Search results

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the ontological assumptions regarding the concept of agency and sociality within business networks in the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing Group (IMP) research by refining these assumptions with a relational sociological (RS) perspective. This paper reinforces the robustness of the actors-resources-activities (ARA) model with an in-depth investigation of the actor dimension, where local interactions between interdependent individuals play a central role in building common futures within business networks through organisational reflexivity.

This conceptual paper investigates the social ontology of research. It challenges the implicit assumptions of IMP research regarding agency and sociality within business networks with a problematisation strategy (Sandberg and Alvesson, 2011). Combining IMP views on agency with the RS perspective, it sets this combined framework as an alternative for the analysis of sustainability and ethics within business networks.

Combining IMP research and an RS perspective allows us to extend the knowledge of sociality within business networks, highlighting the centrality of meaning sharing in the process of network change. By focusing on symbolic interaction processes, an RS perspective contributes to a deeper theoretical understanding of the relationship between local communication and business network patterns. Combined with an IMP perspective on agency, it provides researchers with an alternative conceptual framework for examining sustainability by considering ethics and leadership dialectically.

RS is still an emerging stream within sociology, characterised by diverse views. Not all relational sociologists, as scientists, feel obliged to engage with sustainability research. Thus, the paper is a two-sided invitation to IMP researchers and relational sociologists to delve into the adaptation processes in business networks in highly uncertain environments.

RS focusing on the centrality of communication in local interactions, business network researchers can show that organisational leaders are not the ones with a charismatic vision isolated from any natural and social environment; rather, they are the people with “the capacity to assist the group to continue acting ethically, creatively and courageously in the unknown” (Stacey,2013).

Adopting an RS perspective on agency in business networks can help managers and researchers determine how business networks can be managed in a more sustainable way. Combined with a dialectical and processual understanding of ethics, the IMP-RS perspective emphasises day-to-day local communication practices within and between organisations that challenges microeconomic views on nature, strategy, ethics and leadership. This paper thus places the social at the centre of sustainability approaches.

From an RS perspective, business networks are analysed as patterns of interactions between many organisations and individuals. The value of this conceptual paper is in showing that change within business networks is negotiated through local interactions and symbolic communication between individuals. Thus, it suggests the need to combine the individual and the organisational levels to analyse agency within business networks and to examine the adaptation of business networks to sustainability.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the transformation of the perspective applied to distribution structures in the late 1900s. This change implied that the previous focus on channel management by a channel captain was abandoned because of changes in the business reality. This perspective was replaced by models and concepts featuring collaboration and joint coordination between actors and relationships embedded in networks.

Changes of perspectives on phenomena are assumed to occur through the dynamic interplay between business reality, the conceptualisation of this reality and the managerial recommendations derived from this conceptualisation. The study is based on a thorough longitudinal literature review.

Shifts of perspectives occur when there is an increasing mismatch between the current business reality and mainstream conceptualisations. In this transformation, new constructs are required to illustrate new aspects of the business reality, exemplified in the study by interaction and networks. Some established concepts lose their significance, illustrated by the channel captain. Others may be re-interpreted, as is the case with the power concept. The study also shows that “forgotten” conceptualisations can be re-wakened, exemplified by the view of distribution structures as network constellations. In turn, these changes in the conceptualisation of distribution impact the managerial recommendations.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, there are no previous studies analysing how the perspective on a certain phenomenon changes through the dynamic interplay between business reality, conceptualisations and managerial recommendations.

Traditional perspectives of manufacturing strategy tend to focus internal transforming activities, including how transformed resources are handled and the relations with other value‐creating operations inside and outside the firm. Manufacturing management evolved as a discipline with little clear alignments with business strategy and firm positioning. Even manufacturing strategy is often delimited to the boundaries of the firm and its dyad relations to collaborating actors such as suppliers and distributors. This paper aims at exploring and demonstrating what a network perspective can add to the understanding of manufacturing management and strategy.

The research design is built on principal reasoning of future manufacturing strategy. Articles and conference papers together with over 25 years of field studies constitute the empirical base. An industry was chosen to demonstrate the application of the research framework of horizontal and vertical technologies.

The analysis indicates that manufacturing occurs within open‐production systems here called extraprises as an extension to enterprises with their inside the firm focus. Taking a network perspective, it is suggested that a conceptual framework of horizontal and vertical technologies offers a fruitful conceptualization to identify the content and meaning of future manufacturing strategy.

The network theory conceptualization takes the view of manufacturing systems a further step beyond systems theory and contributes a richer framework for manufacturing strategy research.

It is argued that future directions of manufacturing strategy will gain from taking a network perspective using network theory with its foundations in actors, resources, and activities.

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.

This review aims to provide researchers and managers interested in supply networks with a strategic review of this rapidly expanding field. It does not attempt a comprehensive review of the enormous and fast growing literature but does present the breadth and depth of research and practice in the area. The central aspect of the paper is to suggest that the field can be viewed from four perspectives which all researchers and managers implicitly or explicitly use: upstream, as purchaser; downstream, as supplier; static network, as an auditor of position within its supply network, typically comprising several supply chains, providing a static and comparative view; and dynamic network, as strategist, seeking opportunities to improve the firm's position in an existing network or creating a new network, providing a strategic, dynamic and long‐term view.

The study this chapter reports focuses on how network theory contributes to the understanding of the internationalization process of SMEs and measures the effect of network capability on performance in international trade and has three research objectives.

The first objective of the study relates to providing new insights into the international market development activities through the application of a network perspective. The chapter reviews the international business literature to ascertain the development of thought, the research gaps, and the shortcomings. This review shows that the network perspective is a useful and popular theoretical domain that researchers can use to understand international activities, particularly of small, high technology, resource-constrained firms.

The second research objective is to gain a deeper understanding of network capability. This chapter presents a model for the impact of network capability on international performance by building on the emerging literature on the dynamic capabilities view of the firm. The model conceptualizes network capability in terms of network characteristics, network operation, and network resources. Network characteristics comprise strong and weak ties (operationalized as foreign-market entry modes), relational capability, and the level of trust between partners. Network operation focuses on network initiation, network coordination, and network learning capabilities. Network resources comprise network human-capital resources, synergy-sensitive resources (resource combinations within the network), and information sharing within the network.

The third research objective is to determine the impact of networking capability on the international performance of SMEs. The study analyzes 11 hypotheses through structural equations modeling using LISREL. The hypotheses relate to strong and weak ties, the relative strength of strong ties over weak ties, and each of the eight remaining constructs of networking capability in the study. The research conducts a cross-sectional study by using a sample of SMEs drawn from the telecommunications industry in Ireland.

The study supports the hypothesis that strong ties are more influential on international performance than weak ties. Similarly, network coordination and human-capital resources have a positive and significant association with international performance. Strong ties, weak ties, trust, network initiation, synergy-sensitive resources, relational capability, network learning, and information sharing do not have a significant association with international performance. The results of this study are strong (R2=0.63 for performance as the outcome) and provide a number of interesting insights into the relations between collaboration or networking capability and performance.

This study provides managers and policy makers with an improved understanding of the contingent effects of networks to highlight situations where networks might have limited, zero, or even negative effects on business outcomes. The study cautions against the tendency to interpret networks as universally beneficial to business development and performance outcomes.

The role of HQ in the contemporary MNC has recently received a good deal of research attention. This article argues that the contemporary MNC requires an organizational model that can embrace different perspectives of the HQ role. The same HQ must at times hierarchically lead the firm and at other times assume a more passive, facilitative role that allows direct interaction and decision making among the subunits to coordinate interdependency within the firm. To achieve this integration, the article proposes a contingency model that specifies when the HQ should assume a hierarchical role and when it should assume a facilitative role.

This paper explores the value of the final customer in business networks. The preferences of the final customer define the concept of the network customer. The central argument of this paper is that companies within networks of value-creating relationships can act as integrators, which by interlocking limited value perspectives, can approximate an absolute value horizon that includes network customer considerations. Such interlocking activity constitutes a managerial challenge. As such, the interconnecting activity extends companies’ value horizons and can be characterized as a relationship capability, which is managerial knowledge capital that is not residing within isolated organizational actors but within the interrelations between them. Accordingly, such knowledge becomes a significant resource that can be used by both the organizations to improve their network position. By deconstructing the notion of value, this paper demonstrates the need for greater conceptual clarity and operationalization of value in the wider field of marketing, and specifically for business-to-business marketing.

The purpose of this paper is to address two research questions. First: what causes an small and medium enterprises (SME) to engage in a merger with a multinational group and thereby change its relationships and to start functioning in a hierarchical structure which may be viewed as being the integration of a weaker entity by a stronger and bigger one? And second: what causes the successful continuation of a cross-border merger project from the perspective of an SME?

The concept of the network position is adopted to undertake a longitudinal study of an IT company from Poland.

From the perspective of the SME, its own perceived important network position resulting from the resources it possesses, the ability to decide how they are utilised, as well as relationships strongly supported by trust and a good atmosphere are key motives and success factors for the merger.

By adapting the IMP research perspective and the concept of network position to the analysis of mergers the additional aspects of the merger process which are usually not raised in relevant traditional mergers and acquisitions literature are revealed. A merger is not just the sourcing of resources, but also interdependencies and taking joint decisions with regard to them; not just economic aspects, but also social aspects of relationships (trust and atmosphere); not just the sharing of resources between merged entities, but also the constant influence of other relationships and interactions on these resources.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how institutions can facilitate or inhibit radical innovation. The authors argue that organizational radical innovation is necessary to maintain a competitive advantage and to evolve in the market place, and institutions are the basis of this innovation. From an innovation and service dominant (SD) logic perspective, network ties are proposed to be a determining factor for the achievement of innovation through institutionalization in the university knowledge management context.

A conceptual approach is applied to develop and propose a framework for deepening understanding of radical organizational innovation, institutions and network ties. Data were gathered from Link by UMA-ATech, which in the context of the University of Málaga (Spain) is with great success developing a strategy based on fostering innovation. In all, 22 in-depth interviews were conducted with actors in the Link context, together with additional important second-order data analyses (sector analyses, statistics and company websites). Because of the perceived desirability of innovation, public universities have established a model as a part of this strategy in order to foster and develop new businesses through technology transfer.

Changing institutional arrangements are the basis of innovation. Opening universities to the actors around them, with an interest in exchanging resources through the evolution of network ties toward a less bureaucratic and more collaborative and open university (tertius iungens) is the basis for reaching organizational radical innovation in the university context to develop the provider-driven radical innovation network structure via the “University Living Lab” theoretical model.

A conceptual understanding is used in combination with an empirical approach, in which one case study and 22 organizations are considered in the context of Link-by-UMA ATech, at the University of Málaga. A range of different contexts from other universities would also be useful to add new perspectives to the development of the theory.

Although radical innovation is occasionally seen in systems and arises naturally in markets, it is interesting to consider the possibility of designing strategies that facilitate the process from the beginning of the design of the business model. In this sense, the present findings could help organizations in general and universities in particular, to devise strategies resulting in positive relationships that could facilitate the design of business model structures. These could in turn foster the development of new institutions resulting in new network ties, which could give rise to radical innovation through the attraction of new actors interested in exchanging service-for-service resources.

The present paper develops the provider-driven radical innovation network structure of the “University Living Lab” theoretical model, which encourages the university to make decisions to devise more open models based on a change of network ties, in turn based on the design of new institutional arrangements. These concepts have not previously been put together, and build on the theories of institutions and organizational radical innovation. This theoretical contribution is framed within the SD logic perspective and specifically in the 11th fundamental premise (FP 11/5th axiom) to better understand how innovation occurs in service ecosystems, allowing the provider the possibility of developing such processes through the design of institutional arrangements.