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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the roles of deals in innovations processes, based on the definition of a deal as the interaction of social-material value-creating processes with money-handing processes.

The paper is based on a study of the historical emergence of transaortic valve implantation (TAVI) as an innovative new technology in the area of thoracic surgery in a global setting. The study is based on a combination of interviews and secondary data analysis.

The authors found that deals play important roles in innovation processes as critical junctions that mark entries to different phases and generate major shifts in location as well as combination of resources, activities and actors. These shifts include radical changes in control, where actors in possession of resources necessary to bring the project through the next phase, move in to take control – thereby expanding their businesses to new growth niches. Based on the analysis of seven deals, the authors argue that the innovation process is a combined push and pull process where later stage entrepreneurial interests play very significant roles. Deals may also represent radical turning points and moves of the projects that set the project off in a different direction, usually also associated with shifting ownership control rights through the innovation and scaling process. The authors also argue that inventions in the periphery will tend to move to the areas with the most competent relevant business networks capable of adopting and expanding the innovation to a global business operation. The innovation process is not primarily about creating new resources and activities, but about recombining existing resources, competencies and activities. Supplier networks play particularly important roles in these processes.

The authors suggest that the study indicates that IMP researchers should turn more attention to studying business deals and financial flows and influences – in particular in studies of innovations and innovation processes – to investigate the mechanisms by which new innovations interact with and transform existing business networks.

This work highlights why and how an innovation that may initiate anywhere in the periphery, will tend to move to the most competent and capable networks around the globe, that are the most relevant to the needs of the innovation project. Hence, the more powerful business networks and eco-systems will tend to pull interesting inventions in from their periphery, and grow them effectively.

The paper expands the efforts in IMP theorizing to include financial/monetary interactions more explicitly into business network theory. It also aims at clarifying core IMP arguments toward entrepreneurship research, in particular research on international new ventures.

The purpose of this paper is to develop the case for studying non-interaction in networks, particularly instances of intentional avoidance of interaction.

The paper is based on the analysis of instances of interaction avoidance across four case studies in medical technology development, food product development, food distribution network change, and regional innovation in construction.

Some answers are provided to the questions of why and how actors may seek to avoid interaction. Five modes of interaction avoidance are identified and outlined. Within these modes, interaction avoidance took place in order to protect knowledge, enforce progress, economise in business networks, avoid wasting resources, and maintain opportunities respectively. This list is not seen to be exhaustive of the theme, and further studies are encouraged.

Few inter-organisational network studies have dealt explicitly with interaction avoidance or non-interaction.

Boundary setting is identified as an important and highly useful factor, both in management practice and in dealing with phenomena in management research. It has significant implications for how circumstances and phenomena will be analysed and interpreted. Change – moving or change in nature – is a key factor in all attempts to strategise and economise. The authors argue that boundary setting is critical in analysing and interpreting business problems, both in the practice of management and in business research. The nature and function of boundaries vary. It can be exemplified with two archetypes of organisation – the integrated hierarchy and the connected company. In the first, the basic principle for boundary setting is buffering to protect the company from external variations. In the second type, it is bridging – connecting the company with specific changing factors. One important consequence is that when analysing and handling boundaries, both location and permeability become the central aspects to consider.

How does the cereal industry innovate in selective partnerships? The purpose of this paper is to study the cereal industry and the crispbread success in terms of how different forms of openness jointly shape new product development (NPD).

A multiphase mixed methods design was used to combine three sets of data: a case study, sales figures and interviews with ten major actors in the Norwegian cereal industry.

Transparency and interaction with machinery suppliers appear to result in a more successful type of innovation. In practice, companies are more open than, perhaps, they realise. Factors such as mutual trust, asset control and distribution are positive for openness in innovation processes with suppliers.

Future actors such as suppliers, producers, distributors and policy makers in the food industry will benefit from trust and an open innovation (OI) mind-set during NPD.

Prior to 2011, Norway had no large-scale commercial crispbread production. Six years later, Norwegian production nears the sales figures of the leading Swedish brand Wasa. Is this due to OI? Understanding various forms of selective partnership, collaboration and trust among actors in the food industry is valuable for future growth.