Digital transformation is perceived not only as a change in certain technology but also as a large transition that will ultimately change our lives for the better. Industry convergence, the key to digital transformation, entails, for firms, both various opportunities for innovation and the crisis of falling behind. Therefore, from the perspective of firms, it is critical to examine how digital transformation affects their industries and products as well as how they perceive and respond to digital transformation. This is ultimately a matter of how firms survive and maintain sustainable growth in this great upheaval of digital transformation. Based on the understanding of the concept of digital transformation, this study explores how high-growth firms perceive various aspects of digital transformation. The findings show that digital transformation involves a change of firms based on constant innovation, not simply the acceptance of technology, and that there is a large digital divide that depends on the firm size and industry type. Based on the above, this study derives implications in terms of the innovation activities of firms to ensure that digital transformation does not serve as a handicap and barrier for firms.

Organizational leaders routinely note the critical importance of human capital in enabling successful innovation outcomes. However, strategic human resource management (SHRM) practices, especially in large firms, often are not aligned with practices that facilitate breakthrough innovation (BI), where uncertainty, ambiguity, and risk of failure are high. In this paper, drawing from the motivation–opportunity–ability (MOA) framework, we identify and delineate SHRM practices that are likely to affect BI outcomes in firms. These include career risk mitigation, extrinsic rewards (motivation), idea generation facilitation (opportunity), innovation talent development, and managerial ambidexterity development (ability). We theorize that while these SHRM practices may directly affect BI outcomes, these effects are likely to be modulated by the broader organizational context, specifically, the degree of organizational conservatism. We test our hypotheses using survey data collected from 79 U.S.-based multinational firms and find that first, the impacts of career risk, extrinsic rewards, and innovation talent development on BI outcomes vary with the firm's degree of conservatism. Second, developing ambidextrous talent among middle managers positively influences BI outcomes, irrespective of the firm's level of conservatism. Overall, our study provides a basic framework to understand how SHRM practices can be leveraged to influence innovation under varying degrees of conservatism in organizations.

This empirical study explores the impacts of technological capability on inward foreign direct investment (FDI) with the moderations of institutional quality. We extend the existing literature by contributing the dynamic links between technology trade and institutional quality by using the panel data of 35 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries between 2000 and 2015. Based on fixed-effects regression, our results show that there is a U-shape relationship between the net technological capability of a host country and inward FDI. In addition, the institutional quality of a host country, government size and regulation have positive moderations, whereas sound money accessibility and legal system and property protection have negative moderations on the main U-shape relationship. Our study contributes to the literature on the determinants of inward FDI in the context of technological capabilities and institutional quality.