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The study sheds light on the internal enabling factors towards emerging market (EM) small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs) preparedness for Industry 4.0 (I4.0) using three dimensions: managerial, operational and technological readiness.

The study uses convenience sampling, having online and paper-based surveys and collecting 110 responses from manufacturing Malaysian SMEs. This sample allowed assessing the relationships of the hypothesized variables through the structural model of data analysis.

This study’s findings demonstrate that financial capability and perceived benefits enhance Malaysian SMEs' managerial, operational and technological readiness.

Using Malaysia's case, this paper extends the discussion of the key drivers that underline the decision of EM firms to adopt I4.0.

This study’s results provide valuable insights for policymakers to improve the digital ecosystem. Also, understanding critical drivers for I4.0 readiness would encourage SMEs in Malaysia to embrace new digital technologies.

Although digital transformation towards I4.0 for manufacturing SMEs would be decisive, little is known about how ready these Malaysian firms are to adopt it or the driving factors that motivate them. Meanwhile, inadequate readiness causes a high failure rate in implementing new technology, processes or organizational changes.

The digital transformation towards Industry 4.0 (I4.0) has become imperative for manufacturers, as it makes them more flexible, agile and responsive to customers. This study aims to identify the factors influencing the manufacturing firms’ decision to adopt I4.0 and develop a triadic conceptual model that explains this phenomenon.

This study used a qualitative exploratory study design based on multiple case studies (n = 15) from the manufacturing industry in Malaysia by conducting face-to-face interviews. The data were analysed using NVivo. The conceptual model was developed based on grounded theory and deductive thematic analysis.

Results demonstrate that driving, facilitating and impeding factors play influential roles in a firms’ decision-making to adopt I4.0. The major driving factors identified are expected benefits, market opportunities, labour problem, customer requirements, competition and quality image. Furthermore, resources, skills and support are identified as facilitating factors and getting the right people, lack of funding, lack of knowledge, technical challenges, training the operators and changing the mindset of operators to accept new digital technologies are identified as impeding factors.

Due to its qualitative design and limited sample size, the findings of this study need to be supplemented by quantitative studies for enhanced generalizability of the proposed model.

Knowledge of the I4.0 decision factors identified would help manufacturers in their decision to invest in I4.0, as they can be applied to balancing advantages and disadvantages, understanding benefits, identifying required skills and support and which challenges to expect. For policymakers, our findings identify important aspects of the ecosystem in need of improvement and how manufacturers can be motivated to adopt I4.0.

This study lays the theoretical groundwork for an alternative approach for conceptualizing I4.0 adoption beyond UTAUT (Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology). Integrating positive and negative factors enriches the understanding of decision-making factors for I4.0 adoption.

Despite the growing importance of digital innovation conceptualized as innovative digital solutions that enable digital transformation of businesses across industries, empirical study of factors related to digital innovation is still scant, creating a knowledge gap. To fill this gap, this paper aims to examine the effect of digital orientation and digital capability on digital innovation, and also the mediating effect of digital innovation on the link between organizational performance and digital orientation as well as digital capability.

This study tests a new conceptual framework using a survey data of 105 small to medium-sized IT firms in Malaysia and employing structural equation model (SEM) analysis from partial least square (PLS) approach.

The results show that digital orientation and digital capability have positive effect on digital innovation and also that digital innovation mediates the effect of technology orientation and digital capability on financial and non-financial performance.

The findings encourage the firms to take the opportunity of emerging digital technologies and digitalization trend in industries by being committed toward embracing new digital technologies and upgrading their digital capabilities to become innovation leaders and also to boost firms’ performance.

This study is one of the first studies that explain how emerging digital technologies can be leveraged to create innovative digital products and services and subsequently boost their business performance. It also fills the literature gaps related to driving factors of digital innovation and mediating role of digital innovation on the link between its driving factors and performance.

The first purpose of this study is to discuss a brief review of the literature in product innovation, innovation strategies and resources. The second purpose is to present qualitative findings related to product innovation as well as their strategies and resources among ICT (information and communication technology) technopreneurs in the software sector of Malaysia.

This qualitative study is a preliminary study to a larger empirical study. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with five ICT technopreneurs in Malaysia.

The findings generate insights into the kind of market that ICT technopreneurs are in, the problems they are facing, their practices and opinions towards product innovation, and their strategies as well as the resources required.

One limitation of the work could be related to the small sample size.

The findings imply that resource constraints, market factors such as market need, and strategic orientation towards customer and market needs may play a part in product innovation practices among ICT technopreneurs. Practitioners should pay attention to these factors to achieve innovative advantage.

This study adds knowledge regarding product innovation among software firms by shedding light on ICT technopreneurs in terms of product innovation and the factors associated with it. The implications provide an impetus for further research in related areas.