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To explore the emergent characteristics of IT portfolios in business-to-business (B2B) firms. The goal is to develop a model that clarifies what interaction capabilities B2B firms develop and to what form of IT this corresponds to.

We apply an a priori conceptual framework that is based on the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) Group's theoretical focus on business relationships. The framework depicts the business relationship as dealing with uncertainty and equivocality as well as building and upholding reliance and trust. We utilize a case study approach involving a focal firm and ten of its customers and suppliers. Building on 60 interviews, field observations and archival data, we analyze interviewee responses and the complementary data to evaluate the role of IT in supporting or automated various aspects of organizational relationships.

Results show how “high tech” and “high touch” relate to different interaction capabilities, which firms develop based on the characteristics of their business relationships. Although IT is associated with “high tech” and “high touch” interaction capabilities, some forms of IT are deployed to support the former, while other forms support the later. Both forms of technology-enabled interaction capabilities require investment, and firms must balance investment costs against the value created by improved interaction capabilities.

Our findings emphasize the interorganizational perspective (dyadic or network) rather than a solely organizational perspective for understanding IT portfolio development. This perspective is presented through an emergent tech–touch interaction capability model that shows how B2B firms can align their IT portfolio based on the specific characteristics of their business relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how tension management as a means of achieving compromise and overcoming minor conflicts reduces the effects of the opportunism and bargaining costs of relationships on the evaluation of business partners. The paper proposes and tests a theoretical model with a full-information approach using structural equation modeling.

The data set was based on 312 observations from a unique survey based on a business-to-business relationship sample in Sweden. The measurements reflect the effects of partner opportunism, bargaining costs, and tension management on partner evaluations.

The findings corroborate that partner opportunism and bargaining costs have a negative impact on partner evaluation. In addition, the model shows that tension management weakens the negative effects of opportunism and bargaining costs on the evaluation.

This study offers evidence on how negative effects are reduced through intervening constructs. With most studies focusing on the positive side of relationships, this paper makes an important contribution to the literature through not only describing negative effects, but also how these can be decreased.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of absorptive capacity (ACAP) and co-creation on innovation performance (INN).

The authors use survey data from Swedish and Norwegian companies (n=1,102) and establish a cross-national equivalence between Sweden and Norway.

The subsequent structural model revealed interesting differences. For Sweden, co-creation fully mediates the effect of ACAP on INN, whereas for Norway, ACAP has a direct effect on INN with no mediation. Subsequent regressions including control variables showed that the structural model is reasonably robust. The authors conclude that, despite the many common national features conducive to innovation between these two countries, sufficient differences remain to create substantial variation in the innovation processes.

The study presents a second-order model of ACAP that permits a unique test of cross-country differences.

Peter F. Drucker (1909‐2005) was an influential modern management theorist. This paper, however, aims to challenge his diagnosis and prescriptions on the public sector for over‐simplifying several complex issues and not being sufficiently comprehensive. With the support of the empirical findings of a survey in the government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSARG), the authors seek to supplement Drucker's discussion on government and to propose managerial actions for implementing change.

An e‐mail questionnaire survey of 700 randomly selected government employees in Hong Kong was conducted. Additional information was gathered from senior management to validate the survey results.

In line with Drucker, HKSARG employees, as a whole, are reluctant to change. But statistical tests show that there are heterogeneous behavioural groups. Specifically, younger and more educated staff are more willing to change. The existence of these groups has both practical and managerial implications for implementing change.

The usable sample is relatively small (n=66).

The government should not be viewed and understood unidirectionally. Management should target the younger and more educated users first to build up sufficient user mass and adopt peer pressure for a more successful level of implementation of IT usage across all staff. Job rotation and flexible entry and exit options are worth considering, too.

This research validates empirically the nature of HKSARG. It demonstrates that researchers' challenges to Drucker's views on government are well founded. More research on the characteristics of the public sector is required for better understanding of the real nature of these large, bureaucratic organisations.

This study aims to offer a mid-range theory conceptualization of factors central to understanding and facilitating business actor engagement (BAE). Reports on a study of real estate companies and their sustainable development goal (SDG) driven business initiatives. The aim is to identify the factors that need to be in place to facilitate positive engagement amongst actors in business-to-business (B2B) settings.

A case study of real estate companies (landlords of business premises) and their business customers (tenants of offices and warehouses) – comprising interviews and workshops – offer insights related to the factors that need to be in place to facilitate BAE types and outcomes.

The identified central factors of BAE – needed to understand and facilitate positive engagement to unfold – are the actors’ perception of: willingness (to act), resourcefulness (to contribute and solve issues) and influence (to affect decisions) regarding solutions related to the business initiative at hand. Failing to facilitate these factors may result in negative outcomes of BAE where “engagement” merely constitutes perceived obligations and responsibilities.

The study offers theoretical and managerial insights on how to manage the factors needed for BAE. It also sheds light on how actors can use SDG-driven business initiatives to achieve sustainability goals.

It contributes to the concept of BAE, by emphasizing the dynamics of engagement, from the motivational and behavioral dimensions specific to B2B settings. It offers insights how to managerially cogovern rather than control BAE. It presents central factors needed to include and capacitate customers, facilitating successful implementations of SDG-driven business initiatives to reduce absent or negative outcomes.

This paper aims to identify content strategies on social media that influence engagement and to analyze those operations to describe important features for co-creation and trust.

This paper addresses the question of how social media content can influence engagement by using a medium-sized Swedish company for an empirical case study. This empirical study is based on a participatory action research methodology. By using the company account on LinkedIn, the authors experimented with relational content to understand the effects on customer-perceived value and trust.

Results reveal that action-oriented messages had a more significant impact on engagement than product-oriented messages and value-based messages.

This paper builds on the existing literature in two ways: drawing upon business-to-business relationships and perceived value and using recent advances in the use of social networking sites to understand the value of co-creation through a participatory culture.

Examines Peter Drucker’s views on government and public management, with special reference to the domestic sphere in the USA. Both Professor Drucker’s diagnosis of the problems government face, including excessive size, power, and poor performance, and his prescriptions, including a major program of privatization, are examined. In analysing his views, several concerns are expressed, including a lack of empirical support for many of his claims and an over‐reliance on the private sector. The article concludes that the Druckerian approach is more that of political theorist than management consultant, and that as a political theorist he has made a major contribution by developing themes that everyone needs to consider ‐ the power and performance of government, the nature and role of private power, the determination and protection of the common good in a pluralist world, and the preservation of the freedom and dignity of the individual in a world of multiple, impersonal power centers.