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The purpose of this research is to examine leadership in an intermediary organization whose mission is to facilitate collaboration between large corporations and their smaller suppliers, a bridging organization.

A qualitative approach using a single case revelatory method was adopted. Data were collected from a bridge leader as well as 20 executives of companies involved in the collaboration.

The analysis revealed that the successful bridge leader tended: to build personal relations and goodwill as a way of creating personal obligations on the part of the stakeholders he led; championed the cause of the stakeholders and made their mission his/her own; created opportunities for individual and collective goal achievement; relied on symbolic behavior and ceremonies to reify the bridge mission; and engaged in frequent communication with a liberal use of humor and playfulness to make goals embraceable by the stakeholders in the collaboration.

This is a single case study and that limits the generalization of these findings. However, the findings provide some preliminary evidence to show that a lack of control of resources need not be a reason for leader non‐performance.

A bridge leader may substitute other influence strategies to compensate for the lack of direct positional power.

This study is one of the few that explicitly examines leadership in bridging organizations. The paper's understanding of this phenomenon is important because of the importance of bridging organizations to business and social innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to identify factors influencing an organization’s predisposition to bridging strategy, and tests relationships between those factors and bridging strategy.

Online survey was conducted in South Korea. Hierarchical regression was used.

Identified factors are environmental complexity, top management attitude toward stakeholders, analysis orientation, and authoritarian culture.

By adopting the concept and measures of bridging as an organization’s public-engagement strategy, this study was able to capture an organization’s strategic approach for problem-solving in communication management.

Strong analysis orientation allows organizations to look into problems in their complex environments affecting their performance and their key stakeholders before deciding on strategies; resultantly, they are more likely to reduce problems and to improve their performance. In contrast, authoritarian culture discourages an organization’s adoption of bridging strategy.

This study is the first empirical study investigating the dynamics of factors influencing organizations’ strategic predisposition in communication management.

This paper empirically aims to examine the relationship between collaboration initiatives of cluster organizations (COs) and improved innovation and financial performance among cluster firms. Moreover, the paper proposes a method for the development of cluster initiatives and evaluating their performance.

COs in North Mid Sweden have been studied between 2005 and 2014, where 12 COs have focused on collaboration, ranging from process industries, such as forestry, paper and steel, to tourism and information and computer technology (ICT). A survey method was used to collect data for some 1,000 firms engaging in cluster activities. A new method of analysis, which associates initiatives of COs with cluster members’ innovation and financial performance, has been developed and used in the paper.

The paper finds that cluster initiatives (enhancing collaboration across different types of actors in clusters) improve innovation and financial performance among involved cluster firms. But the effect of the cluster initiatives depends, to a large degree, on the policy of the CO. Results show large differences in performance among cluster initiatives, leaving room for the benchmarking and cross-cluster learning.

The new method proposed in this paper can help to formulate and implement cluster initiatives. Evaluation of COs can be improved through the new method.

The major contribution of this work is the association of CO initiatives with the performance of cluster member firms. Additionally, this work provides a new statistical instrument for assessing the impact of cluster initiatives on cluster members’ performance.

The elementary school principal, the chief administrator at the local school level, occupies the boundary‐spanning role. One aspect of the principal′s role as boundary spanner is to engage with parents. The principals′ interactions with parents in terms of their boundary‐spanning functions are described. Interviews of 113 suburban elementary school principals suggest they are concerned with buffering and bridging between the school organisation and their parental clientele as boundary spanners. When buffering, principals mediate between angry parents and their superiors at central office and moderate the impact of complaining parents on their schools. When bridging, principals aim at obtaining parental support through promoting public relations.

The purpose of this paper is to present advances towards a social intrapreneurship department within energy corporations. By drawing on the literature on social intrapreneurship and stakeholder theory, this paper provides a conceptual proposal for an organisational structure. This paper builds on the notion of bridging and boundary organisations, to suggest an organisational innovative structure as a social intrapreneurship endeavour focussing on the increasing salience of weak stakeholders in energy corporations from the energy justice approach.

This paper draws on the literatures on social intrapreneurship and stakeholder theory, to provide arguments and an organisational proposal to alleviate energy poverty in energy corporations.

The results are presented in a conceptual process model for the development of Social Energy Department units within large energy companies, illustrating their embeddedness in both societal and company-level processes to facilitate social intrapreneurship initiatives that would alleviate energy poverty in the just transition.

The paper promises novel insights at the nexus of social enterprise and organisational change. The practical applicability is particularly promising, as it focusses on integrating novel units in energy companies and stimulates further research on models of social intrapreneurship to tackle energy poverty.

The paper offers both practical and theoretical contributions to the stakeholder theory field with insights from social intrapreneurship and organisational stakeholder theory in the context of a specific social problem – energy poverty, energy justice and the just energy transition.

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain the level of social capital in environmental community organisations (ECOs) in Perth, Western Australia. On a general level, social capital in ECOs is understood as intra-organisational and inter-organisational relationships that organisations maintain through interactions.

This paper utilises quantitative (i.e. survey) as well as qualitative (i.e. interviews) approaches to data collection and analysis. It proposes a methodological framework to measure the level of social capital, and explores the association between the ascertained level of social capital and organisational capabilities.

The results of the survey and interviews reveal that while the level of social capital is needs based, maintaining a higher intensity of organisational relationships puts ECOs in a better position to do more with less.

The findings advance the task of ascertaining the level of social capital in ECOs from organisational interactions perspective.

This paper captures a community organisation-specific methodological framework to measure and analyse social capital.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce ecotones to the service literature as a conceptual extension of the service ecosystem (SE) framework.

To synthesise the contribution, an illustrative empirical case study with research of nine organisations and their service systems is developed.

Boundaries connect systems with their environment. Ecotone, a concept from natural ecosystems, provides a useful concept representing the boundary zones between adjacent systems, supporting emergent phenomena. The authors find that a service ecotone emerges through the interactions occurring at the intersections of relational, technological and institutional boundaries of two unique SEs. The case demonstrates ecotone edge effects – the unique landscape and diversity of actors and their roles – which play a role in the co-evolution of the separate SEs.

The ecotone concept provides an understanding of SE boundaries, helping practitioners understand the complex environments they operate. Developing strategy in complex ecosystems requires a clear understanding of where the boundaries of dependence and interdependence lie. The ecotone concept helps practitioners to develop responsiveness and resilience to their environment and take advantage of resources that may be currently unrecognised.

The authors introduce the ecotone concept and integrate it with service theory. This paper develops service ecotones for understanding the relationship between different systems that influence their functioning and development. Thus, ecotones suggest new avenues for understanding the diversity and roles of actors, and how new structural properties, resources and practices come to be through the tensions and interactions created in these complex boundaries of SEs.

This research aims to utilize a social network analysis approach to examine the effect of organizational position within a network of strategic partnerships on innovation as measured by perceptions of industry analysts. Specifically, the purpose of the paper is to examine how network characteristics such as degree centrality (being centrally located in a network), between centrality (being positioned as an intermediary), and closeness centrality (having a short average distance to all other firms in the network) affect the innovation ranking of the focal firm.

Data for 563 firms are generated from three distinct data sources (SDC Platinum: Alliances and Joint Ventures, COMPUSTAT, and Fortune's America's Most Admired Companies) and analyzed via social network analysis and linear regression.

The network characteristics of degree centrality and between centrality positively relate to industry perceptions or innovativeness whereas closeness centrality had no significant effect. Additionally, there were no discernable differences in innovativeness when comparing manufacturing firms to service organizations.

Insignificant findings related to closeness centrality and the good/service differential may be attributable to the data sources, in that, the information is limited to firms within the respective sources. This data limitation may limit the potential of examining the effect of all network characteristics. Additionally, some included companies participate in multiple industries (i.e., have multiple SIC codes), which may serve as the blurring of any differences between good and service firms.

The results highlight the importance of considering strategic partnerships that establish configurations of partnership webs when pursuing innovation activities. Specifically, the findings suggest that firms should seek numerous strategic partnerships (high degree centrality) and attempt to broker information or control the extent to which partners collaborate (high between centrality). These results provide insights for firms seeking to establish new supply‐chain relationships in order to enhance their level of innovation.

This research provides a unique empirical examination of the impact of network positional characteristics on the innovativeness of a focal firm.

This paper seeks to highlight the systemic conditions that facilitate the emergence, longevity, and effectiveness of bridge‐builders across organizations.

Researchers conducted longitudinal case studies in six One‐Stop Career Centers across the USA over four years. Interviews were conducted with approximately 20 people in various positions at each of the sites visited. The data analyzed spanned the four years of the study.

Researchers uncovered particular characteristics present in individual bridge‐builders that enabled them to accomplish their goals. This research indicates that, when the right conditions intersected with the right type of person, champions emerged who helped move the organization in new and innovative directions.

This paper provides an outline of the organizational change that can happen in the disability field. By delineating bridge‐builders and the context in which they operate, others can identify the conditions within organizations to help them move forward.

This paper aims to examine the strategic importance of perceived internal branding in building symbolic and behavioral relationships with a corporate in the service sector. Research on internal branding has been confined only to how internal staff understand brand values. Despite the importance of alignment between internal and external communication, little emphasis has been placed on consumers’ perception of how internal staff understand brand values. Even before experiencing service, consumers can shape their overall evaluation on service based on external communication about internal training and its congruence with brand values.

The theoretical model of cognitive, affective and behavioral responses is empirically tested using the structural equation modeling approach with a sample of 258 adults. Multiple group comparison is also conducted to identify the difference between user and non-user groups.

The findings indicate that perception of employees’ training and its congruence with external communication enables consumers to shape their cognitive and affective response toward a corporate, which is a source of future purchase intention. How consumers think about internal branding forms their attitudes and images of business and social conduct and enhances their behavioral intention.

The results imply that internal branding should not be limited to organizational communications but should be stretched into a critical topic for external communications. In particular, notable differences between user and non-user groups determined in the model provide further implications for corporate communication.

This paper stretches the concept of internal branding into the area of public interest. Theoretically, it tests a dual process model that suggests cognitive and affective antecedents in predicting consumer intention. Practically, it provides new ground for viewing internal affairs as part of a continuum of external communication and not a separate element of a corporation. The results are conducive to robust customer-firm relationship building in the service sector.