated measure's impact on future innovation since 2005. The authors also constructed three sets of metrics – technology dependence, centrality and scientific value – to identify innovation quality and a policy dummy to consider the impact of policy on innovation. Findings: Innovation growth is built upon past year accumulation and technology spillover. Innovation grows faster for technologies that are more central and grows more slowly for more valuable technologies. A pro-innovation and pro-intellectual property right (IPR) policy plays a positive and significant role in driving technical progress. The authors also found that for technologies that have faster access to new information or larger power to control knowledge flow, the upstream and downstream innovation linkage is stronger. However, this linkage is weaker for technologies that are more novel or general. On most occasions, the nature of innovation was less responsive to policy shock. Originality/value: This paper contributes to the debate on the nature of innovation by determining whether upstream innovation has strong predictive power on future innovation. The authors develop the assumption used in the technology spillover literature by considering a time-variant, directional and asymmetric matrix to model technology diffusion. For the first time, the authors answer how the nature of innovation will vary depending on the technology network configurations and policy environment. In addition to contributing to the academic debate, the authors' study has important implications for economic growth and industrial or innovation management policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]