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Digital Innovation

The Leap Growth of SRDI "Little Giants": A Theoretical Frame⁃ work Integrating Business Model Strategic Transformation and  Digital-Spatial Symbiotic Affordance  

Han Jin1 , Li Dayuan2 

(1.Business School, University of Nottingham Ningbo China, Ningbo 315100, China; 2.Business School, Central  South University, Changsha 410083, China)

Abstract: Since 2018, frequent technological blockades by Western countries have severely  challenged the overall strategic security of China's high-tech industries, posing a "Sword of Da⁃ mocles" hanging over the construction of a national security-oriented economic system. Against  this backdrop, there is an urgent need for specialized, refined, distinctive, and innovative "Little  Giant" enterprises to achieve leapfrog growth and evolve into manufacturing champions or world  champions, thereby occupying leading positions in the high-end industrial chain to ensure the  strategic security of China's high-end industries. Although "Little Giant" enterprises have  drawn considerable attention from scholars, few studies have clarified how they achieve leap  growth—i.e., the capability to transition from a low-level equilibrium system to a higher-level  equilibrium organizational system. Considering both "internal drivers" (implementing strategic  business model transformation) and "external drivers" (digital-spatial affordance), this paper  constructs a four-stage theoretical framework for high-quality leap growth: ①Momentum build⁃ ing: achieving cognitive readiness for strategic business model transformation through digital em⁃ powerment, enabling resilient organizational identity recognition, multi-order dynamic capabil⁃ ity recognition, multilateral market model recognition, and ecological boundary recognition; ② Momentum initiation: conducting innovation experimentation and leveraging bidirectional digital  and spatial affordance to obtain diversified value propositions; ③Momentum harnessing: based  on digital affordance, engaging in value co-creation by collaborating with core ecological actors, managing loose-coupled relationships, exchanging technological and market resources, and stra⁃ tegically embedding into the global ecosystem; ④ Maximizing value capture by implementing  high-competition/high-cooperation mechanisms in the domestic market and defensive coopeti⁃ tion mechanisms in the international market, based on spatial affordance. Based on this research  framework, this paper: ①breaks through the theoretical limitations of traditional endogenous and  exogenous growth theories in explaining the growth of technology-driven high-quality entrepre⁃ neurial enterprises; ② explains the important role of cognitive readiness for transformation in  achieving disruptive business model reinvention in high-quality entrepreneurial enterprises, en⁃ riching the foundational content of current theoretical frameworks on business model innovation/ transformation; ③extends current scholars' static theoretical assumptions regarding digital and  spatial affordance, offering a dynamic and structural theoretical explanation of digital-spatial  symbiosis affordance. 

Key words: SRDI "Little Giants"; business model transformation; digital affordance; spatial  affordance; high-tech manufacturing industrial chains; digital transformation; digital economy; manufacturing industry