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The transfer of organizational practices in multinational enterprises (MNEs), typically from the headquarters to foreign subsidiaries, has been a key theme in international business (IB) literature. Research on this topic increasingly acknowledges the important role of organizational actors external to the focal MNE. Furthermore, there is a growing interest in the microfoundational underpinnings of practice transfer as an important phenomenon in IB. This paper aims to bring together these two emerging research trends to outline an exciting and important avenue for further research.

This is a conceptual paper. This paper builds on prior empirical research to theorize different types of involvement of external organizational actors in the transfer process. This study further identifies specific mechanisms that lead to transfer outcomes in terms of practice adaptation.

The authors develop conceptual arguments regarding the role of external actors in the microfoundations of transfer. The involvement of external organizational actors can be either direct or indirect, and it can occur in the initiation stage at headquarters level and/or in the implementation stage at subsidiary level. The authors theorize how the involvement of external organizational actors in the transfer process shapes practice adaptation as a key outcome. This study summarizes the theorization with the help of propositions, and this study also identifies a set of research questions that can guide future research on this increasingly important topic.

This paper contributes to the literature by developing a research agenda to open up the black box regarding the role of external actors in the microfoundations of practice transfer in MNEs.

We examine the construction of “empty categories” – that is, categories created prior to the existence of producers and consumers – and their implications for industry emergence. Drawing on the case of the ji-biru category among Japanese microbreweries, we exemplify how external actors – including governments, the media, consultants, and other entities – frequently create empty categories that are “legitimate yet not legitimated” (Vergne & Wry, 2014). We show how such empty categories generate lower entry barriers, resulting in higher founding rates and significant innovation. We highlight how empty categories impede evolutionary forces by inhibiting shared understandings of what constitutes a legitimate category member.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate researchers' operationalization of the construct of embedment of overseas R&D subsidiaries.

First, the paper provides a systematic literature review of subsidiary embedment research. Second, it draws on resource dependence theory (RDT) and argues how embedment of overseas R&D subsidiaries should be treated as a more multi‐faceted and complex phenomenon than has been apparent in the literature to date.

The authors find a large variation in the operationalization of embedment (e.g. frequency of communication versus depth of integration versus direction of communication). They also find scant attention to the nature of differences between external actors (types of actors, including local and international). These represent weaknesses that inhibit the advancement of theory and policy within the context of the globalization of innovation.

Researchers should treat R&D subsidiary embedment as a multi‐level phenomenon consisting of resource‐dependence interactions between collective entities internal and external to the subsidiary. R&D subsidiary embedment research design can be improved by being: formative; multiple‐actor; bi‐directional; and longitudinal.

Managers should treat external R&D subsidiary embedment as pattern of resource dependencies in which the actors that matter most to R&D subsidiary performance are a function of the importance and availability of the innovation‐specific resources they contain. This involves building a capability in multi‐level networking with R&D resource providers in the external environment.

The contribution of the current paper is to provide a critical evaluation of scholarly treatment of the construct of R&D subsidiary embedment, and to develop a foundation for operationalizing and analyzing the external embedment of R&D subsidiaries.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse if and how technology districts use proximity dimensions (such as geographical, organizational, and cognitive) as a communication resource for accessing external knowledge sources.

To achieve this purpose, the organizational and cognitive links between technology districts' actors and external ones are identified and then the new geographical boundaries of the districts are drawn. A case study related to an Italian technology district (Torino Wireless) is provided in order to identify how different research organizations located in the district use proximity dimensions for reaching knowledge sources external to the district, then re‐shaping its geographical boundaries.

The empirical study enables identification of the actors connected to the technology districts by means of geographical, organizational, and cognitive proximity, and their locations. Moreover, results show that organizational proximity is mainly adopted to link actors located near the district area. While, cognitive proximity is mainly adopted to connect actors geographically distant from the district.

As regards technology district strategic behaviour, it seems particularly crucial to exploit all the three dimensions of proximity. In particular, the technology district of Torino Wireless should increase its use of organizational proximity to be connected with external knowledge sources.

The paper proposes a methodology for identifying the external actors connected with the technology districts by means of proximity. Furthermore, the relationships between organizational and geographical proximity, and cognitive and geographical proximity are also investigated.

Following the line traced by two previous works of Albino et al. and Messeni Petruzzelli, the paper aims to analyze how technology districts reach and acquire external competencies and capabilities by means of organizational and cognitive proximity. This allows districts to modify their geographical boundaries and evolve into technology clusters.

The research design is based on a case study methodology. In particular, two actual technology districts are analyzed, namely Castel Romano and Toulouse, in order to show how they use organizational, and cognitive proximity to acquire external knowledge sources and re‐shape their geographical boundaries.

Based on the findings of the empirical study, two main propositions are formulated. The first proposition refers to the negative relationship between the geographical distance to the district's actors and the use of organizational proximity as a means for reaching external knowledge sources. By contrast, the second proposition indicates the positive relationship between the geographical distance to the district's actors and the use of cognitive proximity as a means for reaching external knowledge sources.

As regards the firm strategic behaviors, it seems particularly crucial to exploit all the three dimensions of proximity, in order to guarantee openness and sustain innovativeness and competitiveness. Concerning policy implications, the local governments should address their actions to help and promote the openness of technology districts and the formation of technology clusters. With this aim, actions should be devoted also to sustaining single local firms that are part of a technology cluster but not of a technology district. These, in fact, by increasing their competitive position, may generate positive externalities in the local area, fostering the diffusion and sharing of knowledge in the area and, then, acting as knowledge gatekeepers for the whole area.

The paper extends the findings of previous works linking three proximity dimensions in a holistic framework that explains the different use of organizational and cognitive proximity to acquire knowledge, according to the geographical distance between organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to increase understanding of the logic of business network formation among the co-located and external actors of a facility.

The research adopts a theory-building approach through developing propositions inductively from the empirical case study on four purposefully sampled modern service station facilities. The focus is on analyzing how a facility and its inherent co-located actors represent an entity that forms a business network with external actors in the facility’s environment.

The findings propose that when co-located with a large number of actors, the facility and its actors represent an entity that is connected to a wide business network of multiple external actors. On the other hand, when co-located with a small number of actors, the facility becomes a part of the overall supply in the surrounding business environment with a differentiated offering for competitive advantage.

The research suggests that an appropriate co-locating strategy, for example, when planning the tenant mix of the facility, can contribute to creating a vivid business network in the external environment, which raises the facility to a role of a central entity in such a network.

The findings explaining how co-location affects the businesses within the facility and within a wider networked environment are novel to the scholarly knowledge on co-location. The research bridges the theories of co-location and business networks that have been treated as separate discourses in previous research.

Supply chain governance constitutes the rules, structures and institutions that guide supply chains toward various objectives, including environmental sustainability. Previous studies have provided insight into the relationship between governance and sustainability but have overlooked two crucial dimensions: power dynamics and the influence of outside actors. This paper aims to address these two gaps by measuring differential power (i.e. power asymmetries) among actors across the supply chain, including external actors.

This paper quantifies power dynamics across the entire chain through a structured survey in which supply chain participants rank their peer’s ability to affect environmental and social outcomes. This paper tests this approach by surveying 200 industry professionals (e.g. feedlot owners, retailers) and external actors (e.g. NGOs) in the US beef sector.

Respondents ranked the most powerful actors as follows: feedlot owners; processing plant owners; and regulatory agencies. Results also revealed that trade associations, retailers and cow–calf producers and ranchers perceive a sense of powerlessness. This study reveals multiple power nodes and confirms a shift in the power structure depending on which indicator respondents considered (e.g. environmental impacts vs employee safety). This study concludes that the buyer–producer dichotomy often used to assess supply chain governance fails to capture the complex dynamics among actors within supply chains.

This study demonstrates a novel approach to measure perceptions of power in supply chains. This method enables researchers to map networks of power across entire supply chains, including internal and external actors, to advance understanding of supply chain governance dynamics. Previous studies have misidentified who governs environmental outcomes in supply chains, and NGOs have overestimated the power of consumers and retailers to influence producers.

The purpose of this study is to provide deeper insights into the extent to which an independent actor(s) actively collaborates with the internationalizing firm so as to jointly determine the choice of market, the mode of entry and the level of investment committed in the market to be entered and even after the entry (i.e. the ongoing activities).

Against the previous purpose section, a qualitative research approach is selected to guide the exploratory nature of this study. Thus qualitative data are used to build the two case studies because case studies are generally a more appropriate approach when “how” and “why” questions are being posed and when the investigator has little control over events.

Based on two multiple case studies, one major finding of the study shows that independent actors, with their interconnected networks, have played and are still playing a major role in influencing the internationalization processes of each of the two firms in this study.

This is an original paper developed based on two case studies which have not been published in any journal before. The paper highlights the role of external independent actors in internationalization, which is not mentioned at all or stressed in the extant literature.

This chapter focuses on the circumstances under which active clients in universities construct external management consultants as actors. Much research focuses on how consultants legitimize decisions and trends in business organizations, but we know little about how consultants become legitimized as actors in other organizational fields. In the academic field, clients are embedded in a variety of organizational settings embedded in different institutional logics, which determine their sense making. By analyzing how consultants are legitimized, the authors contribute to a better understanding of the organizational preconditions that support the construction of an external expert as an actor. By focusing on IT and strategy consulting in academia, further, the authors discuss the role of competing institutional logics in legitimization processes and the importance of intra-organizational communities.

Smart services have gained attention both among academics and practitioners, but manufacturing firms struggle in getting their new smart services extensively adopted by customers, employees and distributors. The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyse the requirements of different actors and the interconnectedness between their requirements in introducing smart services.

An embedded single-case study was conducted with a manufacturing firm and its network, including its sales and service personnel, customers and external salespeople. Data were collected via 30 in-depth interviews.

The paper advances the multi-actor perspective by identifying the requirements of key actors for introducing smart services. These requirements were divided into eight categories: value of smart services, reliability of smart services, competence for smart services, data security and management, attitude towards services, reliance, knowledge of installed base of equipment and services and service reputation. The findings reveal the interconnectedness of different actors’ requirements for introducing new smart services and how discussion and relationships between actors affected their requirements.

The findings represent a comprehensive template of requirements, as well as mapping the interconnectedness of actors’ requirements, serving as a practical guideline for managers.

This study characterises the introduction of smart services as a multi-dimensional, interconnected effort by manufacturing firms and their networks. It shows that service introduction cannot be viewed as manufacturer’s development task or customers’ adoption decision only. Propositions are offered on how multiple actors’ viewpoints can be combined to achieve success in introducing smart services.