Signals of innovation online: Identifying innovative firms by combining website mining and evidence producing LLMs

Purpose This paper explores the role of imprinting in shaping next-generation human capital within family firms, particularly focusing on how early-career experiences inside or outside the firm affect succession planning and organizational performance. This research advances our understanding by integrating imprinting theory with human capital accumulation theory, offering new insights into the subtleties of leadership succession in family firms. It also provides practical implications for balancing internal and external career experiences to optimize succession planning and long-term organizational adaptability. Design/methodology/approach Using a phased survey of 121 family firm employees, we employ regression and structural equation modeling to assess the relationships between early-career imprinting, human capital (firm-specific vs. general), organizational learning, task performance and turnover intention. We supplement this quantitative analysis with illustrative interviews from family firm members to provide richer insights into how imprinting shapes human capital accumulation and influences succession planning outcomes. Findings Imprinting within family firms significantly enhances firm-specific human capital, which leads to improved task performance and a deeper alignment with the firm’s operational processes. However, this comes at the cost of limiting general human capital, which constrains adaptability and broader market knowledge. Originality/value This study highlights the balance between internal and external career experiences in shaping leadership transitions in family firms and offers practical insights for succession planning strategies. While previous research has emphasized the role of human capital in family business succession, this study deepens the understanding by using imprinting during early-career experiences, whether inside or outside the family firm. It underscores the importance of integrating firm-specific knowledge with external expertise to foster both continuity and innovation in family firms.

ABSTRACT China’s renewable energy sector sits at the heart of a deepening contest between techno-nationalist rivals. Whether R&D investment shields firms from the resulting disruption or heightens their vulnerability remains an open question. Using quarterly panel data from China’s new energy index constituents over 2016 to 2025, this paper allows the marginal effect of R&D on firm resilience to vary continuously with geopolitical risk. R&D intensity is positively associated with future return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) across specifications. Its relationship with resilience, however, proves conditional. Innovative firms hold a stability advantage when conditions are calm, but that advantage reverses during elevated tension, with R&D-intensive firms experiencing larger drawdowns and heightened tail risk. State-owned enterprises (SOEs) bear a far steeper market penalty than private firms when geopolitical risk spikes, consistent with their greater international visibility. These patterns suggest a technological exposure mechanism in which the cross-border linkages that sustain innovative capability become transmission channels for geopolitical shocks. The evidence implies that policies promoting R&D and those managing geopolitical exposure cannot be designed in isolation.

ABSTRACT This study reveals the critical role of financial analysts in enhancing the information environment of innovative firms following the strengthening of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection. Leveraging staggered rollouts of specialized Intellectual Property (IP) tribunals in China as exogenous shocks, we find that stronger IPR protection prompts financial analysts to shift attention from non-innovative to innovative firms, improving innovative firms’ information environment (higher forecast accuracy, lower bid-ask spreads). Further, the reallocation is driven by innovative firms’ better prospects, more patent disclosures, and higher investor demand. Finally, analysts who increase their attention to affected innovative firms are more likely to attain star status.

This study examines why diversity climate may fail to stimulate innovation in healthcare organizations operating in an emerging economy and identifies the organizational capabilities that convert internal resources into performance outcomes. Survey data were collected from 311 managers in Vietnamese hospitals and pharmaceutical firms. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to assess reliability, validity, direct effects, predictive relevance and mediation through firm innovativeness. R and D effectiveness positively predicts both firm innovativeness and firm performance. Diversity climate improves firm performance directly but does not significantly predict innovativeness. Participative leadership does not show a significant direct association with either firm performance or innovativeness in the reported structural model. Firm innovativeness positively predicts firm performance. Cross-sectional and self-reported data limit causal claims. Future research should use longitudinal designs and objective performance indicators. Healthcare managers should complement diversity initiatives with interdisciplinary work routines, R and D partnerships, psychological safety practices and innovation governance systems. The findings extend resource-based and dynamic capability perspectives by specifying an emerging-market healthcare boundary condition: inclusive climates do not automatically become innovation capability when professional silos, hierarchical norms and weak knowledge-integration mechanisms restrict voice and experimentation. The study challenges the universal assumption that diversity climate naturally drives innovation and shows that leadership, R and D systems and institutional context shape whether inclusion becomes innovation.

ABSTRACT Smart Manufacturing (SM) has injected new impetus into enterprises’ innovation and is a key measure to enable the manufacturing industry to take the lead in the current industrial transformation. However, the evidence regarding whether SM can promote enterprise innovation remains unclear. Using China’s official SM certification launched by the China National Standardization Administration in 2014 as an exogenous policy shock, this paper adopts a difference-in-differences design to explore the impact of SM on firm innovation based on manufacturing panel data. Results show firms adopting SM achieve remarkably higher innovation performance, lifting patent-based innovation by approximately 6.48% to 11.10%. This impact persisted for several years after the certification, indicating a sustained innovation effect. Subsequent robustness tests also verified these results. Mechanism analysis indicates that SM promotes innovation by reducing operational costs, alleviating financial pressure, and enhancing market competition for firms with sound internal controls, a strong information technology foundation, and high-tech industry status. The effect is also stronger for firms located in regions with more developed digital infrastructure and higher levels of marketization. Overall, our findings provide robust evidence that the government-led SM policy can effectively promote firm innovation and economic development.

ABSTRACT Understanding how financial reporting shapes firms’ innovation strategies is central to research at the intersection of accounting and strategic management. While prior studies examine the informational role of financial reporting, the impact of financial statement comparability (FSC) on innovation choices remains underexplored. Drawing on data from Chinese A-share listed firms, this study explores how FSC shapes firms’ choices between specialization-oriented and diversification-oriented innovation strategies. We find that higher FSC is significantly associated with greater related variety but has no significant effect on specialization or unrelated variety. Heterogeneity analyses show that the effect is stronger in high-tech industries and that FSC facilitates unrelated diversification among state-owned enterprises and firms in the decline stage of the firm life cycle. In the green innovation domain, FSC primarily promotes specialization rather than diversification. Additional tests reveal important boundary conditions: financing constraints weaken, whereas lower market competition strengthens, the positive association between FSC and related variety. Managerial and organizational factors also matter. CEO functional diversity reduces the marginal effect of FSC, whereas dynamic capabilities strengthen it up to a certain threshold. Our study provides new evidence on the role of financial disclosure in shaping firms’ innovation strategies and offers useful insights for practitioners.

Public funding and firm innovation: evidence from Germany

Land supply constraints and firm innovation: Evidence from China’s minimum industrial land price policy

Quantity or efficiency? The impact of AI adoption on firm innovation: Evidence from Chinese listed companies

Green technology innovation in Chinese construction firms under the low-carbon city pilot policy

Cross-regional operations and firm innovation performance: Boundary effects

Using the implementation of China’s green factory policy as the institutional setting, which allows firms to apply for government certification as green factories (GF), we examine how firms that are not GF-certified (focal firms) respond to their GF-certified peers within the same industry in the context of green innovation. Consistent with the crowding-out effect explanation, we find that the green innovation of focal firms is negatively associated with the number of green-certified peers. Our results remain robust across alternative measures of patent quality and a series of additional robustness checks. Channel analyses indicate that reduced access to government subsidies and procurement orders, along with greater financial constraints and higher cost of debt, help explain these findings. Overall, green-certified firms leverage government support and their superior resources to crowd out focal firms. Our findings provide a novel perspective on how GF-certified firms influence the green innovation of industry competitors, thereby highlighting the unintended negative externalities of the green manufacturing policy.

ABSTRACT In emerging economies, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have increasingly become a primary means for firms to acquire external knowledge and promote innovation. Nevertheless, how M&A translates into innovation performance is not yet fully explored. Drawing on data from ChiNext Board listed firms in China over the period 2010–2025, this study examines the effect of M&A on firm innovation, with a particular focus on the mediating role of technological synergy. Using PSM-DID approach, we find that M&A contributes to significant gains in both innovation output and innovation conversion efficiency, results that remain consistent across a battery of robustness checks. Mechanism analysis identifies technological synergy as an important pathway through which M&A drives innovation gains, an effect that persists over several periods following the transaction. The heterogeneity analysis yields additional insights, showing that the positive innovation effects of M&A are amplified for acquisitions of mature-stage target firms and for transactions occurring in industries with less intense competitive pressure. These findings offer novel theoretical insights into the mechanisms linking M&A to firm innovation outcomes and provide empirical guidance for firms aiming to pursue synergy-oriented M&A and improve innovation resource allocation.

Utilizing panel data from A-share listed companies spanning from 2007 to 2022, this study constructs a partial linear double machine learning model to empirically examine the impact of smart city pilot policy on firm innovation. The empirical findings reveal that: (1) The pilot policy for smart cities can significantly enhance the innovation capability of firms, with the core conclusion remaining robust after undergoing various robustness tests, including model reconfiguration, alteration of dependent variable, consideration of parallel policies, and addressing endogeneity issues. Dynamic analysis reveals that the policy effects are characterized by time lags and persistence. (2) Smart cities can bolster firm innovation through three mechanisms: the enhancing effect of digital market construction, the optimizing effect of the innovation environment, and the elevating effect of human capital. (3) At the urban level, the innovation-promoting effect of smart cities is more pronounced in eastern cities and non-natural resource-based cities. At the corporate level, this effect is more significant among groups with low financing constraints, non-state-owned firms, non-resource-intensive firms, and non-high-tech firms.

Purpose This study explores the role of generative artificial intelligence (G-AI) as a lever for process innovation in food firms. In particular, it analyses how different levels of G-AI implementation influence innovation performance (incremental, frugal, radical) and how this relationship is moderated by two key organisational factors: IT culture and organisational flexibility. Design/methodology/approach The empirical investigation is based on a questionnaire administered to 3,250 European, US and Australian companies operating in the primary food processing (P-FM) sector. The questionnaire was constructed from scales validated in the literature and pre-tested for clarity and semantic consistency. After the data cleaning process, 281 complete questionnaires were considered valid. The collected data were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM). Findings The results show that generative artificial intelligence has a positive and significant impact on incremental and frugal innovations but not on radical ones. IT culture and organisational flexibility positively moderate the effect of G-AI on all types of innovation, with a synergistic effect for less complex innovations. The positive influence of radical innovation strongly depends on the combination of high organisational capabilities and firm size. Originality/value To realise the potential of G-AI, companies need to invest in widespread digital culture and adaptive organisational structures. Policymakers should foster access to innovation networks and training supports to enable even small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to realise meaningful and sustainable innovations.

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the impact of government guidance funds (GGFs) on firm innovation within the context of firms listed on China's STAR Market. A Difference-in-Differences framework shows that GGF investment significantly increases innovation firms' patent output. Compared with private venture capital (PVC), GGFs exhibit a stronger innovation-promoting effect, while joint GGF–PVC investments do not generate additional marginal gains. The results further reveal substantial industry heterogeneity: GGFs are effective in new energy and environmental protection, but show statistically insignificant or negative effects in new materials and biopharmaceuticals. A range of robustness checks confirms the validity of the findings. Overall, the study highlights the distinct role of policy-oriented capital in shaping firm-level innovation outcomes in China's strategic emerging industries.

Against the backdrop of technological dependence and a technology embargo, this study investigates the impact of digital product imports on firm innovation in China's manufacturing sector. Using data from Chinese listed manufacturing firms, we find that digital product imports significantly enhance both the quality and quantity of firms’ patent output. Our analysis shows that digital product imports promote innovation by supporting digital transformation, lowering internal costs, and improving the efficiency of information exchange between firms, rather than via technology spillovers. This finding diverges from previous research on imported products and innovation, underscoring the distinctive intelligence-driven and information-rich characteristics of digital products. Furthermore, heterogeneity analyses reveal that the innovation-enhancing effect of digital product imports is more pronounced in firms with higher human capital, lower productivity, greater labor intensity, and non-state ownership. These findings provide valuable insights for policymakers in developing countries aiming to promote innovation through digital trade.

Purpose This study examines the relationships between regulatory, financial and market obstacles and firms’ innovation performance in the food industry of a developing country. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on survey data obtained from 229 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in the Tanzanian food industry. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire with Likert-scale items designed to measure innovation obstacles and firm innovation performance. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was employed to analyse the hypothesised relationships. Findings The results indicate a positive association between regulatory obstacles and financial and market obstacles and a negative relationship with firm innovation performance. Further results reveal that financial obstacles are negatively associated with innovation performance, whereas market obstacles have a positive relationship with innovation performance. Overall, this study reinforces the view that innovation obstacles can both hinder and stimulate firms’ innovation performance. Research limitations/implications This study collected data from the Tanzanian food industry only. Hence, the generalisability of the findings is not guaranteed, considering that the degree of perceptions and impact of obstacles to innovation varies with contexts. Originality/value This study contributes to the existing literature by taking a different approach and exploring the relationship between regulatory obstacles and other innovation obstacles, in addition to being a direct inhibitor of firm innovation performance.

ABSTRACT In the process of building a high-level socialist market economy system, effectively curbing market monopolies remains an urgent theoretical and practical challenge. This study incorporates China’s indigenous Buddhist and Taoist religious traditions into an industrial organization framework. Using data from A-share listed companies in eastern China from 2009 to 2023, it empirically examines the restraining effect of local religious traditions on market monopolies and its underlying mechanisms. Findings reveal: First, the density of Buddhist and Taoist religious sites near corporate headquarters exhibits a significant negative correlation with market share, indicating that indigenous religious traditions effectively curb corporate market monopolies. This conclusion remains robust after undergoing a series of stability and endogeneity tests. Second, the mechanism analysis reveals dual pathways: ‘optimization of the macro-market environment’ and ‘constraints on micro-firm pricing behavior’. Religious traditions simultaneously foster fair competition by enhancing regional marketization levels and directly weaken monopolistic power by suppressing firms’ cost markup rates. Moderation effects indicate that firm innovation levels weaken this suppression, while executives’ green cognition strengthens it. Heterogeneity analysis further reveals that the governance effect of religious traditions is significant only in private enterprises, highlighting how the efficacy of informal institutions is constrained by formal property rights arrangements.