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Contemporary public service innovations to an important degree are initiated and enabled by digitalization. Digitalization stimulates entry of new firms (start-ups) based on innovative implementation of digital technology for public services. The interwoven digitalization and innovation processes involve interaction and interdependencies between private business actors and public service providing actors. In this paper, the authors take the perspective of a start-up business actor that tries to develop and implement a viable business model in the very dynamic context of digital transformation of public education. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the instability of a startup firm’s business model during public service innovation can be explained. The research question is: “How can business modeling by a start-up firm be explained by tensions between its business model and public service provision models?”

Based on an abductive logic, the authors choose a single-case study of a start-up firm’s development in 2010-2018 and its interaction with public actors. Information about the firm acquired in the first phase of the study showed that it frequently changed its business model. A general analytical framework was developed to aid in efforts to answer the research question.

The case showed that a business model could be seen as a temporary outcome of a business modeling process, and that also concurrently public actors change their public actors’ service provisioning models. Public-private interaction reveals tensions that drive business modeling.

The study contributes to empirical knowledge about private-public interaction in the dynamic and complex context in which digital transformation in society drives public service innovations. The conceptual contribution rests more generally in the analytical framework and how it frames public actor’s “service provision modeling” as a driver of business modeling.

One of the main challenges faced by libraries is to present their services and holdings to patrons in a truly professional and user‐friendly way. The standard library software available does not usually adapt to new technology as quickly as library users and staff would like. However, such limitations need not be accepted. By thinking in terms of small‐scale, incremental development and by using general computer software, an ambitious library can create a technologically up‐to‐date information browsing instrument even though finances and resources are limited. This paper describes the strategic and technological steps involved in such a process.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a new conceptual framework that reflects network dynamics in Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled service innovation processes.

Based on literature on service innovations, business networks and IoT, dynamic concepts are selected. Aided by information about an evolving case “The connected vehicle”, propositions about interaction between the variables in the framework are formulated.

A conceptual framework consisting of four interacting variables: overlapping, intermediating, objectification of actors and business modelling is developed, linking several streams of research. Propositions are motivated and issues for further research questions formulated.

The framework may stimulate further research on IoT-enabled service innovations.

Understanding network dynamics for developing and implementing business models for service innovations.

The conceptual framework provides an original contribution to understanding IoT-enabled service innovations.

The purpose of this paper was to assess the economic impact of investment in different animal welfare–enhancing flooring solutions in Swedish dairy farming.

The authors developed a bio-economic model and used stochastic partial budgeting approach to simulate the economic consequences of enhancing solid and slatted concrete floors with soft rubber covering.

The findings highlight that keeping herds on solid and slatted concrete floor surfaces with soft rubber coverings is a profitable solution, compared with keeping herds on solid and slatted concrete floors without a soft covering. The profit per cow when kept on a solid concrete floor with soft rubber covering increased by 13%–16% depending on the breed.

Promoting farm investments such as improvement in flooring solution, which have both economic and animal welfare incentives, is a potential way of promoting sustainable dairy production. Farmers may make investments in improved floors, resulting in enhanced animal welfare and economic outcomes necessary for sustaining dairy production.

This literature review indicated that the economic impact of investment in specific types of floor improvement solutions, investment costs and financial outcomes have received little attention. This study provides insights needed for a more informed decision-making process when selecting optimal flooring solutions for new and renovated barns that improve both animal welfare and ease the burden on farmers and public financial support.

This chapter analyses the multiple embeddedness of MNEs, and their participation in solving contemporary societal issues. We aim to increase understanding on the relational processes and network dynamics present in MNEs’ participation in cross-sector partnerships.

Our study addresses the issue of the poor ecological state of the Baltic Sea and illustrates the early developments in cross-sector collaboration. We build on a single exploratory case study of the cooperation of one MNE (IBM) with an environmental NGO (BSAG) in Finland. We analyse how participation in the cross-sector collaboration manifests itself in the external and internal networks of the MNE.

We show that an initiative by the NGO to participate in environmental work was actively adopted within the MNE and led to network changes. These changes concerned both the activation of existing links and the establishment of new links with such actors as authorities and research institutes. The NGO acted as a catalyser and cultural mediator to create a bridge between the MNE and governmental actors.

There is a need to investigate cross-sector collaboration in other contexts – particularly from the perspective of MNEs and (international) business networks. Questions such as how do enduring (business and socio-political) relationships emerge from MNE’s participation in issue networks and how technology that has been developed to solve a specific societal issue may be translated into commercial solutions are especially promising. We also urge scholars to investigate the ties, texture and dynamics (including tensions) of business relationships with those of public actors and civil society.

Participation in cross-sector initiatives may grant an MNE a forerunner position in the creation of new sustainable markets and technologies. It may also create an opportunity to influence policymakers and build new socio-political networks. From the perspective of a subsidiary of an MNE, engagement with cross-sector partnerships may strengthen its voice within the MNE network.

Our study contributes to the understanding of the relationship dynamics between actors in cross-sector collaboration around a societal (environmental) issue. Our analysis illustrates the embeddedness of MNE networks, where actions in the regional and global networks (the representatives of the headquarters) overlap with and strengthen the local actions of the subsidiary.

Work‐place learning takes place in many settings and in different ways, resulting in knowledge and skills of different kinds. The recognition process in the work place is however often implicit and seldom discussed in terms of recognition of prior learning (RPL). The aim of this paper is to give examples of how the knowledge/skills of employees get recognition in the workplace and to discuss what the consequences of such recognition processes might be.

This paper is based on a study in two companies and two municipalities, where 21 interviews were conducted with human resource managers, team leaders and union representatives. The research questions concerned the ways skills were recognised among employees and how the logics of these actions could be understood.

The findings show that both companies and municipalities have their own ways of assessing knowledge/skills, mostly out of a production logic of what is needed at the workplace. However, certain skills are also made “unvisualised” for the employee. This employer‐controlled recognition logic is important to understand when RPL models are brought to the work place in order to obtain win‐win situations for both employers and employees.

It seems important to identify an already existing system for assessment of knowledge/skills at the workplace when bringing RPL processes to the workplace.

The approach to understand assessment processes in these companies and municipalities from an RPL perspective has not been widely covered before.

The paper discusses some of the central features of IMP and industrial network research. Different types of empirical phenomena that are in focus of this research are presented. The paper also comments on epistemology, acknowledging some of the underpinnings of industrial network research and how they affect the use of case studies. Examples of case or narrative methodology are provided, taking a starting point in a set of chosen doctoral theses. In addition, a condensed version of the author’s own experiences from a case research and case-writing process covering a period of more than five years is provided (Andersson, 1996a, b). Literature support is brought in for the fact that case writing and the creation of narratives is often a long and ambiguous process of finding a final plot which merges the theoretical with the empirical. The conclusions and comments summarize some of the main implications and ideas emerging from the text, and points also to some emerging discussions in social science on the importance and status of narrative knowledge.

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.

The chapter aims to provide a dynamic-process perspective of radical marketing reorganization processes and what drives such complex processes. The chapter draws on organization and management literature to develop a conceptual framework for understanding such reorganization processes. It is also based on two major empirical studies. The first is a historical study that focuses on the consequences for different parts of marketing organizations when two organizations merge.

The study shows how, for example, over time various tensions, conflicts, and contradictions become important drivers for the continued, long-term process to create a new, joint marketing organization. The second study investigates three cases of reorganization processes that integrated digital and physical sales channels. The investigation describes the tensions occurring among the groups and individuals responsible for each channel. By describing the handling of the tensions and subsequent effects, they outline a dynamic model of channel integration processes. Both models are presented in the chapter. The chapter concludes that marketing in reality is becoming more of an organizational topic in which successful transitions of marketing organizations become a matter of organizing and reorganizing.

The aim of this chapter is to introduce the reader to the complexities of marketing organization especially in bigger firms. This chapter draws attention to one of these major drivers for change — globalization. This is done with the help of an in-depth case study of ABB Robotics.

The case describes how a change is achieved through a major marketing reorganization process. Initially, there are major difficulties grasping the organizational problem and identifying its causes. Many different organizational “issues” are part of the problem in the multifaceted case. Relying on complexity theory, the case suggests that a more complex environment with greater number of relevant players, which are — themselves — interconnected through networks, will also exhibit a greater range of change. Change and reorganization processes like the one confronting the case company would rather be the normal situation for companies embedded in complex global networks.