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Recent research questions our understanding of the processes at play regarding information technology (IT) capabilities' contribution to innovation performance, particularly under environmental uncertainty. Strategic entrepreneurship (SE) or the interface of entrepreneurship and strategic management, which aims to answer the very question of how firms create value or wealth and sustain success in increasingly competitive and dynamic environments, is deemed the appropriate catalyst to further explore this link. Thus, this study attempts to examine the driving effects of IT capabilities on product innovation performance (PIP) by exploring the mediating role of SE. Data were collected from 164 small-and medium-sized enterprises (SME) information communication technology (ICT) firms in Canada. Partial least squares (PLS) regression tested the hypotheses derived from the research model, and data exploration and analysis including visual analytics were performed in R. Results confirm that IT capabilities drive PIP and thereby create firm level value. Secondly, SE had a direct impact on PIP, and SE partially mediates IT capabilities effect on PIP. To date, SE research has mostly been conceptual in nature making this study one of the few to empirically capture the phenomena and highlight its link to sustainable innovation performance.

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Mogrosides are a group of triterpenoidal saponins from the fruit of Siraitia grosvenorii Swingle; they are intensely sweet and have consequently been used as a substitute for sugar by the food industry. The lack of efficient methods to produce specific mogrosides has hindered investigation of the relationship between their structure and bioactivity, e.g., down-regulation of blood glucose levels, anti-inflammation, and antiviral infection. Here, we attempt to selectively convert the major saponin mogroside V, a mogrol pentaglucoside, into mogroside III E, a triglucoside, via the β-glucosidases of the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We report that the β-glucopyranosyl and β-glucopyranosyl-(1→2)-β-d-glucopyranosyl attached on C-3 and -24 of mogrol, respectively, were resistant to hydrolysis by yeast β-d-glucosidases. We further screened 16 mutants bearing single defective glucanase or glucosidase genes, thereby demonstrating that Exg1 is a major enzyme of the initiation of mogroside V conversion. Deletion of the KRE6 gene unexpectedly facilitated the production of mogroside III E in yeast culture. This paper demonstrates that yeast knockout mutants are a valuable tool for saponin modification and for studying the specificity of glucosidase function.