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This paper aims to argue that engagement with industry in research, while costly in terms of time and effort, can provide benefits in terms of measurable research impact, particularly in the business-to-business (B2B) domain.

This study draws joint experiences about how best to connect with an industry organization, how to engage with that organization and how to provide and document impact by transforming some aspect of that organization.

The findings of this study provide practical and implementable suggestions on how to engage in impactful B2B research.

This study discusses the special nature of the B2B domain and why engagement with industry is especially important and beneficial. Though such research may not be appropriate for all academics, this study argues that its high rewards more than compensate for its high costs.

The purpose of this paper is to advance extant theorizing around resource integration by conceptualizing and delineating the notion of a usage center. A usage center consists of a combination of interdependent actors that draw on resources across their individual usage processes to create value.

This paper provides a conceptual inquiry into the usage center.

This paper delineates the notion of a usage center by way of focal and peripheral resource integrators, as well as focal and peripheral resources that form part of interdependent resource usage processes. The conceptual analysis reveals the need for resources to be accessible and shareable to focal and peripheral actors, with rivalry and emergence central factors influencing the actor’s usage processes.

Responding to recent calls for research developing insights into multi-actor value cocreation, this paper is the first to comprehensively and coherently conceptualize the notion of a usage center. In doing so, the authors build an important foundation for future theorizing related to the potential emergence of usage centers as well as the cocreation of individual and collective value.

Firms transforming from a product supplier into a solution provider need to develop entirely new organizational capabilities or re-configure existing ones. This paper aims to conceptualize solution business fitness (SBF) as a construct that captures comprehensively the capabilities necessary for a firm to operate successfully in solution business and investigates how the construct can be measured.

Based on a conceptualization of solution-specific capabilities and SBF, the development of the SBF measurement model followed a three-step procedure: domain specification and conceptual development, qualitative pre-study and quantitative pre-study. The SBF measurement model and its relevance were studied in a large scale longitudinal study using survey data from firm representatives, as well as archival data about the turnover and profitability development of the respective solution providers.

The study empirically validates solution-business-specific capabilities as antecedents of firm performance and shows how different business logics applied by firms give capabilities different importance and impact.

Managerially, firms can use the developed measurement tool to assess their current SBF and define the desired target status. When improving the SBF, managers should pay special attention to the business logic of their firm, as the required capabilities are context-dependent.

The study is the first to conceptualize and measure SBF and to empirically investigate the moderating role of business logic on the importance of the concept and its elements.

Multi-supplier project networks represent a large part of the business-to-business (B2B) sector as the scope of many projects requires that different providers participate in their development and delivery. This raises the question of how the integration of the resources of the various partners can be shaped successfully. Specifically, the different organizational identities provide institutional frames of reference to the resource-integrating firms. As the organizational identities are typically not harmonious with each other, at least partial misalignments of the institutional setting that shapes the resource integration processes may emerge. The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the impact of various organizational identities on the course and outcome of resource integration in project networks.

The paper makes use of interpretive phenomenology in conjunction with a qualitative case study approach to access the lived experience of actors of different professional service firms having experienced changes in resource integration in a B2B project network.

A conceptualization of organizational identity as an institutional context for resource integration is developed and empirically investigated. The findings show a strong impact on the firms’ organizational identities and the actors’ resource integration experience and evaluation. Moreover, the findings provide evidence that, if unmanaged, at least partial misalignment of the institutional arrangements of multi-organizational B2B project network represents a normal and also a stable condition.

As a first conceptualization and empirical analysis of the interplay between organizational identity and resource integration, this paper advances the current understanding of the institutional context for resource integration. It argues for the wider relevance of organizational identity constructs and paves the way for future development.

Institutional arrangements for collaborative purposes have gained increasing attention within research on service ecosystems. For collaborations to be effective, actors need to undertake institutional work that will result in new institutional arrangements. When institutional work takes place across service ecosystems, actors may be confronted with non-harmonious or conflicting institutional arrangements, which need to be reconciled by translating the incompatible views of diverse ecosystems. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of boundary objects as a means of facilitating institutional work across ecosystems, and present their mechanism in undertaking institutional work.

Longitudinal qualitative interviews were conducted with three key actors (funding agency, service provider and clinicians) in providing home-based support services (HBSS). The data were analyzed by undertaking a thematic analysis of the transcripts, which helped to identify the actors’ views on the nature of HBSS and its impact as a boundary object within the implementation of the case-mix system, and thus to empirically illustrate the theoretical assumptions.

The data assisted in the creation of a conceptualization that maps out the process of boundary objects facilitating (disrupting and creating) institutional work. This study supports that boundary objects disrupt boundaries between actors’ ecosystems, which was a sufficient condition to dismantle institutional support for the practices of individual fields. Furthermore, the object has changed the type and extent of interaction between actors in an ecosystem to allow these actors to redefine their identity and role in the new institutional arrangement.

This work has developed a novel conceptualization for a boundary object-led translation process in facilitating institutional work. To the researchers’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the processes and mechanisms of boundary objects in facilitating institutional work across ecosystems.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of proto-institutions that are new institutional subsystems that subsequently affect the current institutional arrangements in the evolution of service ecosystems.

To shed light on the mode of action of proto-institutions, the authors investigate the changes of three service ecosystems in Italy: the health care ecosystem, the food-supply ecosystem and the urban mobility ecosystem.

First, the paper elucidates how changes of service ecosystems are triggered by megatrends that are external to specific service ecosystems. Second, the study empirically shows how service ecosystems and their institutional settings change through the establishment of proto-institutions.

Responding to recent calls to investigate in more detail how actors challenge dominant social patterns and to conduct research to better understand how changes at the level of individual actors may lead to shifts within overall service ecosystems, this paper is one of the first to empirically study the relationships between phenomena that are external to service ecosystems, the emergence of proto-institutions and the resulting changes of institutional arrangements.

Economic theories applied to the study of buyer‐seller relationships draw to a large extent on the problems caused by specific investments. This contribution aims to develop a new perspective on specific investments that accounts for their value‐adding character and also to present a transaction‐centred definition of customer relationships.

The contribution draws on a comparative review on literature on business networks and economic theories focused on industrial buying behaviour.

Provides a transaction‐related definition of customer relationships in order to distinguish between different kinds of relationships and provides a framework to how relationship management is able to enhance marketing activities.

Specific investments are a powerful tool for differentiating the market offerings of a company. One central implication is for managers to realise on which stage of the market arena such differentiation is likely to be successful: transaction, relationship, segment or value network. This is the starting‐point for investing in a relationship portfolio conducive for the value generation of the company.

The paper shows that the value potential generated by specific investments is not fulfilled in the realms of present marketing literature. Also it is the first contribution to present a framework capable of treating phenomena of customer relationship management, relationship marketing and network marketing on the same footing, while still respecting the original motivations of those approaches.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the manifestations and the effects of the dispersion of marketing activities (DoMA) in business-to-business (B2B) firms.

To analyze the manifestations and effects of DoMA, an empirical study was conducted in German B2B firms that consisted of a qualitative pre-study and an online questionnaire-based quantitative study.

Findings highlight that there is not “one” DoMA in B2B firms but that the degrees of dispersion differ with respect to various marketing activities. Moreover, a cluster analysis of the firms with respect to the manifestation of their DoMA reveals interesting differences with respect to the relationship between DoMA and the perceived performance of the marketing activities.

This explorative study is one of the first to empirically investigate the extent of DoMA in B2B firms. It shows how different DoMA can be in practice with respect to single marketing activities, as well as firms, and how this impacts the perceived performance of marketing activities.