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Although previous research has highlighted the importance of innovative intermediary services that are delivered through cluster initiatives to foster own attractiveness and the development of business, little emphasis has been placed on examining the patterns and influencers of such a change in new organisational forms from a management perspective. The present study investigates the change patterns of core intermediary activities in cluster initiatives as well as the influence of various stakeholders on change in those core activities.

The empirical data of this work illustrates the general picture of change within new organisational forms and therefore emerges from a survey study carried out among numerous European cluster initiatives originating from different industries. The main propositions for testing have roots in and are discussed through the prism of Stakeholder Theory as well as entrepreneurship, change and intermediary (middle-hands, brokerage) literature.

The findings reveal that intermediary activities are under continuous change, and the changes appreciated by the initiative members tend to gradually increase in intensity over time. Internal stakeholders are actively engaged in the change process activities, and external stakeholders are too, but to a limited extent. This leaves space for creativity and action for the initiatives.

This research combines stakeholder theory and literature on intermediation (new forms of organisations), change, and entrepreneurship. The outcome of the study might serve as a ground for theoretical classification of cluster initiatives as a particular type of intermediary in accordance with their specific occupation. This would add to the ongoing discussion on definition and typologies of intermediaries as well as lift the awareness on the peculiar constellation of stakeholders within these innovative organisations – their engagement expectations and level of involvement.

Knowledge on which stakeholders can turn to in the event that a special service is needed can shorten implementation times and improve the quality of services. This knowledge is a way to choose suitable and influential networking partners who can assist by pushing existing working mechanisms in a favourable direction.

The study illustrates the patterns behind changes of intermediary activities/services over time, which would form solid ground for developing new methods to assist in achieving stakeholder satisfaction through cluster-initiative services. Therefore, this work can serve as a benchmarking example for traditional organisations that find themselves in “sleeping” mode or that aim for revitalization.

The contribution of change and engagement mechanisms to effectivization and innovativeness of organisations are highlighted as main value added of this research.

The purpose of this paper is to find out the different types of business networks formed by firms with the stakeholders present in a cluster, i.e. how firms in a cluster interact with the cluster stakeholders?

To answer the research question, this study uses an exploratory research design, which is carried out in two stages, Stage 1 involves use of primary data, which was collected through semi-structured personal face-to-face interview mode and Stage 2 involves survey research method where data was collected through a survey questionnaire. Data for interviews and questionnaires were collected from managers and owners of firms operating in the cluster at their offices.

The study has identified four types of business networks between a firm and its buyers, only one type of business network with the suppliers and educational institutes, finally two types of business networks with government agencies and local associations. However, with respect to network with other stakeholders such as research institutes and competitors, the study shows that the interaction between a firm and these stakeholders is not strong i.e. the linkages between them remain largely unfilled.

The study has been limited to only one cluster thus it might not be appropriate to generalise the findings. Further research in this area needs to be done by taking other clusters to generalise the findings.

The study has tried to answer the research gap of lack of literature on types of business networks formed by firms with the stakeholders present in an industrial cluster, and thus, contributed to the existing literature of business networks. The identified business networks provide a much deeper understanding of how firms connect with its buyers, its suppliers, government agencies and educational institutes operating in an auto-component cluster.

Given that an industrial cluster contains a high concentration of numerous stakeholders, a firm in an industrial cluster often ends up forming relationships with many of the stakeholders. The research questions are as follows: Does stakeholder-based management always lead to greater value creation? What are the moderators in this association? This paper proposes that although relationships with stakeholders can act as a “catalyst” for value-creation, they can also act as a “retardant.” A combination of (1) the strategic nature of the relationships and (2) the policy environment determines whether the relationships with stakeholders act as catalysts or retardants.

Using relationship-focused theory, a conceptual framework that adopts a relational view of stakeholder theory is developed. Given the high concentration of stakeholders in industrial clusters, the conceptual framework uses stakeholders in industrial clusters as a setting. A firm can form relationships with a variety of stakeholders in an industrial cluster. The strategic nature of a relationship with a stakeholder is assessed in terms of variations in strategic intent and intellectual spillover.

The key argument is the following: whether a relationship with a stakeholder becomes a catalyst or a retardant for value creation is contingent on the fit between the strategic nature of the relationship and the policy environment. For instance, in a probusiness policy environment, relying on relationships with stakeholders that maximize intellectual spillover can act as a catalyst for value creation. In contrast, in an antibusiness environment, not having to rely on intellectual spillover is a safer option.

Whereas the literature implicitly assumes that stakeholder theory has relational essence, the conceptual framework developed in this paper adopts a relational view of stakeholder theory in a very explicit way. This paper applies relationship-focused theory by making explicit the different forms of stakeholder relationships. Such an explicitly relational approach in theorizing can help in more in-depth research on the link between stakeholder relationships and value creation. The conceptual framework will allow future research to analyze value creation in an industrial cluster, especially in terms of how stakeholder relationships can act as either catalysts or retardants.

While Chapter 3 highlights contextual conditions that foster the formation of policy networks, Chapter 5 highlights contextual conditions that impede the formation of policy networks. The overarching question of this chapter is the following: What are the factors that hinder cross-sectoral arrangements from becoming collaborative in complex policy settings such as low- and middle-income countries with a tradition in centralized policy making? In an attempt to address this question, this study provides a detailed assessment of all cross-sectoral arrangements within the Turkish health sector focusing on the post-2003 period. Within this framework, three types of networks will be examined including (a) consultative networks where stakeholders come together primarily to legitimize certain government policies within national level health policy platforms; (b) cluster networks where stakeholder interaction falls short of becoming collaborative due to diverging interests and persistent competition at the regional level; and (c) patronage networks where governmental actors and a selected number of NGOs linked by clientelism serve as a bridge between the ruling party and its constituency at the community level. Unlike policy networks, these actor constellations observed at different levels of governance do not serve the purpose of policy collaboration. On the contrary, they have the potential to trigger politicization, fragmentation, and even polarization at the social level, especially through the distribution of selective benefits. Ultimately, this chapter aims to rise to the challenge of policy collaboration by assessing the impediments to network collaboration based on insights from the Turkish case.

This chapter analyses the evolution of strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR). Despite extensive research on the strategic aspects of CSR, the absence of a well-defined theoretical concept has hindered the development of the field. The authors build on the four mechanisms that conceptually distinguish strategic CSR from CSR in general: enhancing firm reputation, increasing stakeholder reciprocation, mitigating firm risk, and strengthening innovation capacity. By using bibliometric methods, we analyze the main topics, references, and sources of papers, found in the Web of Science Core Collection database. The analysis of the strategic CSR field discusses main topics through three periods (1991–2009, 2010–2014, and 2015–2019). The findings help identify the mapping of conceptual space of the strategic CSR field and suggest grounds for continuing the debates on how to advance the micro-level perspectives on CSR.

Based on the theoretical background of stakeholder capitalism, the purpose of this paper is to contribute to the scientific debate on the topic of public–private partnerships (PPPs), considering in particular how this governance structure relates to the pursuit of sustainable development. Specifically, this objective will be pursued with a focus on stakeholder relations and governance aspects, to highlight enablers and barriers in change for sustainability.

The systematic literature review is applied starting with the use of keywords in Web of Science, which leads to the extrapolation of 629 articles on the topic of “PPP and sustainability”. Subsequently, through various skimming steps, 75 papers are sampled. A mixed (quantitative-qualitative) approach is then followed: a co-word semantic network to identify the pattern of discourse and a more in-depth and explanatory analysis of the papers. These quantitative and qualitative tools synergistically work together to evidence the main aspects related to the aim of the paper.

With reference to the governance structure and stakeholders of PPPs, the analyses highlight the shift towards a triadic type of relational governance that considers stakeholders (especially the community) in addition to public–private partners. This can improve the partnership's performance (particularly in sustainable development) and social legitimacy. With reference to the role of PPPs in the implementation of sustainable development, they have positive potential in terms of implementing sustainability and raising stakeholder awareness of it. Nevertheless, PPPs may entail risks to the implementation of sustainability. The findings lead to some concluding remarks on future research opportunities.

The research leads to some managerial implications, such as the need to follow a competitive collaboration approach among stakeholders, to develop relational governance skills and related managerial tools and to incorporate sustainability aspects starting from the design of PPPs.

The originality aspect of this research is the consideration of a PPP by relating it to the pursuit of sustainability. Such an inter-organizational structure could be suitable to deal with the complexity inherent in the implementation of sustainability and is peculiar in terms of governance and stakeholder relations, considering that it is characterised by the presence of several partners of different nature (public and private).

The role of clusters in the development and growth of local and national economies has been extensively studied and discussed in global literature. Different methodologies are used for analysing the impact these have in national and regional economies, such as the input–output (IO) and gravity models. This paper aims to detail the methodologies present in the literature and propose a new robust theoretical framework, which facilitates the evaluation and comparison among maritime clusters in terms of attractiveness assisting stakeholders to devise strategies, which will attract companies.

An index is created composed of five key categories, namely, infrastructure, financing, governance, manpower and institution/legislation. For the analysis of the index, multi-attribute utility theory (MAUT) is used as a tool to evaluate the importance and performance of the different attributes using both quantitative and qualitative criteria. The methodology has been tested via the use the Piraeus maritime cluster.

The framework has been tested on its robustness and friendliness to the user providing useful insights to the stakeholders. Among the results has been the importance of the finance, manpower and infrastructure attributes, which appear to promote the cluster’s attractiveness. In addition, legislation and institutional partnerships, along with Government support, need to take place improve the performance of the cluster.

A key limitation is the fact that the methodology has been tested in a single case. Applying the methodological framework in a wider sample of clusters will significantly improve the present work.

The proposed model takes further existing research in the field via adopting the philosophy of the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index. Among the benefits of the proposed index is that it offers the flexibility and robustness to compare among different maritime clusters globally and can be readily used as a benchmarking policy tool at national, regional and global levels at any given point in time and attribute dimension.

The Social Responsibility Journal (SRJ) celebrates 15 years of publication in 2019. The purpose of this study is to map the development in the publication, citation and themes of SRJ articles between 2005 and 2019.

This study uses the Scopus database to analyze the highest contributing authors, institutions and countries published in SRJ. It also identifies the most cited SRJ articles, journals citing SRJ and journals cited by SRJ. This study conducts a performance analysis using bibliometric indicators to analyze the publication and citation structure of SRJ, in addition to science mapping using bibliographic coupling to analyze the themes of SRJ. Further, this study provides a temporal analysis of SRJ publishing across three different time periods over its 15-year run.

From 2005 to 2019, SRJ increased its annual publication from 23 to 63 articles. The citations have followed a similar trend, with an increase from zero citations in 2005 to more than 1,200 citations in 2019. Authors from all around the world have contributed to the journal on themes like business ethics, corporate social responsibility, corporate governance, firm outcomes and stakeholders. Attention to themes related to corporate social responsibility, corporate governance and their influence on firm outcomes has increased across different time periods, while themes related to business ethics and stakeholders have garnered continuous – if not increasing – attention across different time periods.

This study is limited to data acquired from the Scopus database.

This study provides the first overview of SRJ’s publication and citation trends alongside its thematic structure.

This paper aims to provide an overview of the application of blockchain to agri-food supply chains, including key issues and trends. It examines the state of the art and conceptual structure of the field and proposes an agenda to guide future research.

This article performs a bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer software on a sample of 205 articles from the WoS database to identify research trend topics.

The number of publications in this area has increased since 2020, which shows a growing research interest. The research hotspots are related to the integration of blockchain technology in the agri-food supply chain for traceability, coordination between all actors involved, transparency of operations and improvement of food safety. Furthermore, this is linked to sustainability and the achievement of the sustainable development gtoals (SDGs), while addressing key challenges in the implementation of blockchain-based technologies in the agri-food supply chain.

The application of blockchain in the agri-food supply chain may consider four key aspects. Firstly, the implementation of blockchain can improve the traceability of food products. Secondly, this technology supports sustainability issues and could avoid disruptions in the agri-food supply chain. Third, blockchain improves food quality and safety control throughout the supply chain. Fourthly, the findings show that regulation is needed to improve trust between stakeholders.

The paper provides a comprehensive overview of the blockchain phenomenon in the agri-food supply chain by optimising the search criteria. Moreover, it serves to bridge to future research by identifying gaps in the field.

The unitized curtain wall system (UCWS), one of the prefabricated technologies, is increasingly attracting attention in the Hong Kong construction industry. However, this innovative technology still lacks on-site implementation in high-rise residential buildings. To promote its development, this study aims at identifying the influential factors of UCWS adoption in Hong Kong's high-rise residential buildings from a multi-stakeholder perspective.

Factors were first selected through an in-depth literature review and a semi-structured interview. Then the factors were validated through a questionnaire survey using Cronbach's Alpha Reliability Test. Next, the factors were ranked regarding their importance using mean-score ranking and standard deviation. Meanwhile, different stakeholders were clustered using an experimental factor analysis (EFA) model to find the shared preferences (namely common factors).

The result shows that reduction of construction time (B1) and insufficient site storage area (C1) are the most important factors. The six stakeholder groups were clustered into two segments. B1 and improved quality control are the shared interests. While C1 and the need of specification change are the common concerns.

There are two major breakthroughs in this study. First is the novelty of research objects. UCWS, particularly its application preference in high-rise residential buildings, has rarely been studied, yet it is urgently required. Second is the novel research perspective. The influential factors were studied from a multi-stakeholder perspective. Not only the significant factors for six specific stakeholders but also the shared preference for stakeholder groups was identified. The findings contribute to promoting UCWS more targeted, efficient and comprehensive, as well as demonstrating the collaborative possibilities of multi-stakeholders.