On November 10-11, 2023, the 5th International Conference on Innovation and Knowledge Management (iKM2023), hosted by Tsinghua University, took place at Donghu Hotel in Wuhan City, Hubei Province. The theme of this conference was 'Innovation and Knowledge Management in the Age of Digital Intelligence.' Esteemed speakers included Prof. Ikujiro Nonaka, a globally recognized authority on knowledge innovation; Prof. Chen Xiaohong, an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering; Prof. Chen Jin, Director of the Technology Innovation Research Center at Tsinghua University; Prof. Li Rongbin from Hong Kong Polytechnic University; and Prof. Eric Tsui from Hong Kong Polytechnic University as well as Professor Brem and Professor Dong Xiaoying from Peking University among others. Over 400 experts, scholars, entrepreneurs, educators, and students from more than 200 universities, research institutions, and enterprises both domestically and internationally convened to discuss the future landscape of innovation and knowledge management.

        Professor Wang Nan from Business School Beijing Technology and Business University was invited to serve as an expert reviewer for the conference proceedings. A paper co-authored by Professor Wang Nan along with Tang Zihan—a graduate student majoring in business management (class of 2022)—and Teacher Zhang Xiaoyan received the Outstanding Paper Award at iKM2023. Masters student Tang Zihan presented their findings in English during the conference.
        The conference featured five sub-forums: 'Science & Technology Management,' 'Knowledge Management for Innovation Chains,' 'Data Science, Artificial Intelligence & Knowledge Management,' 'Open Innovation & User-Centric Innovations in Knowledge Management,' and a seminar on ‘Digital Intelligence Organizations & Knowledge Management.’ Following a rigorous selection process that included preliminary evaluations screening papers through expert reviews within each sub-forum alongside comprehensive jury assessments involving onsite presentations followed by Q&A sessions—only those papers demonstrating exceptional quality were selected for presentation at this prestigious event. This particular paper represents collaborative research conducted within their team focusing on ‘Business Model Innovation.’ From a knowledge management perspective, it examines competitive search timing strategies employed by enterprises while exploring deep mechanisms underlying proactive versus reactive cross-border searches related to business model innovation thereby offering both theoretical insights as well practical guidance regarding strategic choices for enterprise-level business model exploration.