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This study provides a comprehensive framework of adaptation in triadic business relationship settings in the service sector. The framework is based on the industrial network approach (see, e.g., Axelsson & Easton, 1992; Håkansson & Snehota, 1995a). The study describes how adaptations initiate, how they progress, and what the outcomes of these adaptations are. Furthermore, the framework takes into account how adaptations spread in triadic relationship settings. The empirical context is corporate travel management, which is a chain of activities where an industrial enterprise, and its preferred travel agency and service supplier partners combine their resources. The scientific philosophy, on which the knowledge creation is based, is realist ontology. Epistemologically, the study relies on constructionist processes and interpretation. Case studies with in-depth interviews are the main source of data.

Previous research suggests that constructions of legitimacy play a central role in the development of markets, yet little attention has been given to how that legitimacy is constructed through the material practices of market actors. This paper aims to address this gap via an examination of cultural intermediaries in the fine wine market of Shanghai.

An interpretive thematic analysis was carried out on data from 13 semi-structured interviews with fine wine intermediaries based primarily in Shanghai (5 wine writers/educators; 5 sommeliers/retailers; 3 brand representatives).

The dimensions of the legitimation of wine were examined, identifying three key themes: the legitimacy of intermediaries as experts; the legitimacy of a particular mode of wine consumption; the legitimacy of the intermediaries as exemplars for not-yet-legitimate consumers. These findings suggest that cultural intermediaries’ personal, consuming preferences and practices are significant to the formation of a new market, and that they must negotiate potential tensions between interactions with legitimate, not-yet-legitimate and illegitimate consumers.

Limitations with regard to generalizability are discussed with regard to potential future research.

The focus on cultural intermediaries and dimensions of legitimation can be used to examine the case of other emerging markets to anticipate the pathways to institutionalizing new forms of taste and consumption practices.

The paper offers an empirical insight into the market dynamics of distinction in the Shanghai wine market and conceptual insight into the importance of cultural intermediaries as exemplar consumers.

The literature on job networks predicts that employees referred through networks would be better matched and mentored and thus would have lower turnover. However, existing research on this question has neglected the ways in which network effects are contingent upon firm organization. Using the personnel records of a large retail bank, we examine the relationship between network recruitment and turnover among new employees. There was no significant difference between network referrals and non-referrals, but referrals eligible for the employee referral program did have lower turnover. These results are explicable in light of the bank’s organization.

The realities of economic life have forced most export-capable firms to “go global” because they will either “export or die” (Czinkota, Ronkainen, Moffett, & Moynihan, 2001). Exporting is the very first step of internationalization for many firms (Johanson & Vahlne, 1977; Cavusgil & Nevin, 1981) and most small businesses (Osborne, 1996). It continues to be an important mode of internationalization for firms (Charles & Beamish, 2003) and management research on export development has become “one of the most pioneering, established and mature streams of the export literature” (Leonidou & Katsikeas, 1996).

This chapter considers the role of technology transfer intermediaries (TTIs) in the processes of innovation in networks involving universities, research and development centres, and business firms from an international perspective. A diversity of types of TTIs is recognised in terms of their particular interests in the operation of innovation processes and the conditions they impose in transactions involving intellectual property. It will identify the various objectives of sponsoring stakeholders as differentiating the missions and accountabilities and, in turn, determining the focus and roles of different types of TTIs and the interactions and networking between them, both formal and informal.

In discussion, the chapter will propose that the significance of systemic influence on the processes of technology transfer and innovation should be researched at two levels. At the micro-level of personal interactions, examining how systemic influences shape tacit knowledge transfer between and learning by individuals engaged in research and innovation processes. Second, at the level of national cultures, examining the ways in which the cultural context institutionalises patterns of innovation and technology transfer networking.

Management, over time, takes a series of specific strategic actions. As strategic actions we define actions aimed at influencing how the actor is related to other actors. We propose that when a strategic action is committed affects the outcome of the action. An important reason for this is that strategic actions over time can be regarded as interdependent sequences of actions. Timing and sequences may be more or less – or is not at all – preplanned by an actor. In a network perspective a focal actor is dependent on other actors that commit strategic actions. This creates interdependencies that vary over time, which a focal actor influences in a proactive, interactive and/or reactive way. The timing of strategic actions is a general, quite complex and elusive phenomenon to be handled in practice and theory. Despite its importance, very little research has been published.

This paper examines the attempts to create new online markets for the trading of wholesale standardized goods during the late 1990s. The vast majority of these business-to-business (“B2B”) exchanges failed. These failed attempts provide invaluable data on the necessary underpinnings of online commodity markets and the social dynamics that drive them. Focusing on the US market for propane as our case, we discuss the model that drove the development of many business-to-business exchanges, the social dynamics of the propane industry and the attempts to create an online propane market, the role of informal risk management, and some initial lessons about the design of markets. Ignoring the behavioral realities of markets led to designs and technology that in many cases were incompatible with the needs of market participants.