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The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to examine how buyer-supplier episodes are characterised by their dimensions of time and social space, and how these dimensions interact to impact the criticality of an episode; second, to explore how time and social space create patterns of episodes that lead to buyer-supplier relationship change and continuity; and third, to examine the social space by the different roles that the buyer assumes among their episodes, while focusing on the concept of critical time to denote the temporal context.

A case study of a small retailer and five suppliers is employed. The primary data are e-mail communications between the buying and selling firms, along with a two-week field study at the retailer’s location. A total of 2,000 e-mails are coded to yield 75 episodes for the analysis.

The criticality of episodes differs depending on the role that the buyer assumes, and whether the episode occurs within a critical time period. The social space affects the type of criticality, while critical times enhance an episode’s criticality. This study outlines five different patterns of episodes occurring within critical times and across social spaces that characterise each of the buyer-supplier relationships.

This paper focuses on e-mail communication, with little data on interactions occurring outside of this medium.

To the researcher’s knowledge, this paper is the first to link specific patterns of episode characteristics to the concept of buyer roles. It also examines episodes using e-mail communication, which is not a common source within the IMP research stream.

For the benefit of those who want to address gaps in our understanding of business relationships, this paper seeks to conceptually frame investigation into critical interaction episodes that fundamentally strengthen or fatally weaken relationship development. It also considers the importance of non‐critical episodes in business relationships. Particular attention is paid to the enduring yet frequently modified critical incident technique associated with Flanagan.

Episode relationship theory, the qualitative/quantitative debate, and the critical incident technique (CIT) literature are selectively reviewed and critically assessed.

First, because business relationships tend to persist, episode research must advance beyond relationship dissolution studies and progress into investigations of how different types of interactions change relationships. New types of episodes need to be studied, such as the generative, degenerative, and neutral episodes discussed here. Also, functionally distinct characteristic and non‐critical episodes are conceptualized. Second, the methods review suggests that useful qualitative methods deserve more attention. Third, though CIT research is prevalent in the marketing literature, it is at present incompletely adapted to business marketing research and needs development along the lines suggested in this article.

The interaction perspective on business relationships is given a dynamic framework at the interaction episode level while keeping the connection to the more macro relationship development models that conceptualize relationship states and processes.

Addresses customer‐relationship economic issues, more specifically the link between service quality and profitability from a relationship marketing and management perspective. In this perspective the task of marketing is not only to establish customer relationships, but also to maintain and enhance them in order to improve customer profitability. In the service quality literature higher quality is assumed to lead to customer satisfaction, which leads to customer loyalty and this drives customer profitability. The framework highlights factors that, in addition to service quality and customer satisfaction, influence the links between service quality and profitability. Also discusses aspects of improving the profitability of relationships, such as enhancing relationship revenues through higher degrees of patronage concentration, and reducing relationship cost by changing the episode configuration of customer relationships.

This case study discusses the importance of studying buyer and seller interactions, as they are relevant to understand how relationships evolve. It further presents a conceptual foundation for investigating B2B interactions, particularly in the context of the trade fair. The trade fair is presented as a privileged field for relationship building and development, where socialization episodes occupy a relevant role. Data were gathered through observations, interactions, and interviews, spread over a twelve-month field-study of participants at trade fairs, and their comments analyzed within a framework of relationship building. Insights revealed include the importance of innovation versus relational interactions; the informality of interactions; the opportunity for information exchange and learning; social interactions, and relationship development. The chapter concludes by considering that a relationship marketing strategy to B2B trade fair participation is vital for the effectiveness of this business activity and a challenge for exhibitors, visitors, and trade fair organizers.

The purpose of this article is to understand how women develop entrepreneurship as a career identity through women's various life stages. Using a life story approach, the authors study the formation of Indian businesswomen's entrepreneurial identity in businesswomen's unique socio-cultural context.

The study drew upon 15 semi-structured interviews with practicing women entrepreneurs using a qualitative methodology. Gioia methodology was used to systematically analyze the data for theory building.

The narratives of the Indian women entrepreneurs indicate that Indian women's entrepreneurial identity was a developmental process influenced by various episodes in different life stages-childhood, adolescence, marriage and motherhood. Life episodes influenced the creation and enactment of this entrepreneurial identity, which led to the emergence of entrepreneurship as a career choice.

The study's retrospective design may have raised concerns involving memory recall. The open-ended questions gave the participants the freedom to recount the life episodes that influenced the participants the most and may have partly mitigated this concern.

Prior studies have focused on specific life stages of women entrepreneurs, without taking a holistic life-story view, thereby missing out on how career identity is formed as a result of life episodes. Using the developmental psychology approach, the authors provide a nuanced and holistic lens to understanding women's entrepreneurship.

In this paper, we depart from extant conceptualisations of knowledge translation mechanisms to examine projects as a way to achieve effective knowledge transfer. Our empirical analysis focused on a university–industry research project in the automotive industry.

The empirical analysis was based on a qualitative investigation. We analysed material collected within a research project involving a partnership between two universities and Fiat-Chrysler Automotive (FCA), a multi-brand auto manufacturer with a product range covering several different market segments. We used three data collection techniques: internal document analysis, participant observation and semi-structured interviews.

Our findings show that, in a U-I research project, goals represent a key dimension to support knowledge translation. Defining the goal implies an ongoing negotiation process, where researchers and company employees work together, in order to converge towards a shared meaning of the goal. In this sense, goal orientation and goal-based interaction have significant implications for knowledge translation processes.

Studies to date have focussed on the concept of knowledge translation as a way to contextualise the transfer from the source of knowledge to the receiver and to interpret the knowledge to be exchanged. This study expands the understanding of knowledge translation mechanisms in university–industry research settings. It investigates the concept of projects as powerful knowledge translation mechanism in a dynamic and longitudinal perspective. Our contribution provides insight, reflecting on how the use of projects may represent a way to facilitate knowledge transfer and build up new ideas and solutions.

The purpose of this study is to describe and analyse the quality of a professional surgical service process, and to reveal the main elements that constitute excellence in the experience of the surgical service of a private hospital. First, a theoretical framework for the surgical service process is created. Second, empirical research is conducted through a mail survey of surgical patients in a private hospital. A total of 240 questionnaires were delivered and the response rate was 83 per cent. Third, the underlying quality dimensions in the surgical service process are constructed using factor analysis. Finally, the main elements of excellence in a surgical service experience are revealed by utilising discriminant analysis. Empirical results indicate that, in private surgical services, the surgical procedure itself is the single most important element, but that it must be supplemented by quality dimensions in both output and process throughout the whole surgical service process.

The paper is aimed at modelling the e‐competence of internet bank customers with a new text‐analytic method.

A web survey using a critical incident technique approach (CIT) and follow‐up interviews was used to sequentially capture verbal accounts of the very first experience of users of a particular internet bank. Text analyses were carried out from the complete set of responses to the trigger questions to synthesise user accounts of these experiences.

These verbal syntheses (as modelled by a Pertex text‐analytic approach) are purported to illustrate e‐competence. A diverging pattern of e‐competency was found. One group of customers was able to handle the web site and the other group felt abandoned and was not able to adopt technology.

The study comprised a limited sample of Danish first‐time internet bank customers. Therefore, generalisations should not be drawn as to the competencies of bank customers. Further research could encompass much larger and broader samples and be focused on a particular internet function or e‐service.

Findings suggest that some customer groups may have difficulties in applying new technology and that these groups may have special needs of support in the start‐up period.

The value of the paper is that it illustrates a new kind of text analysis that can summarise divergent texts and thereby distinguish between different kinds of user competence in a meaningful way.

This paper aims to draw on the network perspective of firm internationalisation to study how an intermediary network actor, such as an export promotion organisation (EPO), can influence the internationalisation of new ventures located in peripheral regions.

The paper employs case analysis and the critical incident technique to study the influence of the Irish Government's support agency for the seafood industry, Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM), on the internationalisation of three new ventures in the seafood sector in the West of Ireland.

The EPO played an important role in information mediation: identifying foreign opportunities and customers; facilitating introductions to international customers; and by providing foreign market knowledge; and as a resource provider developing the firm's export capacity.

The choice of sector and method may impact on the ability to generalise the findings to firms in other contexts.

This study identifies a number of important implications for managers. It identifies a dilemma for policy‐makers: do efforts to develop strong support agencies come at the expense of developing strong firms?

This study advances the understanding of the role of an intermediary network actor in influencing new‐firm internationalisation. It identifies a set of conditions that, it is argued, are necessary if an EPO is to facilitate firm internationalisation.