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The purpose of this paper is to apply an economic sociology perspective to the activity–resource–actor (ARA) interaction model for business relationships. Interaction has been chosen as a conceptual domain where economic sociology has a particularly high potential to advance business-to-business (B2B) marketing in terms of its future research directions.

The paper provides a structured account of economic sociology through the description of eight key economic sociology concepts and discussion of the structuration theory. This is followed by an overview of the usage of the eight key economic sociology concepts in current B2B marketing research, and concludes with outlining eight specific future research directions which guide future research on interaction in business relationships.

Eight economic sociology concepts are identified: embeddedness, networks, institutions, power, social capital, identity, social structures and cognition. An overview of the application of these constructs within the B2B marketing literature shows how most of them are used as metaphors with a gap in understanding their economic sociology background.

Future research directions are described individually, do not include potential interaction effects and are developed within the ARA interaction model framework. Given the conceptual nature of the paper, it does not provide any empirical data and illustrations related to any of the eight key economic sociology concepts.

The paper answers a call for a wider integration of economic sociology into the B2B marketing literature. It provides a systematic eight-concept economic sociology framework to be used by B2B marketing theorists and researchers. The paper finishes with eight concrete future research directions through which an economic sociology perspective can help advance B2B marketing theory and business relationship management practice. A brief discussion of managerial implications is also provided at the end.

This paper aims to refine conceptual treatment of the social facet in business relationships and reinforce its significance in the industrial marketing and purchasing (IMP) research tradition by integrating the concept of social capital in its original interpretation into the actor-resource-activity (ARA) model.

The paper begins by indicating some typical conceptual challenges associated with application of social capital in IMP. This is followed by a conceptual clarification that explores the origin and the essence of social capital in economic sociology. Finally, the paper proposes integrating social capital in its original interpretation into IMP’s ARA model and presents four propositions on how social capital is created in interaction between business actors.

The paper shows how bridging Bourdieu’s theory of social capital with the IMP approach may solve the identified conceptual challenges. This paper’s main contribution is a cyclical model depicting how social capital is created in business networks. It is integrated into the ARA model and designed specifically for studying the social facet of business relationships.

The paper is expected to aid IMP researchers in empirical contexts where the social component in business relationships is particularly prominent. As such, the novel approach presented could be used to further understand how social exchange processes are related to relationship governance, relationship initiation and development.

The proposed model shows how social capital is generated through the dynamic interplay in the social facets of actor, activity and resource dimensions, emphasising its creation dynamics. The model integrates insights from the classic works in economic sociology to strengthen the social side of IMP’s socioeconomic interface and is intended to be used as a tool for empirical application.

Telemedicine, similarly to social media, accelerates information exchange, enriches information, provides better access to information and, furthermore, has an impact on mobilizing resources in business-to-business relationships. This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of the changes brought about by telemedicine, as a new technology, in patient routes.

This case study method was applied to examine five health-care protocols through their patient routes (series of activities) with and without telemedicine technology. The ARA model was applied to examine the changes telemedicine engendered in relation to activities, resources and actors. The strategy of visual mapping was applied for the comparative analysis.

The analyzed cases show that the new resources applied through telemedicine technology modified the number and substance of relevant activities and the set and role of actors who were involved. The quantity or the availability of output information increased in patient routes when new resources were added by telemedicine technology. When technology change occurred, any change in data or information systems – the two building blocks of information – could result in new or modified activities. If data that is used or produced while undertaking an activity change simultaneously along with the information system used for encrypting this data, then this “joint change” will certainly entail some kind of change in the set of activities, resources or actors that are involved. If not, then the activities continued the same as with the face-to-face protocol (without the new technology).

The novelty of the paper is that the results highlight the role of information in the extent of change in interactions induced by new technology. Findings about such changes show how information influenced by activities, resources and actors can help decision-makers in relation to the use of telemedicine.

Drawing on Foa and Foa’s elaboration of social exchange theory, the authors propose that buyers reciprocate perceived commitment on the part of the salesperson and supplier with commitment on their own parts because of strengthening of the relationship’s tacit governance mechanism – cooperative norms.

This study uses data from 155 buyers doing business with a multinational supplier. The buyers were from firms generating less than $100,000 in billings. The salesforce of the supplier firm sponsoring the research is responsible for account management and communicating directly with buyers.

Buyers, who feel that their suppliers are providing a symbolic, long-term, particularistic benefit (commitment), respond with their own strengthened commitment to the relationship; this mutualism is explained entirely by the mediating effect of the relationship’s cooperative norms. Where buyers perceive generally favorable treatment (satisfaction), without these three qualities, their own reciprocal commitment increases directly and cooperative norms play no part. The results also demonstrate the transition of buyer perceptions of the salesperson as they develop into beliefs about the selling firm as a whole.

Drawing on the “reciprocation-in-kind” principle, supplier firms seeking long-term, open-ended commitment from their customers should cultivate it via similarly long-term and open-ended commitments of their own. Attention must be given to the unwritten, often unstated “rules of the road” for business relationships, as these rules represent the mechanism through which investments in long-term, profitable partnerships bear fruit.

The conceptual model draws on and empirically tests Foa and Foa’s framework within social exchange theory to predict what form of buyer reciprocation will result, based on the characteristics of perceived seller-provided benefits. This study illustrates that the tacit governance structure of a B2B relationship – its cooperative norms – plays a critical role in the strength of a buyer’s commitment to its supplier.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of network relationships and institutional environment on premium winegrowers’ internationalization process.

This study uses a case study approach to examine two premium wine producers engaged in internationalization. The data sources consist of semi-structured interviews, observations at three major events and secondary data sourced from industry reports and materials that are available online.

Findings illustrate that both personal and inter-firm networks help wineries to internationalize. Inter-firm networks play a significant role in gaining international legitimacy. Personal networks were found to be more important in establishing brand authenticity that facilitates wineries in their internationalization process. Gaining international legitimacy and establishing brand authenticity are crucial in the successful internationalization of premium wineries.

This study provides an explanation of how networks can be put into institutional context. Future studies could map out the formal and informal institutions within the wine industry and investigate the closer dynamics among the different actors in the whole network. A whole network is formally structured and governed, yet still built on the relationships among members, making it a very complex phenomenon. This would allow the evaluation of multilateral ties that link firms and actors within the network and how this affects the internationalization process.

This paper provides managers with insights on how they can capitalize on their inter-firm and personal networks to help them deal with domestic and international institutional environments when embarking on internationalization activities.

This paper adds to the existing literature on networks relationships and provides an important link between networks, institutions and internationalization.

The role of managerial assumptions in the formulation of organizational strategies has been well recognized by previous studies, yet in marketing literature, the effect of such imperative on marketing practice choice tends to be ignored. Therefore, this paper aims to empirically investigate how management assumptions fit with the choice of marketing practices, and how such fit affects performance.

A model is developed and tested using survey methodology, and the data are analyzed using the partial least square (PLS) approach.

The results show that different marketing practices were coupled with different frames of reference, resulting in viable matching profiles.

Given the novelty of the approach adopted in this study, conclusions about association and not causation are drawn. In addition, the study is restricted to Qatar which may reduce the generalizability of its findings and conclusions.

The findings will help managers to examine carefully the internal logic of their marketing-related profiling, where coherent variables will enhance performance.

To one’s knowledge, this paper reports a work in an area not previously researched. In addition, this study is one of the rare papers that examines unobserved heterogeneity using the PLS-structural equation modeling (SEM) in the field of marketing.

This paper aims to propose an approach for exploring industrial marketing network environments through a social semiotic lens.

This conceptual paper introduces social semiotic perspectives to the study of business/industrial network interaction.

This paper describes how structures of meaning derived from a cultural history of signification and interpretive processes of meaning in action are co-determined in social semiosis. The meaning of environments using this social semiotic approach is emphasised, leading us to explore the idea of the “atmosemiosphere” – the most highly complex business network level, in illustrating how meaning is made through structuration between structures of meaning and their enactments in interactions between actors within living business networks.

Figurative language plays an important role in the structuration of meaning. This facilitates establishing plots and, therefore, in the actors’ capability to tell a story, which starts with knowing what kind of story can be told. By implication, the effective networker must be a consummate moving “picture maker” and, to do so, she must have competence in narrative, emplotment, myth-making, storytelling and figuration in more than one discursive repertoire.

In using a structurational discourse perspective informed by social semiotics, our original contribution is a “business networks as discursive constructions” approach, in that discursive nets, webs of narratives and stories and labyrinths of tropes are considered just as important in constituting networks as networks of actor relationships and patterns of other activities and resources.

Business relationships are considered long-term and stable. Furthermore, over time, business relationships are expected to become and remain “institutionalized”. The undertone is that this process is deterministic and inevitable. While the authors do not question the long-term nature of business relationships, they argue that the process of “institutionalization” requires more construct clarity. Consequently, they ask the following: What is the source of resilience in business relationships, and how are these relationships maintained over time?

To unravel these questions, the authors conducted an historical case study of a business relationship between a government buyer and a software seller extending over two decades.

The authors found that while the network around the business relationship is crumbling and all odds are in favor of relationship dissolution, the active maintenance work of key individuals in the relationship prevented detrimental effects and resulted in not only its continuation but also an increased degree of institutionalization.

The authors contribute to the Industrial Network approach (INA) by providing a non-deterministic approach to the typically taken-for-granted end phase of business relationships.

The findings illustrate that the process of institutionalization is manageable but requires hard work, highlighting managers as the principle vehicle of relationship maintenance.

The authors provide construct clarity around the process of “institutionalization”. In fact, they regard the process as reverse compared to the early interpretation in the INA literature in which a business relationship is assumed to start as a “clean slate” and then begins to represent the industry codes of practice over time. They found that “institutionalization” implies that a business relationship is no longer compared with nor is comparable to the institutional prescriptions; in contrast, the relationship has established its own rules and norms, which have been taken for granted by the buyer and seller organization.

This paper aims to investigate the practice of conviviality as the right setting to explore how social capital interacts with business relationships and in particular how resources impacting business relationships take shape in social relations.

This paper has adopted the single case study method combining in-depth interviews, participant observations and focus groups. The investigated case is an Italian business community located in Hangzhou (China), recognized as one of the most active foreign communities in organizing convivial activities.

The study shows that conviviality contributes to generating resources thereby creating interactions in business relationships via social relations through self-narrative, community feeling and empathy. These resources bear distinguishing features. Based on relationships of trust, they are fitting and mutual knowledge-based resources and they are resources performing a sense of inner time.

The paper contributes to the interpretation of the interplay between business relationships and social capital through conviviality and is in line with a direction of research, which is increasingly involving industrial marketing and purchasing (IMP) researchers, which is the analysis of social capital in business networks.

Establishing thought leadership by disseminating relevant digital content through social media has become one of the main priorities for marketers in business-to-business (B2B) settings. However, academic research has only recently started to address this phenomenon. In particular, researchers have not yet examined whether and how thought leadership positively influences a firm’s relationship with its customers. This paper aims to propose and test a model to explain how a firm’s thought leadership improves its customer relationship performance.

A cross-sectional research design was applied using covariance-based structural equation modeling to estimate the suggested model. Data were collected from a sample of 160 firms in different industries that create and share content on social media.

Thought leadership on social media positively influences brand performance and, in turn, customer relationship performance in B2B settings. Moreover, establishing thought leadership on social media results from specific thought leadership capabilities and is supported by social media capabilities.

This study advances knowledge on social media thought leadership in B2B settings by proposing and testing a model that combines available insights from three distinct but interrelated B2B streams of studies: branding, social media marketing and thought leadership. Moreover, this study conceptualizes the effects of thought leadership, which is consistent with the relational nature of B2B settings. In fact, it explores thought leadership as a means to maintain and strengthen business relationships. However, further studies are needed to explore detailed strategies that affect the effectiveness of thought leadership.

The results provide managers with evidence on the effectiveness of a thought leadership strategy. Establishing thought leadership on social media can help to nurture customer relationships over time. By sharing valuable content, suppliers can continuously demonstrate their cutting-edge competences and expertise, thus keeping their brand relevant to customers.

This is the first study to provide evidence of the benefits of social media thought leadership on customer relationships in B2B settings.