The construction of autonomous knowledge systems in management studies requires not only the formulation of indigenous propositions based on Chinese management practices, but also the development of autonomous constructs with explanatory power and boundary clarity derived from these phenomena, thereby transforming Chinese management practices into theoretical objects capable of entering academic discourse. However, existing discussions on autonomous knowledge systems and indigenous management research have largely focused on theoretical frameworks, research paradigms, or construct relationships, lacking systematic answers to questions such as “what constitutes an autonomous construct” “how autonomous constructs are established” and “how case studies can facilitate the generation of autonomous constructs”. This paper adopts a construct-level approach. Building upon a definition of the fundamental requirements for autonomous constructs, it traces the theoretical origins of autonomous constructs through a “culture-context-practice-construct-theory” framework. Based on the explanatory power of existing constructs and the degree of contextual embeddedness, the paper classifies autonomous constructs into three types, namely, universally applicable, context-embedded, and novel autonomous constructs, thereby clarifying the conceptual boundaries and development paths of each type; it proposes a four-stage strategy driven by case studies including identification, generation, development and diffusion, revealing the unique roles of abductive, inductive and deductive reasoning in case studies in the process of constructing autonomous constructs.The findings provide an analytical framework and methodological support for Chinese management research to refine autonomous constructs, advance theoretical innovation, and deepen international theoretical dialogue.

As population aging accelerates, traditional elder care systems are increasingly unable to meet the diverse needs of older adults. Smart eldercare has emerged as an important approach to improving service provision and addressing grassroots care challenges. Drawing on actor-network theory, this paper takes “D community smart healthcare and wellness center”as the research object, conducts a longitudinal case study, and constructs a four-stage analytical framework for the generative logic of smart eldercare services, including actor identification, consensus formation, collective translation, and value facilitation. The findings show that: First, environmental pressures drive heterogeneous actors to align around an obligatory passage point, establish shared objectives, and clarify their roles. Second, core actors adopt translation strategies such as interest-building, enrolment and conflict mediation to reconcile divergent interests and construct a stable actor-network. Finally, as the network evolves, mechanisms of risk mitigation and continuous improvement enhance its resilience and value-creation capacity, ultimately supporting the sustainable development of community-based smart eldercare services. The findings enrich the understanding of how smart eldercare services are generated in local community contexts and provide practical insights for improving elderly well-being and advancing sustainable social development.

Under the background of rural revitalization, exploring the formation and growth mechanism of creative agricultural development models, and developing a model that matches local resources and capabilities according to the value realization path, plays an important role in promoting the steady development of creative agriculture and the revitalization of rural industries. Based on neo-endogenous development theory, this paper conducts a multiple-case study by taking five typical creative agricultural development models from both domestic and international sources as samples, and constructs a research framework following the logic of stage division, process analysis and regularity summarization. The study finds that in the evolution of the creative agricultural development model, the external industrial policies, technological innovation, and market opportunities provide important driving forces, the model’s internal resources and the behavior of business entities play a supporting and guaranteeing role, and market risks and the traditional agricultural development model are the main constraint factors. Successful creative agricultural development models usually go through three continuously optimized stages: the initial stage, the formation stage and the growth stage. During the evolutionary process, various favorable internal and external factors of the model exert sustained positive effects and drive the iterative upgrading of its constituent elements. The research results can not only construct a theoretical framework for relevant academic research, but also provide practical references for industrial policy formulation and resource allocation.

The key to national development is to have a strategic talent force, especially a group of scientific and technological commanders who can seize the commanding heights of technological development. However, there are still relatively few such talents in China, and theoretically, their formation mechanism has not been clearly explained. For this reason, this study takes the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT) as an example to explore how organizations cultivate a galaxy of scientific and technological commanders from the perspective of human resource management. The results show that:First,mission-driven logic is the source of such talents, and its effectiveness is reflected in career-traction, overall planning of party construction and unique temperament. Second, the four pillars for the formation of the scientific and technological commanders are excellent genes (seed), pure atmosphere (soil), scientific management (strategy), and hard training (guarantee). The flywheel illustrating the mechanism behind the emergence of scientific and technological commanders constructed in this paper can effectively fill the research gaps, and provide some management inspiration for enterprises to promote the emergence of cutting-edge scientific and technological talents.

As an important force supporting the resilient development of the real economy and solving industrial “bottleneck” problems, SRDI enterprises realize cross-cycle resilient growth because their core logic lies in the dynamic coupling of strategic judgment based on “assessing the situation and leveraging momentum” and adaptive resource actions. This paper takes Xiema Crankshaft as an example to explore the process mechanism of its resilient growth through SRDI under the collaborative drive of organizational momentum and resource orchestration. The research finds that the essence of organizational momentum is the situational inertia that guides enterprises to develop continuously along preset directions, which drives enterprises to dynamically identify opportunities based on situational evolution and successively match differentiated resource orchestration and action mechanisms. That is, through focusing and shaping momentum, internal and external linkage momentum borrowing, and change-empowering momentum borrowing, enterprises continuously strengthen their resilience capacity, complete specialized market exploration, lean management advancement, and collaborative potential activation, and ultimately achieve cross-cycle resilient growth. The organizational momentum flywheel model constructed in this study and the internal mechanism of resilient growth of SRDI enterprises not only enrich the connotation of organizational momentum theory but also provide theoretical implications for the strategic practices of similar SMEs.

How to exploit the heterogeneous resource endowments of time-honored brands and realize their revitalization has become a prominent research focus. From the perspective of heritage resource utilization, this study adopts grounded theory and multiple-case study method, selecting four Chinese time-honored enterprises as subjects to explore the concept, constituent dimensions of time-honored brand heritage, and the brand revitalization pathways. The findings are as follows: First, time-honored brand heritage is a locally embedded, multidimensional construct rooted in traditional Chinese commercial civilization, consisting of five interwoven dimensions, including historical memory, cultural heritage, unique craftsmanship, business philosophy, and spiritual genes. Second, time-honored brand heritage is dualistic, encompassing both tangible entities and intangible assets, as well as utilizable classic elements and untapped latent genes. Third, the revitalization of time-honored brands follows the core logic of “time-honored brand heritage — triggering conditions — brand revitalization pathways — brand revitalization outcomes — resource values”. Specifically, four types of triggering conditions constitute the internal and external dual driving forces; ten specific revitalization pathways corresponding to five pathway elements achieve differentiated adaptation and systematic coordination; six types of resources represent the outcomes of brand revitalization, completing the qualitative transformation from dormant heritage to viable operational resources. The time-honored brand revitalization model proposed in this study achieves a dynamic balance between inheriting traditions and adapting to contemporary market demands. It advances abstract theoretical research on brand revitalization to the practical implementation stage, provides theoretical references for the value conversion of heritage resources, and promotes the co-evolution of cultural and market values.

Although extensive industrial practices have demonstrated that the industrial internet can promote green manufacturing, the underlying mechanism through which manufacturing firms achieve green transformation by leveraging the industrial internet remains insufficiently understood. Adopting a multi-case study approach, this paper investigates the mechanism by which the industrial internet empowers green manufacturing. The findings reveal that: (1) the empowerment process can be divided into three stages, namely, green unblocking, green coordination, and green co-creation; (2) by building IoT platforms, digital intelligence platforms, and ecosystem platforms, firms are enabled to achieve the stage-specific goals of greening in process, product and ecosystem, respectively; (3) the industrial internet empowers green manufacturing through the effective orchestration of resources along firms’ internal and external value chains, ultimately leading to structural, organizational and field empowerment. By integrating value chain theory and resource orchestration theory, this study clarifies the path and mechanism through which the industrial internet enables green manufacturing, extends the application of resource orchestration theory from the perspective of internal and external value chains, and provides practical implications for firms seeking to advance green transformation through the industrial internet.

In the VUCA era, corporate social entrepreneurship (CSE) has emerged as an innovative model for large enterprises to fulfill social responsibilities and address societal challenges, with its dual economic and social value creation gradually gaining recognition. In highly uncertain environments, team resilience plays a pivotal role in achieving sustainable development for CSE initiatives. As a positive collective psychological state, team mindfulness acts as a critical catalyst that triggers entrepreneurial improvisation behaviors under various contextual conditions. These improvisational responses ultimately determine a team’s differential capacity of being adapted to environmental changes and crises, thereby influencing team resilience. Through a longitudinal case study of Hisense Exploration Center’s CSE team, this research reveals that: (1) the evolutionary pattern where team mindfulness at different CSE stages sequentially triggers entrepreneurial improvisation, leading to the development of resilience for survival and growth ; (2) team mindfulness serves as a foundational prerequisite for initiating entrepreneurial improvisation behaviors; (3) the implementation of entrepreneurial improvisation further facilitates the cultivation and enhancement of team resilience, enabling the realization of dual value creation and sustainable development in CSE contexts. These findings can contribute to the existing literature by elucidating the dynamic interplay among team mindfulness, entrepreneurial improvisation, and team resilience, while offering practical implications for enhancing the sustainability of CSE teams in turbulent environments.

Based on the theory of organizational imprints and using a multi-case study method, this paper explores the implementation process of disruptive innovation in specialized, refined, unique and innovative (SRUI) enterprises. The research has found that: (1) SRUI enterprises experience three key imprint sensitive periods of disruptive innovation, namely the selection-, shaping-, and consolidation-sensitive periods. (2) different sensitive periods and imprinting sources drive differential imprinting mechanisms. Choosing a sensitive period, the start-up environment, and the neglect of behavior by incumbent companies encourage these businesses to invade niche markets through resource adaptation and lean design, achieving product specialization. Shaping sensitive periods, growth environments, and perceived behaviors of incumbent enterprises drive them to occupy niche markets through characteristic innovation and specialization spillover, achieving product disruption. Consolidate the sensitive period, and transform the environment could guide incumbent enterprises to disrupt the mainstream market through strategic transformation and vertical technology bundling, achieving technological and business model disruption. (3) there are three typical paths for disruptive innovation in SRUI enterprises, namely, hybrid dynamic disruption, single dimensional driven high-end disruption, and dual dimensional driven low-end disruption.

The NetherlandsWith the accelerated advancement of ecological civilization construction, building a green competitive advantage has become the strategic core for the sustainable development of traditional manufacturing enterprises. Opportunity-resource integration is a key measure to promote this process, yet existing research still lacks a systematic elucidation of it. This paper conducts a longitudinal case study on Chilwee’s green practices from 2003 to 2025 to analyze the evolutionary process and internal mechanisms of building a green competitive advantage through opportunity-resource integration. The findings reveal that: First, the opportunity window is the driving factor for enterprises to build a green competitive advantage, presenting an evolutionary process that is “institution-driven, market-pulled, and technology-pushed”, during which enterprises shift from passive adaptation to active creation. Second, opportunity-resource integration is the internal mechanism for traditional manufacturing enterprises to shape a green competitive advantage, with the two exhibiting a dynamic relationship of mutual promotion and iterative cycling. Third, the green competitive advantage of traditional manufacturing enterprises exhibits an upgrading trajectory of “green efficiency advantage—green synergy advantage—green ecological advantage”, driving enterprises to achieve a strategic leap from single-point optimization and full-chain integration to value symbiosis. This paper can enrich the theoretical systems of competitive advantage and opportunity-resource integration, and provides practical implications for traditional manufacturing enterprises to realize green transformation and achieve sustainable development.

Organizational resilience is the key capability for enterprises to cope with crises. The core issue lies in correctly understanding its complex impact on sustainable development. This can help enterprises shape their internal capabilities while navigating through crises, balancing short-term returns with long-term growth. Based on the dynamic capability theory, this paper takes four typical manufacturing enterprises as examples, and follows the research logic of “capability — behavior — result” to analyze the process by which organizational resilience affects the sustainable development of manufacturing enterprises. The conclusions are as follows: (1) organizational resilience refers to an organization’s capacity to withstand risks, adapt and adjust, and recover and surpass, as developed through its response to “pre-, during- and post-crisis” situations. (2) resource orchestration and CEOs’ attention allocation are two key paths through which organizational resilience affects the sustainable development of manufacturing enterprises differently. (3) the impact of organizational resilience on the sustainable development of manufacturing enterprises is manifested in two aspects: Short-term returns and long-term growth. (4) there is also a linkage between the two behavioral paths of “CEOs’ attention allocation — enterprise resource orchestration”, and considering the differences in industry, the impact paths show significant variations. The research contribution of this paper lies in comprehensively depicting the impact of organizational resilience on the sustainable development of manufacturing enterprises from both short-term and long-term perspectives. A new mechanism, “organizational resilience — CEOs’ attention allocation — resource orchestration — sustainable development of manufacturing enterprises”, has been identified, expanding the explanatory boundaries of the dynamic capability theory. It has also answered the contradictory doubts in current industry and academic circles regarding organizational resilience.

Using CATL as a case study, this paper compares the differential effects of the dual-chain coupling model and the single-chain model on suppliers’ ESG upgrading, and further reveals the formation logic and underlying mechanisms of lead firms’ differentiated cooperation models. The findings show that: The dual-chain coupling model is not universally applicable to all suppliers; rather, it serves as a targeted governance tool adopted by lead firms for suppliers that possess critical resources and generate strong ESG risk spillovers. Under the single-chain model, lead firms exert relatively weak green spillover effects on suppliers’ ESG performance due to limited control rights, weaker interest alignment, and insufficient governance embeddedness. In contrast, the dual-chain coupling model enables governance embeddedness through equity linkages and promotes strategic ESG alignment between lead firms and suppliers through collaborative governance, incentive compatibility, and value co-creation mechanisms. These findings can deepen the understanding of the micro-level mechanisms of green supply chain governance, and provide practical insights for lead firms to promote suppliers’ ESG upgrading through governance innovation.