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This article explores how complexity theory can help marketers to understand a market and to operate within it. Essentially, it argues that complexity theory has the potential to provide both global and some local explanations of markets and is complementary to local theories like relationship marketing that may be more familiar to marketing managers. It establishes four types of complex systems that might be used to model social systems. Of these four types, complex adaptive systems seem most appropriate to describe markets. This is illustrated in an investigation of Honda in the global automobile industry. Implications for marketing managers centre on the need to understand feedback loops at many levels of a path‐dependent system that are inherently difficult to predict and control.

Purpose – Agribusiness is crucial for the Brazilian trade balance surplus. Innovation, not only that focused on technology or productivity, is a basic condition for its development. The context of the agribusiness activities in a developing country is dynamic and requires a multilevel and multifaceted view. This suggests that these features need to be incorporated both in the theories and methods. Therefore, we propose a method, from within the perspective of Configurations Theory, of capturing this dynamic multidimensionality. The method was applied in the context of the rice-farming business in Southern Brazil.

Methodology/approach – The proposed method, which we refer to as a Case Study Method with Multiple Units of Analysis and Mixed Methods, was applied in a research organization in an attempt to identify the evolution of innovation while considering a theoretical perspective based on multilevel rules.

Findings – Six different configurations in the temporal organization of research were identified. These six configurations describe the evolution of four emphases given to innovation, the drivers associated with the evolution of these emphases, and the changes that have occurred over time.

Social implications – The results may provide support for new public policies for rice farming and lead to improvements in the organization's strategies for innovation.

Originality/value of chapter – The combination of methods used (Case Study, Qualitative Comparative Analysis, Social Network Analysis, Path Dependence, and Patterns of Decision Making) to study configurations, together with the dynamic approach to innovation based on multilevel rule, is unique.

The purpose of this paper is to respond to the call of international marketing professionals for more studies on strategies that firms use in response to the complexities of interacting with other institutions in the emerging markets (EMs) of sub-Saharan Africa. The key research question investigated by employing the exploratory qualitative data gathered is: What strategies and global alliances do small local firms (SLFs) in Nigeria adopt to succeed under complex market conditions?

The methodology employed is exploratory qualitative research. The authors conducted extended interviews to generate rich case study data from the top management of the selected SLFs in Nigeria. The interview data were assessed using open, axial and selective coding to uncover macro-narratives that guide SLFs’ strategies and global alliances.

The macro-narratives derived from the qualitative case analysis reveal a theoretical framework centered on three major elements of competitive strategies in Nigeria: build global capacity and strategic alliances from the get-go; develop local strategic alliances; master matching alliance partners’ needs to create innovative payment plans and, when necessary, shift the transaction cost burden to alliance partners. Matching theory rather than traditional network theories is better at explicating SLFs’ alliances in Nigeria. Implementation of these strategies requires flexible strategic initiatives.

The study adapts institutional interaction theory, network theory, matching alliance perspective, trade credit theories and the literature on small firms’ strategies in EMs to explicate successful small local firm strategies and global alliances under complex market conditions in Nigeria. The recognition that SLFs regularly migrate and shift the burden of transactions’ cost to multiple stakeholders in the supply network by matching customers and supplier needs is important. The discovery of matching theory in explicating SLFs’ global alliances in Nigeria is unique to this study.

The purpose of this paper is to propose that the choice of marketing tactics is influenced by the company's external environment. It aims to illustrate the marketing tactics suggested for a complex, turbulent environment, when marketing and the environment are viewed through a complexity lens.

A marketing mix model, derived from complexity literature, was assessed via a multiple case study to identify the type of marketing mix suggested for a complex, turbulent environment. The study was exploratory, using in‐depth interviews with two companies in the IT industry.

The results tentatively confirmed that the more successful company used a destabilizing marketing mix, and suggest that using complexity theory to develop marketing tactics could be helpful in turbulent environments.

The findings are limited by the study's exploratory, qualitative nature and the small sample. Generalizing should be done with care and therefore further research with larger samples and in different environments is recommended.

The paper will benefit marketers by emphasizing a new way to consider future marketing activities of their companies. The model can assist marketers to identify the tactics to use, dependent on the nature of their environment.

Most work on complexity in marketing has concentrated on strategy, with little emphasis on tactics and the marketing mix. Therefore, the paper is an important contribution to the understanding of marketing mix choices, of interest to both practising marketers and marketing academics.

Materials Science and Technology Although corrosion is not specifically mentioned in the terms of reference of the recently announced Working Party on Materials Science and Technology formed under the auspices of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, it obviously must be one of the subjects for consideration. It is interesting to note the careful balance between theory and practice maintained when choosing the members of this Working Party, as only too often in such projects is the tendency towards overlooking the latter in favour of the former. That this is not so may be seen from the fact that approximately one‐third of the members are academic, the remainder being from research associations and industrial and national laboratories. Also, some 20% belong to the Institution of Chemical Engineers. Another important feature which should ensure success is the wide variety of interests of the industrial members, these including paper, concrete, rubber, plastics, ceramics, glass and, of course, metals.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical framework for understanding and formulating team intentional change.

Based on a critical review of existing theories of group development, gaps in the literature regarding how teams can and should develop, especially when the change is intentional and has a desired direction, are examined. A set of propositions is offered to address these aspects of group development that have been neglected by the literature.

A systematic and critical discussion of the core literature on group development showed: the complex and discontinuous nature of change in groups was neglected, because the group was not treated as a complex system; the literature has not dealt with group development processes when the change process is intentional (it has been descriptive of what occurs), nor has it examined which are key drivers of group change; existing literature on group development have predominantly seen negative emotion as catalytic to group development, and they have ignored the role of positive emotion. Therefore, drawing on positive psychology, complexity theory, small group research literatures, and Boyatzis' intentional change theory, a prescriptive theoretical framework for explaining intentional group change and development is offered and discussed.

A prescriptive model or theoretical framework with a set of hypotheses are proposed that explain intentional, and positive group development processes.

The study demonstrates that firms can effectively involve customers in new service development (NSD) to create radically innovative, high-performing new services. Prior research found no effect of customer involvement on radicalness in NSD programs, but the current study provides evidence that customer involvement in the design stage of NSD projects can increase the radical innovativeness of a new service.

Surveys from 160 firms captured information on the development process, participants and outcomes of recent service innovation projects. Direct effect and mediation hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.

Customer involvement in the NSD process increases the innovativeness of a new service when customers are involved in the design stage and when the influence is mediated by process complexity. Customer involvement in the development stage has no significant effect on service innovativeness. Process complexity also mediates the positive influence of frontline employee and cross-functional team involvement in the NSD process on service innovativeness.

To produce radically innovative new services, managers should: focus on customer involvement in the design phase and build an understanding of how the customer creates value-in-context, and use a detailed but flexible development process and provide extensive opportunities for interaction of customers, frontline employees and cross-functional teams throughout the NSD process.

The study draws on complexity theory to explain how a complex NSD process enhances participants’ creativity and learning and increases the innovativeness of a new service.

The purpose of this paper is to bring international marketing and consumer research attention to multicultural marketplaces as a new focal research lens. It develops a conceptualisation of multicultural marketplaces, demonstrating why they constitute new conceptual territory, before specifying five key areas for research development.

The paper draws from seminal international marketing literature and other fields to propose perspective shifts, and suggest theories and frameworks of potential usefulness to the five research areas.

The paper conceptualises multicultural marketplaces as place-centred environments (physical or virtual) where the marketers, consumers, brands, ideologies and institutions of multiple cultures converge at one point of concurrent interaction, while also being potentially connected to multiple cultures in other localities. Five key areas for research development are specified, each with a different conceptual focus: increasing complexity of cultural identities (identity), differentiation of national political contexts (national integration policies), intergroup conviviality practices and conflictual relationships (intergroup relations), interconnectedness of transnational networks (networks), and cultural dynamics requiring multicultural adaptiveness (competences).

For each research area, a number of research avenues and theories and frameworks of potential interest are proposed.

The paper demonstrates why multicultural marketplaces constitute new conceptual territory for international marketing and consumer research; it provides a conceptualisation of these marketplaces and a comprehensive research agenda.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the Intellectual Capital perspective can be altered in order to include ethically questionable practices of knowledge acquisition.

The paper explores the relationship between formal and illicit forms of intellectual capital acquisition through a case study of the Formula 1 industry. The paper is based on secondary data from public sources.

Ethically questionable practices are a part of the knowledge economy. In the case study, the view on what was ethical and accepted was changed due to uncovered practices of espionage.

Firms in knowledge‐intensive industries often employ unrecognized informal channels for intellectual capital acquisition. Managers should consider the boundary between right and wrong in their particular industry, and whether they have the tools for dealing with ethically questionable practices.

The paper suggests a complementary interpretation of the Formula 1 industry not only as a best‐practice case of how community and trust knowledge spillovers facilitate innovation, but also how ethically questionable practices of intellectual capital acquisition exist as an accepted part of the process.

The purpose of this paper is to build theory and present a model of the development of conflicts in teams.

The paper develops a conceptual model based on past theory and research.

The model brings a multi-level perspective to the process of intragroup conflict by showing the mechanisms by which an interpersonal, dyadic conflict can spread to other team members over time through a process of conflict contagion.

This study provides a new model for conflict escalation and it sheds light on factors which can either ameliorate or exacerbate the speed and extent of conflict contagion. The repercussions of different degrees of conflict involvement within a team are discussed.