Failure learning and entrepreneurial resilience: the moderating role of firms’ knowledge breadth and knowledge depth

Purpose Drawing on the knowledge-based view, the purpose of this study is to investigate the differential effects of failure normalization (FN) and failure analysis (FA) on entrepreneurial resilience (ER) and examines how firms’ knowledge breadth (KB) and knowledge depth (KD) moderate these effects in distinctive ways. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a mixed-methods approach, including a two-wave survey study among 226 entrepreneurial high-tech firms in China and a qualitative study. Findings The findings reveal that FA has a stronger positive effect on ER than FN. KB enhances the effect of FA on ER, whereas KD enhances the effect of FN on ER but buffers the effect of FA on ER. Practical implications The study advocates that entrepreneurs need to be aware of the importance of ER and strengthen the reflection on failure. Additionally, the study suggests that entrepreneurs should match FN and FA with firms’ knowledge characteristics. With this match, KB and KD can exert greater impacts on the effect of failure learning on ER. Originality/value Knowledge can influence the effect of learning on firm capability. However, such an effect in entrepreneurial firms linking to ER remains to be explored. This study contributes to ER from the failure learning perspective and extends knowledge management theory in the entrepreneurship context.

Firm capability assessment via the BSC and DEA

PurposeThis study proposes an objective assessment model to evaluate the performance of internal and external capabilities of firms. It facilitates firms to invest appropriate resources to cultivate the organizational capability necessary to meet the requirements of the performance indicators.Design/methodology/approachThis study integrates the concepts of resource-based theory, the organizational capability concept, and conduct a performance analysis to the four perspectives of the BSC by implementing the fuzzy set theory and data employment analysis.FindingsThe findings show that the appropriate strategies help allocate available resources and capabilities during the different product life cycle, which provides practical guidelines for firms to achieve sustaining competitive advantage.Research limitations/implicationsThe selected factors were focused on four resources and capabilities rather than all possible factors.Originality/valueAn objective assessment model was created based on internal and external competitive performance efficiency in this research field. This model facilitates the ability of the top management to make decisions for resource allocation that will enhance firm's performance.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Organizational Resilience to COVID-19 Crisis: An Empirical Study of Chinese Firms

Resilience captures firm capability to adjust to and recover from unexpected shocks in the environment. Being latent and path-dependent, the manifestation of organizational resilience is hard to be directly measured. This article assesses organizational resilience of firms in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic with pre-shock corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance as a predictor that positively influences the level of organizational resilience to the external shock caused by the pandemic. We develop three theoretical mechanisms based on stakeholder theory, resource-based theory, reputation perspective and means-end chain theory to explain how CSR fulfillment in the past could help firms maintain stability to adapt to and react flexibly to recover from the crisis. We examine the relationship in the context of the systemic shock caused by COVID-19, using a sample of 1597 listed firms in China during the time window from 20 January 2020 to 10 June 2020. We find that companies with higher CSR performance before the shock will experience fewer losses and will take a shorter time to recover from the attack.

The Economics of Innovation behind Cluster Dynamic Processes

Marshallian industrial districts may be an important stage in the emergence of networked groups of SMEs enjoying both Marshallian and Jacobian externalities. But sustainable growth depends upon transitioning to industrial districts within industrial ecosystems in which both local and national governments work together to craft and undertake policy frameworks that combine centralized strategic policy planning at the national level with decentralized authority and accountability at the local level. The concept of the industrial ecosystem is a modern expression of Marshall’s ‘collective organization of the district as a whole’. It is a way to think of a region’s population of specialized and differentiated enterprises and extra-firm, capability development infrastructures as integral to its productive structures and competitive advantage. It extends the policy domain from a market-centric to a production-centric economics perspective that focuses on capabilities and innovation. Major contributors include Adam Smith, Charles Babbage, Marshall, Allyn Young, Edith Penrose, Simon Kuznets and Jane Jacobs.