Industrial clusters evolve dynamically as the external environment changes. To better understand the nature of cluster evolution, which has nurtured economic growth in early 2000s, strategy and organisation scholars have attempted to unpack contributors to cluster evolution from the perspective of the ‘environmental uncertainty’ and ‘resource abundance’ effects. The paper adopts and extend an earlier extant model through empirical testing of the thin-film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) industrial cluster in Taiwan, a developing country. This study modifies the extant network model by adding a diffusion of technological innovation index to cluster evolving. Using the extended case study, the study examines the dynamic evolutionary process in the TFT-LCD industrial cluster. It was found that the evolution of the TFT-LCD industrial cluster resembles the theoretical argument in some respects. The characteristics of network change are modified according to these results. Implication for policymakers and decision-makers of developing countries are also discussed.

This study explores the effect of thriving at work on expatriate performance and determines whether the paternalistic leadership of the local supervisor in a host country moderates this relationship. Convenience sampling was adopted. In total, 300 questionnaires were distributed, and 182 responses (20 invalid and 162 valid) were returned (effective questionnaire recovery rate = 54.00%). A regression model was applied to examine the causal relationship between thriving at work and expatriate performance and the moderating effect of paternalistic leadership. The analysis results indicated that more obvious learning and vitality characteristics were associated with higher task and contextual performances among expatriates. Furthermore, host country supervisors’ moral leadership moderated the relationship between expatriate task performance and both learning and vitality. Moreover, host country supervisors’ authoritarian leadership moderated the relationship between learning and expatriate task performance. Finally, host country supervisors’ authoritarian leadership moderated the relationship between vitality and expatriate contextual performance. Theoretically, this study is expected to fill the research gap in the expatriate literature pertaining to expatriate performance, thriving at work, and paternalistic leadership, because the relevant expatriate literature is quite lacking in this area. In practice, this study can be used as a reference by multinational corporations to create or shape a supportive employment environment, thereby enhancing expatriate performance.

Strategic alliances have been regarded as a potent tool of technology policy for the advancement of research and development (R&D) in developing countries. However, the effectiveness of this ‘visible hand’ has not been dynamically understood as a useful means of building up firm capability. To see how strategic alliances help small-sized firms improve their competitive advantage, this research investigates a government-supported strategic alliance for technology development. Using a two-stage model from the network perspective and methodology, the results show that via a government-sponsored strategic alliance, the network factors embedded in the alliance significantly help the firm develop a competitive advantage by facilitating technology diffusion among alliance members and improved firm-level technology capability. Thus, technology policy in the form of strategic alliances appears to serve as a ‘visible hand’ that homogenously upgrades firm technology capability and diffuses technology.

The dynamic capabilities perspective explains how firms sustain a competitive advantage in contemporary rapidly changing environments, yet it still lacks empirical accounts of how the three high-level capabilities of sensing, seizing, and transforming become observable processes through managerial practices. The study examines Thunder Tiger, a firm that developed into a leading global brand in the technologically dynamic and highly competitive radio-control model industry, and uses 30 strategic initiatives identified from its 36-year development trajectory as the units of analysis. Adopting the extended case method, we conduct simultaneous coding across two dimensions: the core content of high-level capabilities and observable managerial practices. We develop an analytical framework for dynamic capability processes comprising three layers: the three high-level capabilities, four functional domains, and twelve process items. Through this framework, we show how high-level capabilities can be linked to observable managerial practices in Thunder Tiger’s strategic initiatives.

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) remain attractive as low-cost photovoltaic devices; however, their practical efficiency is still constrained by electron-transport losses, interfacial recombination, and incomplete light harvesting in conventional titanium dioxide (TiO₂) photoanodes. The effects of TiO₂ film thickness, multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) incorporation, and multilayer oxide interface engineering on DSSC performance were examined. Degussa P25-TiO₂ photoanodes were first optimized with respect to thickness, after which controlled MWCNT loadings and sequential compact sol–gel TiO₂ and tin dioxide (SnO₂) sublayers were introduced. The optimum pristine P25-TiO₂ photoanode thickness was 9.11 μm, yielding an open-circuit voltage of 0.74 ± 0.01 V, a short-circuit current density of 14.10 ± 0.40 mA/cm², a fill factor of 56.24 ± 1.00%, and a power-conversion efficiency of 5.93 ± 0.20%. The incorporation of 0.025 wt% MWCNTs increased the efficiency to 6.04 ± 0.20%, corresponding to an absolute gain of 0.11 percentage points. The best performance was obtained with the sol–gel SnO₂/sol–gel TiO₂/P25-CNT multilayer photoanode, which delivered 0.74 ± 0.02 V, 16.22 ± 0.40 mA/cm², 57.59 ± 1.00%, and 6.89 ± 0.30%, respectively. FE-SEM, EIS, XRD, Heated Ultrasonic Cleaner and UV–visible analyses indicate that the multilayer architecture preserves porosity, enhances light harvesting, and suppresses interfacial recombination, while the CNT network facilitates charge transport.