Luis Miguel Molina

Purpose: This study investigates digital service innovation as a socio-technical driver of ecosystem value co-creation in manufacturing. Guided by Service-Dominant Logic, it uncovers how digital service innovation – comprising smart interactive services and smart working technologies – enables resource liquefaction and usage-phase co-creation, while examining how market orientation (business-to-consumer versus business-to-business) conditions this relationship. Design/methodology/approach: A quantitative analysis was conducted on a sample of 303 manufacturers. Hypotheses were tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling applied to a higher-order construct that captures smart working technologies and smart interactive services through reflective and formative structures. Findings: Results confirm that digital service innovation serves as a foundational engine for ecosystem value co-creation. However, business-to-consumer environments significantly amplify this relationship compared to business-to-business settings, where structural inertia and competency barriers create interaction friction. Furthermore, smart working technologies and smart interactive services demonstrate an essential socio-technical synergy. Originality/value: This research advances Service-Dominant logic by unpacking digital service innovation from a conceptual black box into a multidimensional socio-technical assemblage. By contrasting business-to-consumer and business-to-business realities, it explicitly establishes the contextual boundaries of ecosystem value co-creation, revealing how market structures dictate the velocity and efficacy of digitally enabled resource integration.

There is some controversy about which are the theoretical bases that allow companies to improve performance when implementing Industry 4.0 production improvement programs. In this paper we compare, using the resource-based view of the firm, the technology-enabled capabilities theory and the knowledge-based view of the company as theoretical frameworks, how the implementation of Industry 4.0 and Japanese philosophy centered improvement programs (TQM, Lean Manufacturing) affect the sources, transfer, and integration of knowledge. Using this theoretical framework, we conclude that both improvement programs have very different strategies in terms of how to manage knowledge, and that, to a large degree, they are complementary. We conclude that they have very different bases of competitive advantage and that there is great potential in their joint implementation for the improvement of production processes. Keyword: Industry 4.0.; Knowledge capabilities; TQM; Lean Manufacturing; Competitive Advantage Existe una cierta controversia sobre cuáles son las bases teóricas que permiten a las empresas mejorar el rendimiento al implantar los programas de mejora de la producción de Industria 4.0. En este trabajo comparamos, usando como marcos teóricos la teoría de recursos y capacidades, la teoría de capacidades facilitadas por la tecnología y, sobre todo, la visión de la empresa basada en el conocimiento, como afectan a las fuentes, transferencia e integración de conocimiento la implantación de Industria 4.0 y de los programas de mejora de filosofía japonesa (TQM, Lean Manufacturing). Con este marco, concluimos que tienen estrategias muy alejadas en cuanto a la forma de gestionar el conocimiento, y que, en gran grado son complementarias. A partir de aquí, concluimos que tienen bases de ventaja competitiva muy diferentes y que hay un gran potencial para la implantación conjunta. Palabras clave: industria 4.0,; capacidades de gestión del conocimiento; TQM; Lean Manufacturing; Ventaja Competitiva

Machine learning (ML) analytical tools are increasingly being considered as an alternative quantitative methodology in management research. This paper proposes a new approach for uncovering the antecedents behind product and product–service innovation (PSI). The ML approach is novel in the field of innovation antecedents at the country level. A sample of the Equatorian National Survey on Technology and Innovation, consisting of more than 6,000 firms, is used to rank the antecedents of innovation. The analysis reveals that the antecedents of product and PSI are distinct, yet rooted in the principles of open innovation and competitive priorities. The analysis is based on a sample of Equatorian firms with the objective of showing how ML techniques are suitable for testing the antecedents of innovation in any other context. The novel ML approach, in contrast to traditional quantitative analysis of the topic, can consider the full set of antecedent interactions to each of the innovations analyzed.

Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, and counter to the mainstream literature, we propose and empirically show that two knowledge resources can be substitutive (rather than complementary) for each other. Our test focuses on the interplay between managers’ and workers’ knowledge stock, considered as knowledge resources that firms can apply to improve innovation. We hypothesise a mutually exclusive effect of managerial experience (managers’ knowledge stock) and labour skills (workers’ knowledge stock) on product innovation. Drawing on the most recent waves of the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES), we construct a cross-sectional sample of 2,725 manufacturing firms. We used binary choice model to test the proposed effects. The results show negative interaction between labour skills and managers’ experience in determining the probability to achieve product innovation, putting the knowledge resource complementarity hypothesis into question, and opening an academic debate that will have implications for knowledge management practice.

Drawing on a dynamic capabilities perspective and a resource-based view, this article analyzes the relationship between absorptive capacity and corporate entrepreneurship, and their combined effect on organizations’ performance. It contributes to the literature by dissociating the dimensions of absorptive capacity (potential and realized) and corporate entrepreneurship (innovativeness, proactiveness, new business venturing, and self-renewal). A quantitative study was performed with data gathered by personal interviews, using a structured questionnaire. The theoretical model was estimated through a structural equation model, using a sample of 168 Spanish firms. The results show that proactiveness positively influences innovativeness and that both proactiveness and innovativeness have a positive influence on potential and realized absorptive capacity. A significant positive relationship also exists between potential and realized absorptive capacity. Furthermore, realized absorptive capacity positively influences new business venturing and self-renewal. Finally, proactiveness and new business venturing directly and positively influence organizational performance, but not innovativeness and self-renewal. The study demonstrates that entrepreneurs must be able to enhance potential and realize absorptive capacities at the same time in order to improve the end performance of their corporate entrepreneurial projects. Both absorptive capacities are strongly related to corporate entrepreneurial activities and have a strong influence on firms’ performance.

The adequate management of knowledge transfers is considered a key factor for improving the organization’s performance and long-term survival. The relationship between the principles and practices considered appropriate in literature on quality management, as well as on knowledge management, do, to a great extent, coincide. This paper studies the importance that implementing both TQM and the ISO 9000 certification has on knowledge transfers. We, firstly, analyse the relevance of both on knowledge transferability. Secondly, we study the link between their implementation and knowledge transfers both among the firm’s groups and from customers and suppliers. The hypotheses proposed have been tested using a sample of 215 Spanish firms. The results confirm TQM’s importance regarding knowledge transfers. On the other hand, the relevance of implementing the ISO 9000 standards has not been confirmed, though it does have a positive impact on the organization’s knowledge transferability.