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The chapter presents how business-to-business (B2B) actors may use branding as a tool for maintaining strong, long-term business relationships with their customers. Current knowledge on how to maintain business relationships is presented, related to branding as a tool contributing to long-term and strong business relationships. The phenomenon is studied in detail through a case company, Verso Globe, which operates in the consultancy area and is specialized in sustainability issues. The authors conclude that shared values and norms lead to beneficial business relationships and help maintain them. Also, the case company is closely collaborating and co-creating with its customers, which leads to technological adaptation and increases mutual commitment. A reputation of sharing values, having interest to develop, and co-creating with customers benefits the company and builds the corporate brand. The company culture must, however, support the efforts that make the brand. It is therefore important for B2B actors to understand the customer’s values and use it as a basis for customer relationship management activities. Concurrently, the company’s own values and how it directs employees are elements of its culture, which is the basis for the corporate brand. The perfect match of business relationships is therefore lies in aligning values and norms between the partners.

Sustainable management requires companies to build up new knowledge to acquire the competencies needed for action. This chapter aims to deliver knowledge about sustainability and knowledge for sustainability. Firstly, we systematically analyse the sustainability literature in the social sciences through a bibliographic analysis and topic modelling using VOSviewer and Mallet software. We outline research directions, themes and critical contributions for each research cluster identified. Additionally, we categorise over 30 definitions of sustainability identified by Meuer, Koelbel, and Hoffmann (2020). Secondly, we enumerate knowledge types needed for effective sustainability transitions of organisations. We trace typologies of sustainable business models and their distinct evaluations of sustainability. In this chapter, we argue that integrating the triad of social, ecological and economic goals is central for sustainability attempts as well as long-term thinking. Therefore, our research offers a comprehensive overview of sustainability in the social sciences supporting researchers and practitioners to navigate this miscellaneous and scattered field. Accordingly, our study is precious to young scholars researching sustainability who want to use the term in an informed and meaningful way.

In this paper, I propose an algorithm combining adaptive sampling and Reversible Jump MCMC to deal with the problem of variable selection in time-varying linear model. These types of model arise naturally in financial application as illustrated by a motivational example. The methodology proposed here, dubbed adaptive reversible jump variable selection, differs from typical approaches by avoiding estimation of the factors and the difficulties stemming from the presence of the documented single factor bias. Illustrated by several simulated examples, the algorithm is shown to select the appropriate variables among a large set of candidates.

Purpose – This chapter presents a close examination of how manufacturing managers respond to environmental pressures by formulating and implementing operational strategy.

Methodology – The analysis is based on interviews and observations in 31 manufacturing firms in the US Midwest.

Findings – The study reveals that competitive market pressure is only so effective at penetrating the institutional layers of inter- and intra-firm relations. Even in the highly competitive manufacturing sector, operational strategy is consistently implemented in suboptimal ways. Relatively inefficient routines are commonly institutionalized and inefficient arrangements appear to be able to persist for an indefinite period of time. To the extent that firms with variable capabilities and internal socio-technical systems must process, interpret, and react to complex external pressures and often-ambiguous signals, the sociology of work provides essential insights for the sociology of markets.

Originality – While the findings are subject to the standard caveats regarding nonrandom qualitative samples, the rich data produced and the in-depth analysis of real-world organizational pressures and managerial decision-making provide distinctive insights into how managers must balance external market pressures with internal labor process problems. Individual motivation appears to be at least as important in true organizational innovation as market discipline. While adaptation and learning certainly occur in organizations (and selection also operates through the death of extreme laggards) there exists sufficient institutional space within markets for a range of variation in organizational performance. The findings suggest that the analysis of internal organizational dynamics provides an essential part of a realistic theory of markets.

“It should also be noted that the objective of convergence and equal distribution, including across under-performing areas, can hinder efforts to generate growth. Contrariwise, the objective of competitiveness can exacerbate regional and social inequalities, by targeting efforts on zones of excellence where projects achieve greater returns (dynamic major cities, higher levels of general education, the most advanced projects, infrastructures with the heaviest traffic, and so on). If cohesion policy and the Lisbon Strategy come into conflict, it must be borne in mind that the former, for the moment, is founded on a rather more solid legal foundation than the latter” European Commission (2005, p. 9)Adaptation of Cohesion Policy to the Enlarged Europe and the Lisbon and Gothenburg Objectives.