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The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the relationship and networking strategy tools in the IMP literature. It proposes six dimensions for characterizing such tools: approach to tool development, level (and layer) of analysis, perspective of interaction, activities of network strategizing, external or internal orientation and use for “strategizing on” vs “strategizing in” relationships and networks.

The paper uses a manual qualitative content analysis approach and an inductive approach, well suited for extracting relationship and networking strategy tools due to their implicit and dispersed nature.

The paper presents an IMP toolbox comprising a wide variety of relationship and networking strategy tools emphasizing interconnectedness, interdependence and limited managerial autonomy, as well as an analysis of how identified tools are positioned along each of the six proposed dimensions.

This paper contributes a conceptual framework with a vocabulary to content analyze and discuss relationship and networking strategy tools in IMP research.

The IMP toolbox may be a useful point of departure for managers who feel a need for developing and using a mix of tools for strategizing in business relationships and networks.

The paper instills a strategy tool lens in the IMP literature and foregrounds strategizing concepts and techniques that were previously difficult to attend to for both researchers and practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to study how insights from socio-cognitivism (sensemaking and interaction) in conjunction with institutional theory enhance our knowledge of strategizing in business networks through role and position.

This paper is conceptual and reviews extant literature from the fields under scrutiny, presenting and analyzing new combined approaches.

Current writings concerning strategizing in networks need to be supplemented in the area of strategic business network research. Interaction, sensemaking and institutionalization, as well as the network in which a firm is embedded, are important for strategically developing network positions and the roles of actors.

This conceptual paper suggests mechanisms affecting role and position in networks and calls for empirical research to deepen the understanding of the change forces at play in embedded relational situations for firms.

This study adds to current conceptual knowledge of strategizing in business networks. It presents a comprehensive perspective in viewing how key forces impact on the strategic position and role of corporate actors (both managers and firms) in networks.

The study has two related objectives. At the firm level of analysis, the author proposes that a clearer distinction between firms’ mediating functions and mediators could enhance the understanding of business network strategizing. Whereas firms’ mediating functions have received attention in IMP research, less focus has been given to organizations whose core business is mediation. At the system level of analysis, the study complements the perception of a network horizon with that of a network verizon. Whereas the horizon is closely associated with work on firms’ mediating functions, the network verizon is of particular interest to mediators. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This conceptual study combines IMP insights with strategic management theory.

The notion of a network horizon is important for business network strategizing, but also influences the perception of relevant network structures. These structures tend to be characterized by sequential interdependencies and a long-linked technology, often associated with physical products and production facilities. The notion of a network verizon highlights a network “depth” that has been unnoticed by previous work, which has focused on how narrow or wide a firm’s network horizon should be. The network horizon and the network verizon add strategizing options in terms of connecting key actors in the network to create additional value.

This paper concerns how IMP scholars understand boundaries and firms, and how perceptions of these influence business network strategizing. The study articulates a distinction between firms’ mediating functions and those organizations that fundamentally create value through mediating services. This distinction has system-level implications. In particular, the claim that the basis for a firm’s strategizing is its network horizon is discussed. The author proposes the notion of a “network Verizon,” providing a boundary perception of specific relevance to mediators. The network verizon portrays a network depth beyond both sequential tiers in a supply chain and links between different supply chains.

Networks and relationships are not stable. On the contrary, they change and are transformed by the actors who take part in them. Change and transformation result from the actions and reactions of these actors. However, a key issue is what makes the actors choose some actions and reactions while refraining from others. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors argue that the actors’ expectations to the future of the network are formative for the actions and reactions and, furthermore, that the future expectations are formed by interaction among the actors that take part in the networks.

The authors depart from the existing foresight literature, but realign its ideas to fit with the core tenets of the IMP approach. Thereby, the purpose is twofold: to explore and conceptualize network foresight phenomena as well as to contribute to the practice of collective foresighting in business networks.

The authors suggest research into formations of expectations in networks with a specific view to the interactive and structural effects of networks. Furthermore, the authors suggest a framework for categorizing network episodes and linking these to the formation of recognized issues and solutions.

The authors provide a framework for analyzing the focus of business networks in terms of solutions and issues, and analytically breaking down the interaction among these.

The authors introduce the concept of business network foresight, both as a distinct concept that enables us to understand change and transformation in networks, but also as a procedure for supporting actors’ strategizing efforts in business networks.

This paper aims to develop a theoretical framework to understand the role of leadership and organizational learning in intra-organizational digital business strategizing, to contribute to our understanding of how digital business strategies emerge.

Based on a theoretical analysis of relevant literature to connect leadership and organizational learning to intra-organizational digital business strategizing, a co-creation model was developed.

The model demonstrates that digital business strategy emerge through the mediating role of leadership and organizational learning processes, facilitated by the moderating effect of contextual factors, which includes; strategic alignment, information technology competence, institutional trust and organizational change readiness.

Two major limitations of this paper that warrant further research are as follows: the paper’s focus on intra-organizational digital business strategizing which excludes collaborative inter-organizational digital business strategizing among network organizations in Industry 4.0; and the need for empirical examination of the model to evaluate and validate it.

This paper offers a framework that will ensure that digital business strategizing maintains a fit between organizational strategy, structure, knowledge, culture, systems and processes that must align together to achieve the desired strategy.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the extendibility of leadership and organizational learning to digital business strategizing and to propose how digital business strategies emerge.

Future is rarely explicitly addressed or problematized in business network research. This study aims to examine the possibilities of developing a business actor’s future orientation to network studies and imports ideas and concepts from futures research to support the development.

The study is conceptual and interdisciplinary. The authors critically analyze how extant studies grounded in the sensemaking view and process research approach integrate future time and how theoretical myopia hinders the adoption of a future orientation.

The prevailing future perspective is restricted to managers’ perceptions and actions at present, ignoring the anticipation and exploration of alternative longer-term futures. Future time is generally conceived as embedded in managers’ cognitive processes or is seen as part of the ongoing interaction, where the time horizon to the future is not noticed or is at best short.

To enable a forward-looking perspective, researchers should move the focus from expectation building in business interaction to purposeful preparation of alternative future(s) and from the view of seeing future as enacted in the present to envisioning of both near-term and more distant futures.

This study addresses the growing need of business actors to anticipate future developments in the rapidly changing market conditions and to innovate and change business practices to save the planet for future generations.

This study elaborates on actors’ future orientation to business markets and networks, proposes the integration of network research concepts with concepts from futures studies and poses new types of research questions for future research.

This chapter describes and discusses how the notion of network pictures would contribute to the literature on management cognition. Network pictures, as conceptualized in business-to-business marketing, refer to managers’ sensemaking of the context and put focus on the interconnectivity among firms, along with managers’ subjective idea about what parties would be relevant for the firm. A systematic literature review on network pictures shows that network picture research focuses on how managers may have difficulties comprehending parties beyond present business partners, while the theoretical conceptualization emphasizes interdependences and prioritization and reprioritization among relevant parts of the limitless network. These latter ideas add to current research on managerial cognition. They do so through introducing a different notion of the context – or environment – and thereby raising the awareness of its complexity. Albeit the network picture literature focuses on how managers’ network pictures affect their strategizing in the network, the core idea entails how reactions and partners strategizing in parallel describe an ever-changing context but not the less important for any manager to comprehend.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the current industrial marketing and purchasing (IMP) research that has a vague positioning of the bounded rationality of an actor. By borrowing insights from other disciplines, this study aims to develop the IMP approach further by acknowledging the importance of individuals who act and make decisions on behalf of their companies.

This study is conceptual. By examining the IMP studies in combination with decision-making literature from behavioral economics and psychology, this paper provides a new understanding of the phenomenon in question.

This study demonstrates that individual decision-making is not as rational as has previously been thought, thus indicating the bounded rationality of the actor. After examining the most common negative emotions that influence the decision-making process, the paper presents a research agenda. It provides a series of research topics and methodological choices for future IMP research endeavors.

As this paper is conceptual, empirical research is needed to examine the role of negative emotions in dynamic decision-making processes.

Managerial implications of this paper are focused on providing instructions for managers on how to deal with negative emotions in dynamic decision-making processes.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the first papers that attempts to connect the IMP studies with the dynamics of decision-making by examining negative emotions in the business world.