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This chapter is a response to observations from previous chapters where we have learnt that the context surrounding B2B sales seem to deviate quite a lot from a traditional market view based on neoclassic theory. In the first part of this chapter, we contrast the two different views of markets and with that as our reference point, we discuss some general implications for marketing, sales, and purchasing.

The chapter looks deeper into a “markets-as-networks” perspective and argues that such lenses applied on marketing and sales activities in business markets will have implications on ways to organize marketing and sales. Actors, activities, and resources are embedded into structures (activity, actor, and resource structures), and it is important to have a reasonable sense of what and how these structures look in order to make the best priorities for the short- and long-term success of the business.

The chapter addresses how the market system surrounding the supplier–customer interchange contributes to setting the scene for operating exchange processes. Five general network themes and challenges for sales and marketing have been identified and explored. Against these, the chapter puts organizational issues in focus. Two aspects are in focus of this concluding discussion: first, organizational variety and ongoing processes of organizational adaptation, and second, coordination and communication.

This paper illuminates the distinction between individual and organizational actors in business-to-business markets as well as the coexistence of formal and informal mechanisms of coordination in multinational corporations. The main questions addressed include the following. (1) What factors influence the occurrence of personal contacts of foreign subsidiary managers in industrial multinational corporations? (2) How such personal contacts enable coordination in industrial markets and within multinational firms? The theoretical context of the paper is based on: (1) the interaction approach to industrial markets, (2) the network approach to industrial markets, and (3) the process approach to multinational management. The unit of analysis is the foreign subsidiary manager as the focal actor of a contact network. The paper is empirically focused on Portuguese sales subsidiaries of Finnish multinational corporations, which are managed by either a parent country national (Finnish), a host country national (Portuguese) or a third country national. The paper suggests eight scenarios of individual dependence and uncertainty, which are determined by individual, organizational, and/or market factors. Such scenarios are, in turn, thought to require personal contacts with specific functions. The paper suggests eight interpersonal roles of foreign subsidiary managers, by which the functions of their personal contacts enable inter-firm coordination in industrial markets. In addition, the paper suggests eight propositions on how the functions of their personal contacts enable centralization, formalization, socialization and horizontal communication in multinational corporations.

This paper exposes the development of markets-as-networks theory from formal inception in the mid-1970s until 2010 state-of-the-art, en route presenting its historical roots. This largely European-based theory challenges the conventional, dichotomous view of the business world as including firms and markets, arguing for the existence of relational governance structures (the so-called “interfirm cooperation”) in addition to hierarchical and transactional ones.

This chapter addresses the topic of ‘localisation policies’ (measures and incentives for attracting and developing companies) in relation to the actual subjects of such policies, their aims and targets. The existence of business relationships and networks, and the ubiquity of interaction processes make contemporary policy measures problematic in all these three aspects. Conceiving the business landscape as interactive and heterogeneous business networks leads the authors to argue that policy measures become ineffective when these neglect the networked nature of the business landscape. It is argued that localisation policies consist of multiple initiatives and involve ‘a network of policy actors’, rather than only one institution. Acknowledging the plurality of policy actors and means leads to focus on the need to orchestrate multifaceted localisation policies. Incentives, regulatory frameworks and public investments are some of the elements of the toolbox of localisation policy. The authors also argue that the business network perspective translates into the need to tailor policy measures differentiated for specific companies.

Companies inevitably interact and entrench in complex organic systems of business relationships with other. These business networks are not objectively defined, instead they are shaped by the subjective perception of actors. This inherent subjectivity is associated with the notion of network pictures, that is, a research tool that researchers or managers can use to grasp practitioner theories. In this chapter, we discuss how the importance of identifying these theories results mainly from underlying principles of sense-making theory, as well as from the idea around performativity. Drawing on these theoretical groundings, this chapter has two objectives: to explore how practitioners actually perceive their business surroundings and to assess the extent of overlapping between (IMP Group) academic theories and practitioner theories. To achieve these objectives, the researchers use a dimensional network pictures model previously developed in the literature to analyze the network pictures of 49 top-level managers across 17 companies from two very distinct contexts or networks: a product-based network and a project-based network. Among other practices, findings illustrate how practitioners tend to simplify what is going on in their complex surroundings, to personalize their relationships with those surroundings, and to think in a stereotyped way. Moreover, the juxtaposition between the captured practitioner theories and academic (IMP Group) theories show that these are not always overlapping, and are in some cases quite the opposite. This research contributes to the ongoing discussion of the importance of grasping actors’ views of the world, arguing that sense-making theory and the notion of performativity are the two main conceptual drivers justifying the urgency in making those views more visible. This research also adds to the research on the impact and suitability of IMP Group theories on managerial thinking and practice. Finally, this research reinforces the current call for further practice-based research in business network contexts.

Markets-as-networks (MAN) theorists contend, at least tacitly, the significance of business relationships to the firm – that is, business relationships contribute somewhat to corporate survival or growth. One does not deny the existence of significant business relationships but sustain, in contrast to the consensus within the MAN theory, that relationship significance should not be a self-evident assumption. For significance cannot be a taken-for-granted property of each and every one of the firm's business relationships. The authors adopt explicitly a critical realist meta-theoretical position in this conceptual paper and claim that relationship significance is an event of the business world, whose causes remain yet largely unidentified. Where the powers and liabilities of business relationships (i.e., relationship functions and dysfunctions) are put to work, inevitably under certain contingencies (namely the surrounding networks and markets), relationship effects ensue for the firm (often benefits in excess of sacrifices, i.e., relationship value) and as a consequence relationship significance is likely to be brought about. In addition, relationship significance can result from the dual impact that business relationships may have on the structure and powers and liabilities of the firm, that is, on corporate nature and scope, respectively.

Purpose – I suggest that we conceptualize labor markets as observable social networks, in which workplaces are the nodes and people moving between workplaces are the edges. The movement of people delivers the actionable information as to what the supply, demand, and going wage for labor might be. Labor market networks are hypothesized to be quite thin thus leading to substantial wage setting autonomy within workplaces, consistent with contemporary observations in both economics and sociology as to the weakness of labor market signals.Method – This paper reviews theoretical and empirical work in economics, sociology, and network science and develops a network image of labor market structure and function. Hypotheses derived from economic, sociological, and network theories are proposed to explain workplace-level wage setting.Findings – Information flow, trust in information, information variance, collusion, and status beliefs are all proposed as important network properties of labor markets. The paper outlines an observational strategy to make labor markets scientifically observable.Originality – Economists and sociologists often refer to labor markets as mechanisms setting the price of labor but rarely observe them. This paper outlines a strategy for making the invisible hand of the market scientifically observable.

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.

In every industry there are resources. Some are moving, others more fixed; some are technical, others social. People working with the resources, for example, as buyers or sellers, or users or producers, may not make much notice of them. A product sells. A facility functions. The business relationship in which we make our money has “always” been there. However, some times this picture of order is disturbed. A user having purchased a product for decades may “suddenly” say to the producer that s/he does not appreciate the product. And a producer having received an order of a product that s/he thought was well known, may find it impossible to sell it. Such disturbances may be ignored. Or they can be used as a platform for development. In this study we investigate the latter option, theoretically and through real world data. Concerning theory we draw on the industrial network approach. We see industrial actors as part of (industrial) networks. In their activities actors use and produce resources. Moreover, the actors interact − bilaterally and multilaterally. This leads to development of resources and networks. Through “thick” descriptions of two cases we illustrate and try to understand the interactive character of resource development and how actors do business on features of resources. The cases are about a certain type of resource, a product − goat milk. The main message to industrial actors is that they should pay attention to that products can be co-created. Successful co-creation of products, moreover, may require development also of business relationships and their connections (“networking”).