Academic literature on the topic 'Business model, new firms, bibliometric analysis'

A wealth of research has addressed the internationalization of firms using different theories and conceptual perspectives. This paper examines the extant research on internationalization specifically delving into seven streams of research: Market Power, Evolutionary Model, Internalization Transaction Cost, Eclectic Paradigm, Resource-Based View, Institutional and International New Ventures Born Global. Methodologically we conduct a bibliometric review in six leading journals recognized for publishing International Business (IB) research, during a forty one year period, from 1970 to 2010. Using citations and co-citations analyses on a sample of 1,459 articles, we sought to better understand the internationalization approaches and how they are interconnected, by examining its growth over time, the most used approaches, the works that have had the greatest impact, and the intellectual interconnections among authors. We conclude that there is no dominant approach in International Business research, albeit the Evolutionary Model has been the most cited - in almost 26% of the extant research, specially the paper– “The internationalization process of the firm: A model of knowledge development and increasing foreign market commitment”, by Johanson and Vahlne (1977). We present a broad discussion and point out limitations and directions for future research.

This study aims to discuss the universal and important theme of how innovation supports the growth of global firms, relying on two issues: technology adoption and sustainability in the global marketplace. In other words, the main goal of this research is to show how global innovation management can respond to difficult market conditions and maintain sustainability of businesses through problem solving. The electric vehicle sector was chosen as the object of the study as it faced unprecedented challenges brought about by COVID-19. The electric vehicle sector has emerged as a new model in the automotive sector with accumulations of innovative technologies and is destined to continue to evolve, from the perspective of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) backed up by policy interventions. The methodological tools of the conducted research were the methods of office research, analysis of primary and secondary data, bibliometric analysis of literature. The article presents the results of an empirical study based on primary data collection and analysis, the generalization of scientific work on the impact of innovations on ensuring sustainable business development. Based on a comparative analysis of the main models of conducting innovative research, such as the diffusion model, business model innovation, and Lewin's change management model, the most successful innovative solutions and the best practices of their implementation at specific companies are determined. The contribution of this study is to build on previous findings and academic discussions in the innovation field, analyse case studies of successful realization of sustainable business through innovative actions in response to unprecedented difficulties caused by the recent COVID-19 pandemic. The greatest contribution is to discuss the paths that innovation has successfully taken, with examples of specific companies, and to present a practical discussion agenda that will provide suggestions through stimulating further discussion in future research.

This study aims to discuss the universal and important theme of how innovation supports the growth of global firms, relying on two issues: technology adoption and sustainability in the global marketplace. In other words, the main goal of this research is to show how global innovation management can respond to difficult market conditions and maintain sustainability of businesses through problem solving. The electric vehicle sector was chosen as the object of the study as it faced unprecedented challenges brought about by COVID-19. The electric vehicle sector has emerged as a new model in the automotive sector with accumulations of innovative technologies and is destined to continue to evolve, from the perspective of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) backed up by policy interventions. The methodological tools of the conducted research were the methods of office research, analysis of primary and secondary data, bibliometric analysis of literature. The article presents the results of an empirical study based on primary data collection and analysis, the generalization of scientific work on the impact of innovations on ensuring sustainable business development. Based on a comparative analysis of the main models of conducting innovative research, such as the diffusion model, business model innovation, and Lewin’s change management model, the most successful innovative solutions and the best practices of their implementation at specific companies are determined. The contribution of this study is to build on previous findings and academic discussions in the innovation field, analyse case studies of successful realization of sustainable business through innovative actions in response to unprecedented difficulties caused by the recent COVID-19 pandemic. The greatest contribution is to discuss the paths that innovation has successfully taken, with examples of specific companies, and to present a practical discussion agenda that will provide suggestions through stimulating further discussion in future research.

<p>The multidisciplinary character of the theories that support research in the discipline of Innovation Management (IM), the growing importance being attributed to the increasingly rigorous approach to IM studies by academics, and the impact of IM on the competitive advantage of firms are just some of the indicators demonstrating the relevance of this discipline in the broader field of management. These developments explain why a quantitative analysis of IM studies based on bibliometric techniques is particularly opportune.</p>The aim of this paper is to analyze the dynamics of the intellectual structure of IM research throughout the last 20 years, to find out the main convergence axis within the field. The analysis of the intellectual structure shows that there are four convergence axes during the said period: (1) the study of how to manage innovation from the Strategic Management and Business Administration ambit; (2) New Products Development; (3) The importance of Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management for IM; and (4) The importance of the technological change, supply of technology, innovation process and innovation model. The dynamic analysis of all this, shows that in the 90’s there was a predominance of the axis (1) and (2). Subsequently, the predominance changed during the first decade of the XXI century, because the axis (2) remained dominating, but axis (4) began to appear strongly. Finally, it’s evident the strengthening of the authority of axis (4) in the intellectual structure of the IM research during the last period of study.

Abstract Small firms contribute to the economy by creating new vacancies and are the most common business form in the EU. However, small firms are not tended to expand internationally and only a limited number of small firms export to the countries outside the EU. The study aims to investigate inter-personal and inter-organizational networks in the international expansion of small firms. The investigation is grounded in analysis and synthesis of scientific literature. In addition, the bibliometric analysis was integrated into the scientific research. Bibliometric analysis of the papers published in 2000-2017 and obtained from Clari-vate Analytics database revealed that the significance of networking in international activities of small firms are not explored sufficiently while networking and internationalization of SMEs separately are a much more popular topic among researchers. The research results let us present insights for future investigations and implications for managers and policymakers.

Abstract The main processes that have an impact on the entrepreneurial media are innovation, promotion of products and services, and the element of novelty. Through technological progress and the dynamism of labor market development, new entrepreneurial directions have emerged, which have seen a rise through the development of media content. Media and entrepreneurship determine new content techniques, resulting in new services and products. This paper aims to highlight the correlation of the media industry with that of entrepreneurship, these being in a close relationship, which results in innovation, creative content, and business development. To this extent, a bibliometric analysis was performed on a corpus of scientific papers, from the Web of Science platform, focusing on media entrepreneurship to determine the current state of knowledge in this area. Furthermore, the analysis reveals the most researched themes and the relevant terminology used. As a selection protocol of the scientific material for media a series of keywords were used, that is: “media”, “internet”, “radio”, “TV”, “newspapers”, “social media”, “journalism” and for entrepreneurship we followed the keywords: “business”, “entrepreneurship” and “entrepreneur”. The results of the analysis showed that the most frequently used terms in media entrepreneurship research studies are: Internet, development, social medium, and business model. In addition to that, media and entrepreneurship seem to be closely researched concerning innovation, economic development, and education.

This research aims to understand how sustainable business model innovation (SBMI) can learn from business model innovation. For this, first, we conducted a bibliometric analysis to evaluate the relationships between business model innovation and SBMI literature. After this, we performed a systematic literature review to create a comprehensive framework for managing SBMI. The bibliometric analysis showed that the SBMI stream grew quickly and significantly in recent years, evolving into a separated new research stream, which does not leverage recent business model innovation advancements. Through the performed analyses, we were able to discuss critical gaps in the SBMI literature and shed light on possible pathways to solve these gaps through lessons learned from business model innovation. We depicted five critical gaps for managing SBMI; (1) the need to understand the sustainable business model as a wicked problem, in which SBMI leads to “better than before” solutions calling for systematic SBMI, (2) the poor definition of distinctive dimensions of dynamic capabilities for SBMI, (3) the lack of studies exploring the role of open innovation for improving the SBMI process, (4) the lack of tools supporting SBMI implementation and (5) the need to explore game-changing, competitive advantages of SBMI. The findings of this study contribute to guiding future research on SBMI, which can be a basis for further efforts towards sustainable development.

This research contributes to the family business literature by providing the first empirical test of the developmental model for family business (DMFB), developed by Gersick, Davis, Hampton, and Lansberg (1997). Our testing of the DMFB, along with a review of the literature since its publication, allow us to identify key groups of variables that can help explain family business development. Specifically, we identify owner, firm, and family characteristics to augment the DMFB. Our hierarchical regression analysis of 934 firms suggests that the original model provides asolidfoundation forclassifyingfamily firms, but the augmented model explains significantly more variance in family firm development.

Purpose This paper aims to explore the effects of holistic cognition frame on novelty-centered business model design and efficiency-centered business model design. Moreover, the authors consider how these effects differ in new ventures vs established firms. Design/methodology/approach The authors use survey data to testify the hypotheses based on a database of 204 firms in China. Then, regression analysis is used to examine the relationship between holistic cognition frame and business model design. They also explore the contingency effects of new ventures and established firms on the relationships. Findings The authors find that the holistic cognition frame has a positive effect on efficiency-centered business model design, whereas it has an inverse U-shaped effect on novelty-centered business model design. Furthermore, they find that the effects of holistic cognition frame on efficiency-centered business model design and novelty-centered business model design are different in established firms and new ventures. Originality/value This work offers new insights into the effects of holistic cognition frame on business model design and provides useful suggestions for firms to promote business model design.

In response to widespread concerns about the quality of governance arrangements in financial intermediaries as a source of systemic risk, the revised framework for the regulation of investment services in the EU has reinforced the governance requirements that have been in place for a long time, and increased significantly their complexity and intensity. Investment firms, subject to both the CRD IV and the MiFID II, must now comply with numerous regulatory requirements. While the underlying policy—to address systemic implications of financial intermediation irrespective of the business model—is consistent, the equal treatment of banks and investment firms under broadly identical regulatory frameworks, albeit with additional requirements imposed by MiFID II, is nonetheless questionable, in view of the diversity of existing business models and activities. Starting with an analysis of the underlying history and policy of the new approach, this chapter seeks to identify potential weaknesses and implications for its implementation.

China’s extraordinary economic development is explained in large part by the way it innovates. This book explains how it innovates, which has important implications not only for China but also for the rest of the world. Contrary to widely held views, China’s innovation machine is not created and controlled by an all-powerful government. Instead, it is a complex, interdependent system composed of hundreds of millions of elements, involving bottom-up innovation driven by innovators and entrepreneurs and highly pragmatic and adaptive top-down policy. Using case studies of leading firms and industries, statistics, and policy analysis, the book argues that China’s innovation machine is similar to a natural ecosystem. Innovations in technology, organization, and business model resemble genetic mutations which are random, self-serving and isolated initially, but the best fitting are selected by the market and their impacts are amplified by the innovation machine. This machine draws on China’s massive number of manufacturers, supply chains, innovation clusters, and digitally literate population, connected through supersized digital platforms. China’s innovation suffers from a lack of basic research and reliance upon certain critical technologies from overseas; its scale (size) and scope (diversity) possess attributes that make it self-correcting and stronger in the face of challenges. China’s innovation machine is most effective in a policy environment where the market prevails; policy intervention plays a significant role when market mechanisms are premature or fail. The book concludes that the future success of China’s innovation will depend on continuing policy pragmatism, mass entrepreneurship and innovation, and the development of the ‘new infrastructures’.

Firms competing in a globalized economic world must design value-creating strategies to achieve leadership. Corporations that wish to accomplish this goal go deeper to make it by applying different business models rooted in ODI (Outcome-Driven Innovation), napkin ideas, and teamwork. The chapter includes the leading causes of bankruptcy for companies, especially when firms perform neither a PESTEL analysis nor a SWOT study to analyze their business environments. To survive, companies need to control their risks, not to incur excessive bank financing, to choose the most capable intellectual capital, and to expand new market niches steadily over time. The companies that do not take too much risk in their development are those that survive in time, although their rates of growth are smaller compared to the more aggressive companies.

This chapter develops an additive model of the microeconomic sources of family firm (FF) competitiveness. Its main contribution is the proposal of a new explanatory framework with a perspective incorporating both ex post competitiveness and its determinants in a chain of multi-level causality. Based on fully-specified theory, the framework is designed to explain the complementarity of the effects of the firm's country, industry, district, strategy, and distinctive competences, focusing where appropriate on the case of the FF. The theoretical model also sheds light on the forces that influence the accumulation of sustainable competitive advantages. To that end, this chapter incorporates a particular focus on how the ownership and control structure affects the accumulation of intangible assets that give rise to the so-called family effect.

This chapter proposes an agent-based model (ABM) of business networking at the level of an industry involving two technology products and populated with technology-based firms. Since technology-based companies trade technologies as products, the concept of new technology development (NTD) is generalized to the new product development. In ABM, each agent represents a small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) which might develop one technology based on some features including perceived value of the technology, perceived ability of NTD, and business network. By defining agents as being the current companies along with the new entrants, one can analyze the effect of the policy of “improving the entry of new companies into the industry” with and without business networking. The results of ABM demonstrated that business networking enhances the number of SMEs with the ability to develop new technologies, especially in a case where the number of new entrants is high.

Technology acceptance model (TAM)—new media—has been widely viewed as a veritable medium for innovating businesses, specifically business positioning. However, organizations are hardly adopting it due to fear of losing control of information flow and cyber-attack, which has intensified and taken mutative dimensions recently. Although numerous studies have explored TAM, they have largely focused on users' perception of the system's usefulness, ease of use, intention to use, and the actual use, while leaving out the strategic implications of such business practice. Thus, relying on thematic textual analysis of interview data drawn from 41 respondents, this chapter empirically investigates how selected ICT firms in Nigeria are behaving towards TAM- new social media. Consequently, the study proposes that rather than dwell on avoidance model, following associated risks, TAM can be securely and effectively integrated to help stimulate business positioning: market positioning, market leadership, customer intimacy-relationship, and competitive advantage for organizational success.

The purpose of this chapter is to empirically examine firms’ internal and external factors that can affect their foreign market mode choice. The model is comprised of internal factors such as control, domestic business experience, and industry type; and external factors in terms of culture of foreign markets and intensity of competition. A mail-out survey to Australian firms involved in international business generated 315 useful responses. The hypotheses were tested using direct logistic regression analysis. Among the five variables, industry type, domestic business experience, and intensity of competition were found statistically significant. While industry type and domestic business experience encourage non-export mode, intensity of competition favours export mode. The major contributions of this study are the discovery of a variable, domestic business experience that is new in the literature; and the reinforcement of the importance of examining both internal and external factors when making a foreign market entry mode choice.

This chapter contributes to strategic management studies in family firms by focusing on innovation strategies as drivers to guarantee firm survival across generations. Specifically, built on the construct of family business innovation posture and based on the content analysis of 10 small and medium family firm narratives, this chapter identifies the figure of the father as the cornerstone in whom innovation strategies have their origin and their evolution as firm-driven, family-driven, and/or market-driven. The chapter proposes a model that highlights the dimensions of family heterogeneity and provides new insights into the relationship between the role of the father figure and three drivers related to family business innovation: product and production quality, past knowledge, and risk-taking propensity.

This chapter contributes to strategic management studies in family firms by focusing on innovation strategies as drivers to guarantee firm survival across generations. Specifically, built on the construct of family business innovation posture and based on the content analysis of 10 small and medium family firm narratives, this chapter identifies the figure of the father as the cornerstone in whom innovation strategies have their origin and their evolution as firm-driven, family-driven, and/or market-driven. The chapter proposes a model that highlights the dimensions of family heterogeneity and provides new insights into the relationship between the role of the father figure and three drivers related to family business innovation: product and production quality, past knowledge, and risk-taking propensity.

Data collected from online social networks offers new possibilities for supporting organizations' daily activities. It is also common knowledge that the opinion exchange in online social networks provides a decisive contribution in decision making. It is, thus, necessary to review and bare present the motivations by which people engage in online social network and the ways in which firms can make use of such motivations in order to take advantage of online social networks as information sources for decision-making support. To do so, the authors of this chapter developed the decision-support social networks to extract such information, which encompasses the intertwined use of human interaction and network structure by combining human capabilities, social network analysis (SNA), and automatic data mining. In this chapter, a brief summary of the performed case studies over the proposed information model is also presented.

Digitalization uses digital technology to change a business model and provide new revenue models and value-producing opportunities. Blockchain is a type of database that stores various kinds of information in blocks that form a chain of information. It is one of the secured ways of transferring and storage of data. Blockchain is helping in creating trust for digitalization among its users. This research aims to study the impact of trust in blockchain by analyzing the privacy and security concerns that can impact the user attitude and its intention to the adoption process. For this structure, literature review is performed. Five variables are used, and they are attitude, privacy, trust, security, and intention. A questionnaire is developed for survey-based research in the software firms, banking sector, and digital marketing companies. For analysis, exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling are used. A model is developed that shows a good fit, and the parameters are satisfied.

The chapter goal is to test a theoretical model. This framework examines the associations among innovation, market orientation, management outcomes, and business performance. In terms of method, the authors used mega-analysis. Mega-analysis comprehends analysis of other meta-analyses. The data included 16 meta-analyses, which represent over 100,000 responses. The chapter produces four original values to literature. The first main conclusion is that it confirmed all hypotheses proposed. Hence, the theoretical model is empirically consistent. Second, the authors analyzed and compared the different effect-size that market orientation and innovation have over performance. They concluded that market orientation had a stronger effect over performance than innovation and business variables. Third, the authors found that innovation created significant variance on management outcomes. This result supports the notion that innovation has a key role in firm strategy. Fourth, firm investments on innovation and new product development affected firms’ performance and profits.

Due to its growing impact on the economic development of countries, research on venture teams in new technology-based firms - TBFs has been increasing in recent years, seeking to identify the success and failure factors of this type of firms, given their high mortality rates. This paper analyzes the changes that have occurred in the intellectual structure of this discipline through the bibliometric analysis of research on the theme of venture teams in the new TBFs. The information collected was extracted from the main collection of the Web of Science (WoS) and SCOPUS databases from 1987 to 2020. The Nvivo and VOSviewer softwares are used to perform the initial analyzesas well as the analysis of citations, co-citations , co-authorship, etc. The advances associated with the main authors, sources and countries, the general citation structure and the development of this field are presented. The results show a growing publication trend as of 2009, seeing a higher production of articles between 2014 and 2019. USA is the most influential country, followed by UK and Italy. The"Journal of Business Venturing" and "Technovation" are the most influential sources. The main contribution of this work is to show the evolution of this theme, so that researchers can use it in the future in their theoretical and research frameworks

The amount of research on family businesses’ analysis has increased significantly in recent years, thus showing the high importance of the topic. In most countries, family businesses occupy a prominent place in contributing to the economy with the added value they produce. However, less attention has been paid to the professionalization of family businesses and the exploration and presentation of the related literature. The professionalization of family business is a significant research concern in the entrepreneurship and governance literature. In the context of family businesses, professionalization initially meant nothing more than hiring an outside, non-family manager. For today, the content of professionalization has expanded, and a multidimensional model has evolved: a broader, deeper understanding has evolved, which involves other vital aspects such as developing formal control and human resource systems, decentralization of authority, formal strategic planning, or top-level activeness. This study aims to present the essential international literature on professionalization and provide a comprehensive overview of the studies published. The literature review mainly summarizes the results of the last twenty years and closely related articles. The paper follows the next logic; in the first part, the definition of professionalization is introduced along with its benefits and challenges. Then, based on the research methodology presented, the related empirical and theoretical studies are examined. In the end, the review summarizes the key findings in a table.

Disruptive technologies in accounting represent a new evolutionary phase of accounting impacted by emerging technologies that are part of industrial revolution 4.0. The relevance of emerging technologies, their potential and the opportunities they offer for the accounting profession attract both academia and professionals with accelerated research efforts. Academia and scientific researchers must research and provide an appropriate theoretical basis to help practitioners better adapt and increase their awareness and trust in technology. This paper provides early quantitative research data on publication trends related to most disruptive technologies in accounting such as big data, data analytics, cloud, artificial intelligence and blockchain. We identified these five emerging technologies through literature review and elaborated in detail how they can change and advance the accounting profession. The research was conducted using bibliometric analysis to examine the level of coverage of each of the technologies in the period from 2016 to 2020 by analyzing the published articles by the Big Four accounting firms, professional accounting associations and institutions and high-ranking academic journals. The purpose of the research was to identify a potential gap in research preferences related to selected technologies between academia and development professionals and experts in the field. The findings highlight that there are no significant discrepancies or different views of academia and practitioners. It is a positive result indicating that academia and scientific researchers exploit in the same direction as practitioners, thus providing support for adaptation and alignment to technology trends.

The purpose of the paper is to discuss the characteristics of the blockchain (hereinafter “BT”) industry and factors that affect the success of BT-based startup companies. Due to the novelty of BT technology, the current period of its development is associated with a high number of newly emerging firms that are predominant in the BT industry. The study seeks to address the two main research questions: What are the key characteristics of the BT industry? What are the factors that determine the success of BT-based companies? To answer these questions, the method of the systematic literature review was applied. The discussion of the reviewed 43 publications led to the classification of literature sources into six categories, including research streams on BT in the contexts of entrepreneurial finance, institutional theory, digital and social entrepreneurship, business models, and international business. The results suggested that the early success of the BT-based startups’ entry and growth related to the supportive entrepreneurial environments, a greater degree of regulatory clarity, the formation of strategic associations, entrepreneur’s active engagement in sharing expertise and shaping the regulations and standards, a profound business model, and experienced management. It is recommended that policymakers should support the creation of new ventures and the transfer of knowledge about BT. Managers of established companies should cooperate with startups to adopt BT applications into their business models. Future research should be based on empirical research studies, namely cluster analysis, to identify the determinants of success/failure of BT-enabled startup firms. This paper contributes to BT research and the literature on the emergence of new industrial fields and ventures.

Our CSR (corporate social responsibility) activities and innovation initiatives complementary? From a resource-based perspective, managers would develop CSR and Innovation's business strategy to create heterogeneity and build sustainable competitive advantage. Based on instrumental theories, CSR is a means for firms to accomplish economic output; therefore, CSR may lead or utilize Innovation for this purpose. As CSR is getting more attention, and Innovation is important for a firm's growth, to find the interaction effect of CSR and Innovation is getting more important. However, to our limited knowledge, there are fewer studies and discussions about the topic. Thus, the research would develop a new analysis model to study the topic. Regarding the methodology, four questions are designed to be answered, and two categories of the dataset are collected. These questions are: (1) Does CSR have an impact on firms' performance? (2) Does long-term investment have an impact on the firm's performance? (3) Does R&D have an impact on a firm's performance? (4) How does the interaction of CSR and Innovation investment impact on firm's performance? The datasets include finical data and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) ratings of firms. We would start the research from a typical industry in a country and look forward to a future extension to multiple industries across countries. We select Taiwan's electronics industry due to its important role in the global market, its leading position in Innovation, and its great efforts on CSR. So far, the research is still in progress. We would share the results, finding, and conclusion of the preliminary analysis. I look forward to your valuable comments for us to improve the analysis model and to find opportunities for further studies in other industries or other countries.

Purpose – to study the possibilities of institutional theory to establish a modern theory of economic growth, including the factors of institutions and technologies changes. These factors are a set of rules with high coercive force to the agents’ action form a particular mode/model of their adaptation, together with other institutions. Research Methodology – the neoclassical models of economic growth, which may include institutional factors and to study their impact on the growth and change of the factors, into the business practice are applied. The key scientific problem is to choose the right market Institute for a proper way of technological development. The authors use the micro-level analysis of the agents and institutions’ interaction in the process of new technologies appearance. Morphological and taxonomic analysis in order to highlight the models of technological development and economic growth had been applied. Findings – the research results may enrich an economic theory and practice in the area of business models applicability. The findings may assist a business community to influence the general technological development within the national institutional systems. Research limitations – due to the fact that different institutions, structures and technologies act on the economic dynamics at the same time, separating their influence is an independent scientific problem that is not solved in all cases. However, the set of considered institutional factors forms and provides a kind of “manufacturability” of economic growth. Practical implications – the so-called institutional macroeconomics as a practical discipline (which has a very close connection with behavioural macroeconomics) may assist to explore the economic growth from the point of view of changing institutions (firms, business community), labour markets and information – technical and technological changes. Originality/Value – the value of the research consists in the systematization of institutional factors affecting the economic growth, conducting a morphological structural analysis of growth types, which allow identifying eight main growth trajectories in business activity.

Over the recent decades, the changes in the paradigm of international trade have been observed. As the result of decreasing of trade barriers as well as the reduction in trade costs allowed companies to divide their production into stages and to locate it in different countries according to their competitive advantage. Eventually, the production process has become more fragmented, both geographically and vertically. It means that intermediate products are shipped across boarders many times and every exporting economy provides some value added according to its competitive advantage. As a result, global value chains have become one of the most important feature of international trade. Following (Gereffi & Fernandez-Stark, 2011), in this study global value chains are defined as “the full range of activities that firms and workers do to bring a product from its conception to its end use”. Humphrey and Schmitz (2002) pointed out four types of upgrading in global value chains: product, process, functional and chain. Product and process upgrading involve companies retaining their positions in global value chains by enhancing productivity gains through adopting new product processes or “new configurations of product mix”. Thus, functional upgrading involves a slicing up the global value chains into new activity which generates higher value added, e.g. own brand manufacturing. In turn, chain upgrading involves a going up to new activity, which needs higher skills and capital and value added. Milberg and Winkler (2013) offered similar classifications of upgrading. Production fragmentation has caused a rapid increase in trade in intermediate goods as often companies offshore an intermediate stage of production process. Offshoring production has been typical to manufacturing (Timmer, et al., 2012), however, services have been often overlooked, but play a major role, especially in supporting global value chains (Kommerskollegium 2013). In turn, Digital Silk Road, announced in 2015, has become a significant part of Chinese Belt and Road Initiative strategy. China has implemented this strategy as a part of its long-term technological plan, under which China provides support to its exporters, including many well-known technology companies and builds a network of cooperation with selected countries in the field of technology, including ICT infrastructure, services, 5G networks, e-commerce, etc. China's rapid technological changes must not go unnoticed by trading partners, including analysed European countries, which, to maintain international competitiveness, are increasing the technological advancement and enhancing market protection against Chinese technology. Until recently, the value added from China to European countries was concentrated mainly on medium technology industries and value added from Europe to China focused more on advanced goods and services. Nowadays, there is a redirection of Chinese value added to high-tech activities (including service activities), which reflects China's ambition to build an economy that leads to innovation and industry 4.0. The transition of the CEE states’ economic and political systems initiated in the early 1990s, earned them the EU membership in 2004. The accession to the EU’s structures meant that these countries achieved the free-market economy status and they should be treated as the full member of the global business networks. Moreover, the decline in trade costs (transport and transaction), greater openness of their market and the removal of trade barriers have all helped the CEE states to join global value chains. Hence, the CEE economies are going to be more heavily involved in global production linkages. Many empirical studies have presented the close and dynamic integration of these countries with the EU market (especially the EU-15) and in a more limited scope with the whole global economy as well (Behar and Freund 2011). Generally, democratisation, the strengthening of political and economic relations (particularly with the EU), and the modernisation of many sectors (including financial sector, more advanced industries), were common elements of the CEE countries long-term development policies. One of their priorities was the redirection of foreign trade towards the EU and joining the global production linkages where China has become the core producer. Recently, the role of the economy in global value chains is more determined by the advancement of value added that it offers. Companies move toward services and innovations in the business model (Nenenen & Storbacka, 2010) and introduce industry 4.0 (Bundesministerium fur Bildung und Forschung, 2016). A symptom of these novelty is a concept of servicification of manufacturing (Neely et al. 2011) and cross-sectoral connections, which have reconstructed traditional global value chains (Naude et al. 2019) and, together with Industry 4.0, is expected to change the landscape of global manufacturing. As a result of facilitation of manufacturing, economies placed in the downstream market can improve their role in global value chains. In Europe, this can be an opportunity for most Central and Eastern European countries. Analyzing changes in CEE’s role in technological global value chains, we should take into account its two most important value-added suppliers: China and Germany, as well as their most important value-added buyer - Germany. These three economies established a sort of value added flows triangle. The regional supply chains built by Germany in the CEE allowed it to maintain a comparative advantage in sectors important for the economy, while helping the CEE countries join global value chains, positively influencing economic growth, but also reducing them to entities operating in less advanced stages of production (Jacoby, 2010; Fortwengel, 2011). Today, Germany also cooperates strongly with China (as a result of Digital Silk Road), and the CEE economies (especially the Visegrad Group) are increasingly dependent on Chinese value added, still linked to German value added. The most visible connections can be found in automotive and electronics. Hence, the question is: how strong are these links in servicification of manufacturing and whether there are visible trends in value-added flows in between this triangle in the era of industry 4.0 and Chinese Digital Silk Road. The research question seems to be relevant, thus in the subject literature, little is known about the mentioned relations (Roland Berger, 2021). The research method based on the analysis of data from the OECD Trade in Value Added databases, containing the world input-output tables for the period 2005–2018. The system of balance equations in the input-output model for one economy has been adopted to a multi-economy model. The model is described in more detail in (Koopman et al. 2013 or Hummels et al, 2001) and is based on the decomposition of gross exports. The method includes not only estimates of total value added in global value chains, but also calculations at both the mezoeconomic level and cross-sectoral flows of value added (including servicification of manufacturing). The results of analysis showed that most relations between economies continued to deepen the imbalance in flows of value added. The CEE economies are making their manufacturing increasingly dependent on advanced services (both from Germany and China). On the other hand, the share of CEE services to Chinese and German manufacturing is decreasing or remains steady. However, some trends could be observed in the last years, especially between Germany and China. German manufacturing is starting to rely more on Chinese value added (information and communication technologies services and the subgroup computer programming, consultancy and information services activities in manufacturing, information and communication technologies services' value added in transport equipment), although previously Germany provided more of these services to China. In telecommunications in manufacturing between CEE and Germany, the trend has turned against CEE. However, there was no direct compensation between pairs of economies, but the decrease in German value-added flows to China resulted in a much larger increase in value-added from China in German manufacturing. If the presented changes in flows were to reflect the effectiveness of Chinese industry 4.0 and Digital Silk Road. These strategies serve their purposes and increases not only the advancement of Chinese value-added exports, but also makes important economies dependent on this added value. On the contrary, the industry 4.0 strategy in CEE has not improved its position in the triad. Germany has still a strong position as a provider of value added, but its dependence on foreign value added is high, which derives from the links with CEE.