Editorial

Citation

Waluszewski, A. and Snehota, I. (2015), "Editorial", IMP Journal, Vol. 9 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/IMP-02-2015-0007

Editorial

Article Type: Viewpoint From: IMP Journal, Volume 9, Issue 1

Ten years after the birth of the IMP Journal project in May 2005 we are pleased to present the first issue of Volume 9, published by Emerald. On this occasion one could perhaps think that IMP has just emerged from its infancy. But in reality, when the first issue was published back in 2006, the IMP research community already had 30 years of research behind it on the content and consequences of business relationships and interactions within these as a common denominator. So the IMP represents nearly 40 years of informal and formal research collaborations, stretching across research departments, disciplines, universities and business schools – mainly in Europe but also in Asia and the USA. The outcome has been, amongst others, the presentation of some 1,000 papers at 30 annual IMP conferences (available at the IMP web site), more than 200 PhD theses published and a number of journal publications, of which about 100 have been published in the eight volumes of the IMP Journal. An index of these is presented in the final section of this volume, and all are available on the IMP web site.

Hence, with the move towards a more professional publishing setting at Emerald, the IMP Journal brings with it a solid tradition, characterized by the editors of the IMP Journal in an editorial in its first issue: “IMP research has been studying what happens between business companies. Rather than considering a process based on the actions of independent companies, we have seen the process of business as one of interaction between independent companies”. Indeed, interaction between businesses and its consequences for business theory, methodology, practice and economic policy have been and continue to be the hallmark of IMP research and publishing.

The main reason for the establishment of the IMP Journal was – and still is – “to provide a vehicle for researchers to publish work on the nature and implications of business interaction in all its aspects and in its widest contexts”. But there is also another, equally important, reason: to provide space for the publication of “the larger case study-based work that has characterized much of the IMP output”, including the establishment of a reviewer community familiar with the specific quality demands of this type of research. The idea was also, and still is, to publish a mix of regular papers on various topics and conceptual developments and papers that address more specific topics, both with a common denominator – solid empirical grounding.

The first issue of 2015 can be regarded as evidence that the proud ambition declared in the first IMP Journal to publish work on “interaction in all its aspects and in its widest contexts” is still alive, healthy and prosperous. The first issue of Volume 9 presents three papers on the “topic in focus” and two regular papers on various topics. The first three papers (two of which were first presented at the IMP Journal Seminar in Milan in 2014) focus on a specific topic: perceptions of interaction.

The first paper, “Resource heterogeneity and its effects on interaction and integration in customer-supplier relationships”, by Morten H. Abrahamsen and Håkan Håkansson, highlights different perceptions of interaction among business and policy actors as a consequence of their view of the resources exchanged. The point of departure is how the interaction processes, including how efficiency and improvement are dealt with, are affected by taking a perspective on the resources exchanged as homogeneous or heterogeneous. Based on a case study of the pelagic fish industry, the paper investigates the interaction among Norwegian and German business actors. The paper shows that actors who view resources as homogeneous limit the value creation process to a price issue, while actors who view resources as heterogeneous use a more extensive and multifaceted interaction to solve cost, efficiency and improvement issues. In concluding, the authors stress that different perceptions of resources result in fundamentally different views on both how an industry should be analysed and what respective managerial and policy actions are fruitful.

In the second paper, “The diversity of systemic innovation thinking: the theoretical underpinnings of NIS and IMP and the different assessment of an industry”, Magnus Eklund and Alexandra Waluszewski focus on the different perspectives of interaction that characterize systemic innovation approaches – the National Innovation Systems (NIS) and IMP Industrial Network approach.

The point of departure is an empirical puzzle: the assessment of the Swedish life science industry is diverging, and two groups have emerged with contrasting views – the one optimistic and the one pessimistic; this despite the fact that both groups rely on “systemic” approaches. In order to analyse the underpinnings of these different outcomes, the authors propose an ideal-typical distinction between two types of system perspectives; one that views technology as entangled in its environment (which the IMP thinking is close to) and the other that views technology as disentangled from its environment (which the NIS thinking is close to). In the concluding discussion the authors argue that the degree of optimism is coloured by the theoretical underpinnings of the broad label “systemic perspective”. Hence, they argue that in order for others to evaluate an assessment, there is a need to be clear about what we mean by a system, what our theoretical assumptions focus on and what is abstract to the point of focus.

In the third paper, “Competition versus interaction as a way to promote innovation in the construction industry”, Malena Ingemansson Havenvid discusses the absent and prominent role that interaction has in two economic models: Schumpeterian-inspired growth economics and IMP industrial network theory. The empirical area is the construction industry, which in policy circles is commonly accused of being non-innovative and conservative. When the innovativeness of an industry is investigated from an IMP-inspired empirical perspective, fragmentation and a lack of inter-organizational interaction is identified and acknowledged as the main obstacle to innovation and renewal. However, when the innovativeness of an industry is scrutinized by policy with growth theory as an analytical foundation, the question of interaction is irrelevant and that of competition becomes central. In the concluding discussion the author stresses that the connection between competition and innovation is taken for granted in the approach used in policy circles, rather than being motivated in a specific way. Hence, the main conclusion the paper reaches is that current policies intended to promote innovation rely on economic models, without specifying how these relate to innovation.

These three topical articles are followed by two regular papers with a common denominator: interaction in business and industry and implications for management. In the first paper, “Developing supply base strategies”, Lena Elisabeth Bygballe and Gøran Persson examine how companies can respond to the contemporary characteristics of the business landscape by working with their supply base strategies. Technological and organizational specialization breeds the complexity of, and dependency on, the supplier base and accentuates the question of how companies should seek to manage and influence suppliers. Through a case study of a company engaged in the international health care sector the authors examine the options a company has to affect the supply base on which it depends. Based on a combination of the findings from the case and previous theoretical insights, a framework is presented for a systematic approach companies can use to develop supply base strategies. The paper concludes that developing supply base strategies is a dynamic process involving not only autonomous actions by the buying company, but which also requires close interaction with suppliers.

In the last paper, “Service innovations enabled by ‘internet of things’”, Per Andersson and Lars-Gunnar Mattsson argue that the Internet of Things (IoT) has been approached mainly as an issue of establishing and developing a related infrastructure, while less attention has been given to the service innovation processes enabled by IoT. Based on a multi-business case study the authors argue that developing innovative services requires the involvement of resources across industries and knowledge areas, and consequently is dependent on the establishment of new interaction patterns. Based on empirical insights, IMP perspectives on innovation, and the literature on service innovations, the paper presents a conceptual framework for analysing the network processes necessary for the establishment of IoT-based service innovations. Four components of the framework are outlined: “overlapping between networks”, “intermediating”, “objectification of actors” and “business models and business modelling”. The conceptual framework proposed is applied to a case study of an IoT-based service innovation process in an early stage: “The Connected Vehicle”. In the analysis of the case study five attributes of service innovation processes are presented. These form the ground for the formulation of five propositions with regard to innovation processes related to the IoT.

On behalf of the entire IMP Journal Editorial Group we wish to express our firm belief that the papers in this issue are contributing to advancing the IMP group’s research endeavours.

Alexandra Waluszewski and Ivan Snehota