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This paper aims to provide guidance for managers so that they may develop advanced supply chain management (SCM) capabilities in the context of asymmetric alliances. These alliances, generally characterised by large dissimilarities between the partners, often facilitate value-creating opportunities.

Using case studies, the paper analyses similarities and differences in SCM between symmetric and asymmetric alliances within supply networks. It focusses on the key dimensions of complementarity, value distribution, relational management and specialisation.

It was found that the question of complementarity, although important, should not be equated to the need for symmetry but to the ability of the firms in the supply network to learn to work together. For small firms who seek co-creation with large partners, this means collaboration, specialisation through relation-specific investments, flexibility and understanding the overall value system in which their business relationships compete is important.

Small firms seeking to develop advanced SCM capabilities have to accept responsibility for selecting a reduced number of key partners and managing relationships. Firms should proactively use the contractual process to learn about partners' expectations and goals and to identify committed champions. These factors play an important role in developing communications and trust, as small firms do not have easy access to senior managers in large corporations.

This paper discovered a novel concept – dual value appropriation – where partners do not divide the total value generated as frequently proposed in the literature, but that it is fully appropriated, as it represents a different value proposition for each of them.

This paper aims to develop a process model of business-to-business (B2B) relationship recovery after a transgression has placed the future of the relationship in doubt. The research questions ask, How are relationships recovered? and How does the relationship strength pre-transgression influence the recovery process?

The process model is empirically grounded with first-hand narratives of owner managers (OMs) and key personnel of Irish small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Using the critical incident technique, 25 owner and manager interviews in 23 SMEs resulted in 48 recovery narratives.

The findings identify four types of outcomes flowing from two potential recovery process paths. The strength of the relationship pre-transgression and the desire to maintain the relationship influence the parties’ actions during the recovery process and the status of the relationship subsequently.

The authors acknowledge that each narrative in the data are the informants’ construction of the phenomenon. The B2B relationship recovery process model offers OMs and SMEs a blueprint of what to expect, and how they might reach for recovery instead of the relationship ending.

Prior studies either treat recovery as a minor part of an ending process or focus on a single sub-process, leaving the overall process under-researched. This study contributes to the B2B relationship dynamics discussion with a processual view of the overall recovery process, including recovery sub-processes, paths and temporal outcomes in different types of relationships and takes into account the pre-transgression relationship.

This paper proposes a framework that considers some key concepts to design and manage supply chains in both national and international contexts. For a better understanding, it is intended to illustrate this framework with the case of Carrefour in both Spain and China.

In the form of a case study the paper explains global strategies in both countries. The paper also discusses similarities and differences in the supply chain management in both contexts.

The paper found application of core SCM concepts to a leader distribution firm. “Thinking global and acting local” is also pertinent to application in the management of supply chains.

Managers may identify key processes and consider the possible contributions of each to the efficiency of their own chains. This case study could be also used as an example of the successful management of the supply chain of a company leader in its sector.

The present paper illustrates a leader company based on real data.

The purpose of this paper is to establish a framework for clarifying and extending the concept of inter‐firm market orientation (IMO) and to complement the relatively small body of literature related to this concept.

The conceptual framework is informed by empirical research based on a longitudinal multi‐case study.

This research identifies a nexus linking IMO with value creation in inter‐firm partnerships. The findings also suggest that IMO has an impact on companies' performance in terms of knowledge transfer, innovation and market access.

IMO contributes to value creation processes in the context of strategic networks.

A discussion of these findings, together with implications for practice and proposals for further research, is provided.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the advantages that an intermodal logistics platform may provide to companies integrating a supply chain, both to manufacturers/distributors and to logistics providers.

This paper introduces a new logistics platform, PLAZA, the largest in Europe, and which was installed in Zaragoza, where some international companies, including Inditex, are established.

The intermodality and integration provided by an intermodal logistics platform may provide competitive advantages to global supply chains.

This paper is based on a specific case study and, therefore, the conclusions may be only partially generalized to other domains. However, the case results from this example may offer a useful guide to assist managers of global supply chains.

Firms should consider the option of intermodality and the integration of some of the activities of its supply chain in order to decrease transportation costs and lead time, and increase customer service, among other advantages.

The paper provides some practical insights from an intermodal logistics platform and the advantages that may be generated for companies.

This paper aims to study sustainable business practices of two Spanish small and medium enterprise (SMEs) belonging to different sectors: a winery and a paint company. Special attention is paid to the drivers of such business practices and the lessons that can be learnt from them.

This research employs a comparative case study approach. The authors describe and compare two business cases from different industry sectors. This paper concludes with several findings that could be of interest for some other companies, as well as interesting areas of future research.

A comparison of sustainable business practices and their drivers. Similarities and differences between companies lead to different approaches to sustainability. Sustainability may be understood as a strategic tool in order to achieve competitive advantages and help companies successfully operate internationally.

The main limitation of this research is the specific sectors in which it has been carried out that can limit the application of the findings. Further research in additional industry sectors needs to be done to support the implications found in this paper.

Companies need to consider sustainability practices as a long‐term investment instead of as an immediate cost. Culture is a decisive factor in the implementation of sustainable practices.

Customers can force companies to implement sustainable practices. However, it has been observed that sometimes there is a need for strict regulations in the sector to encourage companies to implement such practices since customers may not be influenced by the company's sustainable practices.

This research studies and compares actual sustainable business practices in two SMEs based in Spain, but of international activity and belonging to different industry sectors. The main drivers and characteristics of sustainable practices are compared and general implications are drawn from the study.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how small to medium‐sized enterprise firms can develop internationalization processes successfully.

A case study is used to illustrate the milestones of the global process.

The paper finds that, although internationalization is a complicated task, the adequate management of resources allows firms to achieve their objectives.

The paper takes as reference a national culture‐based hand‐crafted product, which is really difficult to internationalize.

Although value co-creation has been widely analyzed in digital contexts and various types of services (tourism, healthcare, etc.), it has received less study in the area of retail distribution. This study proposes that trust in the retailer and perceived support can encourage co-creation behavior on various levels: a basic level related to communication of service errors and a moderate-high level related to participation in service innovation. This study also proposes modeling for two different segments according to the participation in a loyalty program and according to the relationship duration.

A survey (N = 644) was used to test the model in the context of the consumer goods retail industry. Confirmatory factor analysis and multigroup structural equation modeling techniques were used to assess the proposed model.

The results show differences in the formation of co-creation behaviors depending on the customers analyzed. To encourage communication of service errors, customers affiliated to the program and customers with the longest customer-firm relationships must trust the distributor. Perceived support is crucial in encouraging feedback on service errors among non-affiliated and new customers. For promoting service innovation, the most significant antecedent is perceived support, followed by trust, independently of whether or not the customer belongs to the loyalty program. Customers with the longest relationship participate in co-innovation motivated equally by trust and perceived support. Customers with shorter relationship duration only participate in co-innovation if they perceived support.

This study contributes to deepening knowledge of co-creation behavior in the field of retail distribution. To date, research in this context has not considered the existence of various levels of co-creation: the basic level related to feedback on service errors and the moderate/high level related to participation in service co-innovation. Nor have studies tested the influence of trust and perceived support on these co-creation behaviors. Further, this study is the first study to integrate two significant variables that moderate retailers' strategy in the same model: membership in a loyalty program and duration of customer-firm relationship.

The study aims to explore the themes responsible for employee orientation and further their role in building strong customer relationships in telecom and organized retail outlets in emerging markets.

Employing the qualitative approach, a total of 31 in-depth interviews with customer relationship management (CRM) officers of telecom and organized outlets were carried out. Data were analysed using NVIVO-12 plus and ATLAS tools.

The analysis extracted 13 unique themes namely training and development, communication skills, convincing skills, interpersonal skills, knowledge management, grievance handling, organisation's culture development, service climate, adaptive behaviour, customer retention skills, customer profiling, trust and commitment, and suitability of employees. The results claimed that these themes can assist in building strong customer relationships. However, the extent of the significance of themes may vary for telecom and organized retail outlets.

The findings have vital implications for frontline employees to drive customer value as they directly involve with customers. Findings further suggest that hiring of employees according to their location and catchment area of outlets are utmost important.

Employee orientation is an indispensable determinant in building a sustainable relationship with customers through uniqueness and consistency in meeting customers' expectations. This is a first attempt to explore the various unique themes responsible for employee orientation and the imperative role of such themes in maintaining long-lasting customer relationships.

There are two purposes of this paper: first, to analyze the effect of size and other organizational factors (IT knowledge, IT external support and the level of employees' education) on the use of e‐business; and second, to identify similarities and differences among these factors in micro, small, medium‐sized and large enterprises.

The proposed model is empirically tested using data from the Sectorial e‐Business W@tch survey. A logit estimation for the whole sample and for each type of firm size has been implemented on the use of e‐business.

The study finds positive and significant effects of all the organizational factors on the intensity of e‐business use. When analyzing the effect of size, it was found that medium‐sized and large firms are more likely to use e‐business more intensively. Although medium‐sized and large firms are similar, some differences have been found between small and medium‐sized firms. Only small firms use IT outsourcing as a key factor to use e‐business.

This study is based on a cross‐sectional data set. Longitudinal research would be needed for comparing results over time. Future studies could focus on the use of each type of e‐business technology, instead of a global measure of e‐business use. Future research could also analyze the differences of e‐business adoption rates among countries.

The paper concludes that small and micro firms are less likely to conduct e‐business than medium‐sized and large firms. An important influence on the use of e‐business is workforce education, implying that training could substitute hiring IT employees. Outsourcing IT activities is a suitable strategy only for small firms.

The paper contributes to the literature on e‐business with new evidence of the importance of size and human capital. Additionally, an analysis for each firm size has been done, which allows comparison of results.