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The purpose of this paper is to highlight the ontological implications of combining network and system ontology to conceptualize industrial networks as the empirical manifestations of complex adaptive economic systems.

This paper contributes with a systematic discussion on how network and system ontology can be combined to produce better understandings of business networks. It also provides a review of the state-of-the art research literature on the topic as a starting point for the discussion.

Findings indicate that networks may be enclosed in each other constituting sub- and supra-networks comprising increasing complexity. In these cases, sub-networks that are black-boxed can be seen as entities in themselves producing inputs and outputs to the supra-network. Networks, once they become black-boxed, can assume the functions of generative mechanisms within a wider supra-network.

This research is conceptual in nature and needs to be complemented with empirical research. In addition, the literature review used one database complemented with papers from the IMP journal. A wider search could reveal additional research that can be of relevance for the development of the field.

This paper addresses the ontological and methodological issues arising from a mixed system and network ontology. These issues are commonly ignored or dealt with indirectly in extant literature. For any accumulation of knowledge in the field to be possible, the explication of a mixed ontology is important as it have conceptual and methodological consequences. Adopting such a mixed ontological position provides an ontology in line with empirical research of business practice.

The purpose of this paper is to survey existing inter-organisational information security research to scrutinise the kind of knowledge that is currently available and the way in which this knowledge has been brought about.

The results are based on a literature review of inter-organisational information security research published between 1990 and 2014.

The authors conclude that existing research has focused on a limited set of research topics. A majority of the research has focused management issues, while employees’/non-staffs’ actual information security work in inter-organisational settings is an understudied area. In addition, the majority of the studies have used a subjective/argumentative method, and few studies combine theoretical work and empirical data.

The findings suggest that future research should address a broader set of research topics, focusing especially on employees/non-staff and their use of processes and technology in inter-organisational settings, as well as on cultural aspects, which are lacking currently; focus more on theory generation or theory testing to increase the maturity of this sub-field; and use a broader set of research methods.

The authors conclude that existing research is to a large extent descriptive, philosophical or theoretical. Thus, it is difficult for practitioners to adopt existing research results, such as governance frameworks, which have not been empirically validated.

Few systematic reviews have assessed the maturity of existing inter-organisational information security research. Findings of authors on research topics, maturity and research methods extend beyond the existing knowledge base, which allow for a critical discussion about existing research in this sub-field of information security.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an account of who forms what market assets by making what market investments in a business network.

To investigate what market investments were made by certain actors into resource interfaces as market assets, the author draws on a case network based on an investigation of the Chilean salmon production network. To this end, the author chose the fish – being the focal object resource in that network – as a point of departure. The author systematically investigates the resource interfaces that this resource has with three other specific resources: feed, fishmeal, and vaccines in a thick case study.

This study shows that market investments entail committing resources to resource interfaces which turns them into market assets. Resource interfaces as market assets have implications on how we characterize and value resource interfaces. Multilateral resource interfaces become valuable to firms as a result of continuous market investments made into them. This produces different types of resource interfaces, some of which are of mediatory character bridging between distant resources in a network.

This study focuses on the market investments being made to create and sustain market assets. Of course such assets are linked to a firm’s internal assets which this study do not investigate. In addition, this study emphasizes the commitment of resources into existing resource interfaces, the ensuing creation of market assets, and its use and value for firms and downplays a firm’s need to account for market investments and the market investments required to create a new resource interface.

As resource interfaces are valuable market assets, it is important to understand the functioning of different types of resource interfaces so as to exploit their potential as efficient as possible. This paper shows that some resources act as bridging resources connecting the borders of two indirectly related resources. Controlling bridging resources becomes an essential task for managers in business networks.

Understanding the market investments into resource interfaces enables firms to become more skilled in organizing and controlling networks. These networks can play important roles in the economic development of society and create improved societal conditions for people, organizations, and economies.

By combining a market investment and market asset conceptualization of investments in networks with a resource interaction approach, this paper provides an enhanced understanding of resource interfaces as market assets. Theoretical implications for our understanding of resource interfaces – its value and character – are discussed.

Retail has evolved over the past century alongside megatrends such as urbanization, consumerism and digitalization. To contribute to existing knowledge on patterns of retail form evolution, the purpose of this paper is to investigate when and how novel retail forms have evolved in the Swedish sporting goods market.

An evolutionary approach that encompasses population thinking is used to interpret the history of sporting goods retailing in Sweden from the interwar era onwards. Drawing on archival data and interviews, the focus in the historical analysis is on the evolution of retail form variation in terms of size, strategy, product range and retail channel (online/offline).

The paper suggests that evolutionary mechanisms cumulatively have changed the sports retail population from a rather homogenous set of smaller generalist stores toward a larger variety and specialization in mainly two directions: one trajectory toward small and service-focused niche specialists and the other toward high-volume sales outlets.

The paper provides a detailed empirical account of sports retail history in Sweden and an application of theoretical concepts contributing to an integrated investigation of empirical issues and theoretical positions. It concludes that being able to attain “closures” – finding ways to close off a section of the market and avoid direct competition – has historically been a crucial capability for individual retailers to thrive.

The purpose of this article is to explore possible contributions to the development of models to define business networks conceptually, and identify and delineate them empirically by integrating concepts and ideas from “market exchange theory” originating in the works of Alderson.

Following a conceptual discussion defining business networks as a type of exchange system, empirical data were used to exemplify and illustrate the theoretical development ideas. From data on 22 business firms collected in 1999‐2001 in the form of transcribed interviews and other print documentation, a business network as a type of exchange system was identified comprising five business entities. This case serves as illustration to the remainder of the theoretical discussions throughout the paper.

Based on a conceptualisation of business networks as a type of exchange system and a notion of interaction encompassing exchange processes stemming from both market exchange theory and social exchange theory, it is suggested that business networks can be more consistently identified and delineated empirically using this theoretical base.

The empirical case is merely illustrative, and more extensive empirical work is needed to further test the ideas of business networks as a type of exchange system. The implications to the study of markets‐as‐networks are that these ideas can be used as a basis for identification, delineation and analysis of business networks.

This paper extends Alderson's work by suggesting a fourth type of transformation: transformation in ownership, as well as by developing a typology with five resource types in the exchange system. Furthermore, it provides a conceptual tool that can be used by researchers to identify, delineate and analyse business networks and incorporates market exchange theory.

The aim of this paper is to provide a solid theoretical base to the study of paradox in organized activity. It draws upon activity theory to show the managerial and analytical potential of the activity systems model (ASM) as a systematic tool to analyze paradox in organizational practice.

The methodology employed in the study can be described as a longitudinal multiple case study approach. The focal organization was followed over a period of three years. About 25 interviews and 50 participatory observations were made. Text documents were analysed using an analytical tool developed from theory – the “Analysis Readiness Review (ARR)” – to structure and categorize data.

This study shows that the locus of paradox can be empirically identified within and between the constituent elements of an ASM, and that the consequence of such paradox is the emergence of a new genetically more evolved ASM. Hence, paradox in organized activity will eventually usher in change, such as the rearrangement of the elements of organized activity, and the replacement of one or many of those elements.

This research is limited in that it models only two principal types of contradictions in activity systems, both of which are inner contradictions intrinsic to the activity system in question. The case study is merely indicative and more empirical research is needed to further extend our knowledge of paradox in various types of organized activity.

Managers can utilize the ARR‐tool as a systematic checklist to identify the elements of the organizational practice and to locate paradoxes. In doing so, they can actively take part in shaping the dialectical processes of change that the paradoxes create, by paying attention to the contradictions present in the activity system. This is the challenge to management that paradoxical organizational practice poses, and this paper provides one tool to help managers and researchers to better face this challenge.