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Competitive success in business‐to‐business markets often depends upon the ability of the firm to adapt specifically to the needs of a single customer organization. Research into buyer‐seller relationships in industrial markets has shown that both buying and selling firms implement specific adaptations for a single partner. Adaptation can take place at the level of the product or more broadly in terms of management processes, information exchange, and even organizational restructuring. The paper develops an improved taxonomy for dyadic adaptation in business‐to‐business markets, and explores the driving forces behind relationship‐specific adaptation. Adaptation by supplier firms is found to be more frequent than adaptation by buyers. Supplier adaptation is driven by relative power, buyer support, and by the managerial preferences of the two firms for a more or less relational form of exchange. Several managerial implications and avenues for further research are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to describe, analyze, and understand the fading configurations in inter‐organizational relationships in the context of cultural sponsorship.

A dyadic case study investigates a long‐term cultural‐sponsorship relationship between a business sponsor and a sponsored museum.

The triggers of relationship fading are broadly elaborated into structural and situational triggers. These triggers are further categorized into negative and positive structural triggers and into negative and positive situational triggers. Negative triggers accelerate the fading of cultural‐sponsorship relationships, whereas positive triggers hinder such fading.

The perceptions of the business sponsor and the sponsored museum are combined into a configuration matrix of relationship fading in cultural‐sponsorships relationships. The configuration matrix can be used to analyze the composition and the dynamics of perceptions during relationship fading. The configuration matrix offers a powerful and flexible tool that allows conflicting views in the cultural‐sponsorship relationship to be revealed and described.

The analytical framework facilitates managerial identification of potential structural and situational triggers of fading in cultural‐sponsorship relationships. To manage such relationships effectively, the interacting actors have to take into account the probable fading of cultural‐sponsorships relationships, and the reasons for this.

The triggers of relationship fading can emanate from both the structural context in which this time‐bound cultural‐sponsorship relationship is embedded and the situational process itself. Consequently, the triggers of fading can be both structural with relatively high permanence and situational with single critical events and incidents occurring in the relationship.

In complex buyer-supplier relationships (BSRs), contracts are always incomplete and many of the exchanges non-contractual. Because they occur over a long period of time and include unspecified obligations, non-contractual exchanges might be asymmetrical. The purpose of this paper is to examine BSRs with the aim of identifying the mechanisms that lead to asymmetry in exchanges.

The author conducts an analysis, based on social exchange theory (SET), of six buyer-supplier dyads using the main SET constructs. From this multiple-case analysis the author develops a set of propositions explaining the exchange asymmetry in complex buyer-supplier relations.

The results indicate that self-awareness of the determinants of attractiveness, use of power-balancing mechanisms, and primacy can explain the exchange asymmetry in BSRs.

The analysis is limited on the explanations for exchange asymmetry that are based on SET.

The study highlights the importance of firms using the power-balancing mechanism in order to gain value from supply chain partners. The results show that firms can use attractiveness strategically to influence supply chain partners, but the author also observe that firms generally are not well aware of the determinants of their attractiveness in BSRs, which ignorance may pose a major obstacle to using attractiveness strategically.

The paper provides the first systematic and comprehensive insight to social exchange mechanism in complex BSR. In this paper the author makes a major effort to clarify the basic assumptions and scope of the useful concepts and theoretical constructs of SET, and through a multiple-case study the author form a piece of substantive theory of SET in BSRs.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how different determinants impact specific information quality (IQ) dimensions of shared demand-related information in dyadic supply chain relationships.

Through a qualitative case study of three manufacturer–supplier dyads in the European automotive industry, a range of methods are used to collect data about 168 possible IQ deficiency situations. IQ deficiencies are identified in 50 situations and determinants thereof are explored.

Findings show how inter-organisational collaboration, intra-organisational process support and composite information sharing directly impact five pragmatic IQ dimensions (relevance, accessibility, credibility, understandability and ease of operation) – at times beneficially, detrimentally, varyingly and conflictingly. Furthermore, the findings show how the determinant impact on ease of use-related IQ dimensions is moderated by information sharing facets.

The paper extends previous research by showing how information sharing acts as both a determinant and moderator of pragmatic IQ. It furthermore details previous research by showing how previously examined determinants of IQ impact specific IQ dimensions.

The generated propositions of how determinants impact pragmatic IQ can guide managers to identify key drivers of successful information sharing.

Since IQ mediates the linkage between information sharing and performance, this research helps explaining conflicting results regarding the value of information sharing. It also guides several strands of future research, such as hypothesis testing and exploratory and conceptualising studies.

Even if in a traditional perspective the discovery and the exploitation of opportunities are associated to the entrepreneur’s capabilities, a relational perspective is required to better analyze the phenomenon of starting up a new venture. The growing attention to interaction with the external environment has been emerging as a precondition of the entrepreneurial processes as it creates the knowledge and the experience necessary to perceive the opportunity. The entrepreneurial opportunities are created through joint acts with others through social relationships. Shifting the attention from social to business relationships, the main aim of this paper is to investigate the discovery and the exploitation of collective entrepreneurial opportunities in starting up new business. In particular, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of relational proximity in the entrepreneurial journey considered as an emergent process of transforming potentiality into actuality.

The paper applied a qualitative methodology (Dubois and Araujo, 2004) and a case study approach (Barrat et al., 2011). The case concerns the dyadic spin-off relationship between the innovative start up, ShapeMode (the generated firm), and the Milan FabLab (the generating firm) located in Lombardy Region (Italy).

The emerging of collective entrepreneurial opportunities could be analyzed at two levels: the first one concerns the dyadic spin-off relationship, while the second one is founded on the business relationships that the start-up can activate with the business partners of the generating firm. The collective entrepreneurial opportunities are positive influenced by jointness of the actors and their co-evolution, founded on the shared values and goals.

Although the case study approach allowed the researcher to gain detailed information about the spin-off relationship, this effort does not measure the performance outcomes of the relationships and actions that were taken to improve the competitiveness of the start-up. Future studies would benefit from a large-scale questionnaire given to the members of the start-up and to the actors of its Entrepreneurial Network, so to analyze all of its performance implications for the start-up and the network as a whole. In addition, it could be of interest for future research to investigate the effects of collective entrepreneurial opportunities in order to examine this topic more deeply.

From a managerial point of view, even if the growing number of start-ups has been associated to a temporary phenomenon, the development of new ventures is now consolidated. A new managerial approach is required to promote the birth and the growth of the start-ups. The development of a new venture requires to shift the attention from the collection of financial resources to the exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities generated by interconnected business relationships. In this way a relevant attention should be recognized to the new role of organizations that can be considered as facilitators of business relationships, such as the FabLab. This paper sheds light on the relevance of the strategic networking that sustains the generation of collective entrepreneurial opportunities. The networking involves actors that belong to different geographic area and different countries but that are focused on the same business dream related to the exploitation of potentialities of digital fabrication. The policymakers should recognize the role of the FabLab as facilitator of knowledge diffusion concerning digital fabrication.

The entrepreneurial opportunities such as the starting up of a new business and its evolution, are enacted, discovered and exploited through interconnected business relationships. In particular the main entrepreneurial opportunities are generated by the activation of business relationships with new business actors. Focusing on the dyadic spin-off relationship, the exploitation of collective entrepreneurial opportunities depends on the sharing of third actors. The business partners of the generating actor (FabLab) became business partners of the generated actor (start-up). The evolution of the generating firm (FabLab) influenced the birth and the evolution of the generated firms (start-up). The dyadic relationship allows the generated firm to discover entrepreneurial opportunities and to exploit them, accessing to the business partners of the generating firm. The effectiveness of the spin-off relationship sustains the replication of the model of new firm generation, that could benefit from the relationships of the two actors of the dyad. Moreover the strong relationships are founded on relational proximity that is characterized by the sharing of values, vision and business dreams.

To describe, analyse, and understand relationship fading between a business sponsor and a sponsored museum in the context of cultural sponsorships.

The empirical study uses a longitudinal and a dyadic approach to analyse the temporal development of a three‐year cultural‐sponsorship relationship.

This study tackles the phenomenon of relationship fading in cultural sponsorships. The triggers of relationship fading are first elaborated into structural and situational triggers. These triggers are further categorised into structural predisposing triggers, situational precipitating triggers, situational attenuating, and structural attenuating triggers.

Most of the triggers of relationship fading are passive and indirect. Consequently, the triggers of fading affect the development of the relationship by gradually reducing the sponsor's motivations to invest and develop the cultural‐sponsorship relationship.

Successful management of cultural sponsorship requires the interacting actors to be aware of the structural and situational triggers of fading that can lead to the fading and potential ultimate ending of such a relationship. Using culture‐oriented marketing professionals with good communication skills between the business and the arts community is vital in managing cultural sponsorships and in avoiding fading in cultural‐sponsorship relationships.

A central feature of the fresh theoretical framework on relationship fading is the link between relatively permanent structures and the situational processes. A dyadic and longitudinal approach is adopted to reveal the past, present, and future dynamics of fading in the cultural‐sponsorship relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an innovative buyer-supplier performance measurement system (PMS) (called relationship regulator – RelReg), aimed at stimulating collaboration on mutual performance. The RelReg is described all throughout the phases of its lifecycle: first, design features and visual representation of the new measurement framework are reported; second, guidelines on how to implement, use and review the system are provided, highlighting the role of the buyer and the supplier at each step.

A theory building and testing approach is applied. The RelReg developed features primarily ground on previous scientific contributions matched with empirical evidence collected through case studies, workshops and focus groups. The resulting conceptual model is then validated through a dyadic buyer-supplier case study.

Two conceptual frameworks are provided: the RelReg dashboard – a multidimensional PMS; and the RelReg lifecycle – set of activities to be performed by both the buyer and the supplier all along the adoption process. Moreover, empirical insights on relevant issues to be considered when adopting the RelReg are reported.

The RelReg represents an innovative and smart tool, allowing buyer-supplier dyads to collaborate on relationship performance.

Although it has been suggested that shippers’ demands regarding environmental practices appear to have an impact on the environmental work of LSPs, limited attention has been given to environmental practices in the relationships between LSPs and shippers. The purpose of this paper is to explore how dependencies between LSPs and shippers can influence the way in which environmental practices are coordinated in the relationships between them.

Four dyadic case studies, each consisting of one LSP and one shipper, provide the empirical basis for this paper.

Two types of dependencies are suggested as having an influence over the coordination of environmental practices in LSP-shipper relationships: dependence between LSPs and shippers as such; and dependence with regard to specific environmental practices. In addition, the environmental ambition of the actors is found to be of relevance when LSPs and shippers coordinate environmental practices between them. Based on these parameters, different coordination mechanisms for environmental practices in LSP-shipper relationships are discussed.

The research is limited to four cases in a Swedish context. Additional cases might provide other insights into LSP-shipper relationships and thereby lead to modifications of the proposed conceptual framework.

The results can help both LSPs and shippers improve their work with environmental practices through the use of the appropriate coordination mechanisms in their inter-organisational relationships.

Contrary to previous research, which mainly takes one party’s perspective, this paper takes a dyadic approach and thereby adds valuable knowledge to the inter-organisational aspects of LSPs’ environmental work.

The purpose of this paper is to challenge the focal firm perspective of much resource/capability research, identifying how a dyadic perspective facilitates identification of capabilities required for servitization.

Exploratory study consisting of seven dyadic relationships in five sectors.

An additional dimension of capabilities should be recognised; whether they are developed independently or interactively (with another actor). The following examples of interactively developed capabilities are identified: knowledge development, where partners interactively communicate to understand capabilities; service enablement, manufacturers work with suppliers and customers to support delivery of new services; service development, partners interact to optimise performance of existing services; risk management, customers work with manufacturers to manage risks of product acquisition/operation. Six propositions were developed to articulate these findings.

Interactively developed capabilities are created when two or more actors interact to create value. Interactively developed capabilities do not just reside within one firm and, therefore, cannot be a source of competitive advantage for one firm alone. Many of the capabilities required for servitization are interactive, yet have received little research attention. The study does not provide an exhaustive list of interactively developed capabilities, but demonstrates their existence in manufacturer/supplier and manufacturer/customer dyads.

Manufacturers need to understand how to develop capabilities interactively to create competitive advantage and value and identify other actors with whom these capabilities can be developed.

Previous research has focussed on relational capabilities within a focal firm. This study extends existing theories to include interactively developed capabilities. The paper proposes that interactivity is a key dimension of actors’ complementary capabilities.

The first purpose of this study is to explore logistics performance management practices and lessons learned in some supplier/retailer dyads across retail industries. A second purpose is to suggest a continued research agenda for logistics performance management across retail industries.

Case studies are conducted in four supplier/retailer dyads in different retailing industries in Sweden. The analysis is of a cross-case character and uses a pattern matching approach.

Large differences in practices within and between dyads are found. Some problems were indicated: lack of trust; difficulties in developing a collaborative culture; difficulties in relating metrics to customer value and lacking IT support. A previously unknown obstacle, the internal collaboration with category management, was identified. A good example was found in an industry standard. State-of-the-art descriptions, international comparisons, exploring the interface with the stores and combating identified problems were found to be relevant topics for continued research.

The limitations are mainly related to the small number of cases, but since the purpose of this study is exploratory, this should be acceptable. The theoretical contribution is a first step in the expansion of knowledge on logistics performance management from manufacturing to retailing companies.

The practical contribution includes insights in the shape of descriptions and lessons learned in different retail industries.

No identified study has explored logistics performance management as a whole across retail industries with a dyadic approach.