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This paper aims to investigate which network relationships foster the early development of a sustainable new venture (SNV) and how sustainability as the core characteristic of the new venture shapes those network relationships.

This paper relies on a qualitative approach. The primary data source is 25 interviews with 18 key informants of 15 Italian SNVs. The fashion industry is the empirical setting due to its negative environmental and social impacts and shifts toward sustainability during the past decade.

The paper identifies six types of network relationships that affect the development of fashion SNVs. It proposes sustainability-enhanced and sustainability-enabled network relationships and relates them to trust and legitimation in the network.

The study enriches the theoretical debate on networks, new ventures and sustainability by dealing with the case of SNVs in a traditional sector. This paper presents managerial implications for entrepreneurs and policymakers.

This paper contributes to the debate on society’s sustainable development by emphasizing how networks can affect the growth of SNVs.

This paper fills a research gap in a novel manner. The paper contributes to the recent debate on new ventures and sustainability from the market as network approach. It identifies relevant networks, their contribution and the role of sustainability. The study refers to SNVs in traditional nontechnological industries.

This paper aims to integrate the consumption perspective within the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) debate. The study delves into how consumer communities can be conceived like other network business actors. The perspective of sustainable new ventures (SNVs) in the fashion industry is adopted, considering their specific connection with consumer communities.

Adopting a multiple case study methodology, this paper uses a qualitative approach. Data collection mainly relies on interviews conducted with 10 SNVs in the fashion industry; this sector is a fertile ground for studying sustainability and consumer communities. For data analysis, the abductive approach of systematic combining is applied.

The paper identifies four distinct types of consumer communities and four roles that they can assume as business actors in the business network. Owing to their engagement in these specific roles, consumer communities become part of the SNVs’ network, akin to other business-to-business players.

This study represents one of the initial endeavors to introduce consumption into the IMP theoretical framework. In this paper’s conceptualization, consumer communities are groups of consumers and collective actors in the business network. Additionally, this study advances the research on sustainability as a network concept by including consumer communities’ roles in business networks.

This study aims to explore what characteristics contribute to the definition of relevance in business-to-business (B2B) marketing research and how/why different strands of B2B marketing maintain or lose their relevance.

This study is conceptual. It adopts a performative-phenomenal standpoint for B2B marketing research and approaches relevance through the concept of episteme, which is considered pivotal for understanding this phenomenon.

This study proposes four axioms that define the characteristics of relevance in B2B marketing research and discusses their implications for scholars and practitioners. Consequently, an action plan for revitalizing B2B marketing research is developed, comprising learning and temporal dimensions, resulting in nine different relevance types.

The central argument put forward in this study is that different research strands of B2B marketing have deeply rooted epistemic underpinnings that influence their interpretation of relevance. Consequently, fostering dialogue between practitioners and scholars is considered necessary to sustain relevance in B2B marketing research. B2B scholars are urged to think beyond their subspecialized silos and acknowledge how the business environment and the various strands of B2B marketing congruently shape B2B marketing relevance, while also embracing research methods that bring them closer to business practice.

Marketing practitioners and academics continue to drift apart. This study puts forward three recommendations to bring marketing academics and practitioners closer together.

The study contributes to the B2B marketing literature by grappling with the theory-praxis gap and critically exploring what constitutes relevance in B2B marketing research.

The purpose of this paper is to inquire into how conceptualising is done in the industrial network approach (INA).

The description and analysis of conceptualising is based on key INA references and an example illustrating the characteristics of conceptualising in individual studies.

The paper concludes that there is an open and interactive way of conceptualising in the INA. The empirical and theoretical grounding achieved through combining concepts in individual empirical studies interplays with conceptual development in the research community over time.

Three paradoxes are suggested for further discussion of conceptualising as a key element in theorising in the INA community.

By explicating how INA researchers engage in conceptualising both in individual empirical studies and as a community, the authors identify characteristics similar to the empirical phenomena in focus of the research: interaction, combining and heterogeneity of concepts.

Future is rarely explicitly addressed or problematized in business network research. This study aims to examine the possibilities of developing a business actor’s future orientation to network studies and imports ideas and concepts from futures research to support the development.

The study is conceptual and interdisciplinary. The authors critically analyze how extant studies grounded in the sensemaking view and process research approach integrate future time and how theoretical myopia hinders the adoption of a future orientation.

The prevailing future perspective is restricted to managers’ perceptions and actions at present, ignoring the anticipation and exploration of alternative longer-term futures. Future time is generally conceived as embedded in managers’ cognitive processes or is seen as part of the ongoing interaction, where the time horizon to the future is not noticed or is at best short.

To enable a forward-looking perspective, researchers should move the focus from expectation building in business interaction to purposeful preparation of alternative future(s) and from the view of seeing future as enacted in the present to envisioning of both near-term and more distant futures.

This study addresses the growing need of business actors to anticipate future developments in the rapidly changing market conditions and to innovate and change business practices to save the planet for future generations.

This study elaborates on actors’ future orientation to business markets and networks, proposes the integration of network research concepts with concepts from futures studies and poses new types of research questions for future research.

In today’s business settings, most firms strive to closely integrate their resources and activities with those of their business partners. However, these linkages tend to create lock-in effects when changes are needed. In such situations, firms need to generate new space for action. The purpose of this paper is twofold: analysis of potential action spaces for restructuring; and examination of how action spaces can be exploited and the consequences accompanying this implementation.

Network dynamics originate from changes in the network interdependencies. This paper is focused on the role of the three dual connections – actors–activities, actors–resources and activities–resources, identified as network vectors. In the framing of the study, these network vectors are combined with managerial action expressed in terms of networking and network outcome. This framework is then used for the analysis of major restructuring of the car industries in the USA and Europe at the end of the 1900s.

This study shows that the restructuring of the car industry can be explained by modifications in the three network vectors. Managerial action through changes of the vector features generated new action space contributing to the transition of the automotive network. The key to successful exploitation of action space was interaction – with individual business partners, in triadic constellations, as well as on the network level.

This paper presents a new view of network dynamics by relying on the three network vectors. These concepts were developed in the early 1990s. This far, however, they have been used only to a limited extent.

The purpose of this study is to examine supplier–customer capabilities in solution co-creation and how they are matched from a relational process perspective.

Using a qualitative approach, the authors identified 20 sets of supplier–customer capability matches by conducting in-depth interviews with 34 matched informants and retrieving suppliers’ archival data (project documents and success stories).

The authors identified 20 capability matching sets (21 supplier and 23 customer capabilities) and developed a process-based model of bilateral capabilities that match at the organizational level in solution co-creation. The authors reveal their match forms (complementarity and compatibility) and offer suggestions for future research.

This paper is qualitative; quantitative studies are required for testing and extending the initial conclusions.

This study guides the supplier and customer to cultivate different capabilities at different stages of solution co-creation and alerts them to the importance of capability complementarity and compatibility.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to introduce the bilateral perspective into dynamic capability research in the context of solution co-creation. The authors discuss the abilities the supplier and customer must possess at different stages and how they match dynamically. The analysis extends the research on solution-specific capabilities and dynamic matching, offering useful implications for solution co-creation in practice.

I aimed to develop a conceptual model of power dynamics focused on an anticipated power consequences in business relationships in a context of high environmental turbulence. I also intended to discuss the theoretical significance of my findings and indicate future research directions.

Conceptual article indicating future research directions.

The proposal of the conceptual model of power dynamics focusing on anticipated power consequences in business relationships.

The limitations of the presented model stem from the critique of the holistic view. My contribution lies in advancing our understanding of power dynamics in business relationships amid significant environmental change. I elucidate how transformative practices relate to power outcomes and value creation in these relationships.

The model highlights the importance of a mindful approach to managing business relationships in a turbulent environment. It emphasizes considering expected power outcomes from activities and their impact on creating value in these relationships.

The proposed concept resonates with systems theory, which emphasizes how different levels of business relationships are interconnected. It enables the analysis of power dynamics at the individual level, such as employees, consumers and local communities. These groups often include the most vulnerable individuals impacted by relational business structures.

The focus on anticipated power consequences of transformative practices triggered by high environmental turbulences, while considering the impact of power distribution of relationship actors on the sharing of benefits and costs.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between being members of social media business networks and SME performance by comparing business performance between family-owned SMEs that are members and non-members of social media business networks.

The analysis empirically draws on cross-sectional data of 9,292 English and Welsh family-owned SMEs from the UK's Government Small Business Survey 2015. Propensity Score Matching (PSM) is applied to control for selection bias and differences in firm characteristics before comparing business performance, measured in terms of annual turnover, sales-growth intention and innovation between family-owned SMEs that are members and non-members of social media business networks.

The findings show that family-owned SMEs that are members of social media business networks are more likely to have higher prior turnover and to grow their sales than non-members. Also, they are more likely to report being innovative in products and processes than non-members. The empirical results acknowledge the importance of online business networks and digital social capital on enhanced family-owned business performance.

This paper is the first to explore the comparative analysis of business performance between family-owned SMEs that are members and non-members of social media business networks. This paper is important for the development of family business research by providing a comprehensive evidence-based analysis regarding the importance of online business networks to improve family-owned business performance, given the significant contribution of digital business activities to the UK economy.

Effective inventory management is crucial for SMEs due to limited resources and higher risks like cash flow, storage space, and stockouts. Hence, the aim is to explore how technology and know-how can be integrated with inventory practices and impact operational performance.

The basis of the analysis was collecting papers from a wide range of databases, which included Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. In the first phase of the process, a search string with as many as nine related keywords was used to obtain 175 papers. It further filtered them based on their titles and abstracts to retain 95 papers that were included for thorough analysis.

The study introduced innovative methods of measuring inventory practices by exploring the impact of know-how. It is the first of its kind to identify and demonstrate how technical, technological, and behavioral know-how can influence inventory management practices and ultimately impact the performance of emerging SMEs. This study stands out for its comprehensive approach, which covers traditional and modern inventory management technologies in a single study.

The study provides valuable insights into the interplay between technical, technological, and behavioral know-how in inventory management practices and their effects on the performance of emerging SMEs in Industry 5.0 in the light of RBV theory.

The RBV theory and the Industry 5.0 paradigm are used in this study to explore how developing SMEs' inventory management practices influence their performance. This study investigates the effects of traditional and modern inventory management systems on business performance. Incorporating RBV theory with the Industry 5.0 framework investigates firm-specific resources and technological advances in the current industrial revolution. This unique technique advances the literature on inventory management and has industry implications.