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This study aims to understand their emergence and types of business models in the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystems.

The paper builds upon a systematic literature review of IoT ecosystems and business models to construct a conceptual framework on IoT business models, and uses qualitative research methods to analyze seven industry cases.

The study identifies four types of IoT business models: value chain efficiency, industry collaboration, horizontal market and platform. Moreover, it discusses three evolutionary paths of new business model emergence: opening up the ecosystem for industry collaboration, replicating the solution in multiple services and return to closed ecosystem as technology matures.

Identifying business models in rapidly evolving fields such as the IoT based on a small number of case studies may result in biased findings compared to large-scale surveys and globally distributed samples. However, it provides more thorough interpretations.

The study provides a framework for analyzing the types and emergence of IoT business models, and forwards the concept of “value design” as an ecosystem business model.

This paper identifies four archetypical IoT business models based on a novel framework that is independent of any specific industry, and argues that IoT business models follow an evolutionary path from closed to open, and reversely to closed ecosystems, and the value created in the networks of organizations and things will be shareable value rather than exchange value.

The purpose of this paper is to create an audit method for analyzing and improving business relationships. This is accomplished by specifying bonds on a lower abstraction level than in earlier theory regarding bonds in order to classify the different types of bonds and analyze their strength.

The findings are based on 14 case studies in seven different industries. The methodology used is systematic and based on the abductive approach. Qualitative interviews were conducted.

Bonds were found to be important regulators of business relationships in this study. The main finding is that a bond audit can be used as a tool for analyzing business relationships and for consulting activity with the aim of strengthening or weakening business relationships.

By influencing the bonds using bond management, companies can strengthen or weaken the business relationship.

The paper describes an audit method for analyzing business relationships by stringently analyzing all parts of it using the bond‐auditing tool, and thus auditing bonds more specifically than has been done previously.

Productization, defined as the standardization of the production and delivery processes of services, is an approach that many service companies undertake, moving from relationship-intensive customer projects toward selling specific standardized offerings. In contrast to research on servitization, little in-depth research is available on the effects of this change of approach on the buyer-seller relationship. The purpose of this paper is to narrow this gap by providing evidence of the outcomes of productization in a corporate bank which has been serving Tier 1 customers for more than 15 years.

Using the IMP Group approach, this research identifies how productization affects buyer-seller relationships. In total, 37 key informant interviews were conducted on both sides of the buyer-seller relationship.

This research identified direct effects of productization relevant to buyer-seller relationships, and as many indirect effects through internal organizational processes. Productized service companies should develop their relationships with customers, by separating the standardization of the internal productization processes from the external relationship-based activities.

This paper contribute to the literature, exploring the long-term consequences of productization of services for the buyer-seller relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to record the author’s personal reflections on his career as a marketing scholar.

Personal reflections in an autobiographical approach.

The author’s career as student, teacher and scholar is described in some detail.

The paper records events and memories that might otherwise be forgotten. No other such account has been published of Christian Grönroos’s career.

The purpose of this paper is to apply pragmatism – a philosophy of science on the interplay of human actions and meaning – as a perspective for studying service research and practice, emphasizing the need to deal with dynamics and diversity to cope with service marketplace disruptions. This work focuses on customers (individuals or groups of individuals) as key marketplace stakeholders.

Pragmatism provides a foundation for theorizing about change by connecting human actors’ cognitive belief structures and their actions through a continuous learning process. This paper outlines how the key principles of pragmatism can advance service research and practice.

Adopting the key principles of pragmatism in service management directs attention to service market dynamics. Understanding customers’ everyday lives as the interplay of experiencing, knowing and acting reveals insights about the role of service in dynamic markets for the benefit of service research and practice.

The paper is a viewpoint to stimulate researchers’ reflections on often hidden core assumptions about service. Pragmatism provides a perspective on actors’ practical rationality and problem solving in dynamic settings. Along with its emphasis on a holistic understanding of customers’ lives, this perspective provides direction for future service research and practice. Further, conceptual development and empirical substantiation are encouraged.

By focusing on marketplace changes, this paper addresses management concerns for commercial and non-commercial organizations. Pragmatism encourages critical reflections on what companies are doing and why (the connection between actions and beliefs), revealing underlying beliefs and institutionalized industry practices that require modifications.

Pragmatism is an approach to service research and practice, irrespective of aggregation level and sector. Therefore, it can help stimulate societal welfare.

Pragmatism advances service research by delineating a holistic perspective on customers’ lives and providing a perspective for exploring and understanding dynamics and diversity in service markets.

This paper studies a concept for protecting vulnerable population groups during pandemics using direct home deliveries of essential supplies, from a distribution logistics perspective. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate feasible and resource-efficient home delivery strategies, including collaboration between retailers and logistics service providers based on a practical application.

A food home delivery concept in urban areas during pandemics is mathematically modeled. All seniors living in a district of Berlin, Germany, represent the vulnerable population supplied by a grocery distribution center. A capacitated vehicle routing problem (CVRP) is developed in combination with a k-means clustering algorithm. To manage this large-scale problem efficiently, mixed-integer programming (MIP) is used. The impact of collaboration and additional delivery scenarios is examined with a sensitivity analysis.

Roughly 45 medically vulnerable persons can be served by one delivery vehicle in the baseline scenario. Operational measures allow a drastic decrease in required resources by reducing service quality. In this way, home delivery for the vulnerable population of Berlin can be achieved. This requires collaboration between grocery and parcel services and public authorities as well as overcoming accompanying challenges.

Developing a home delivery concept for providing essential goods to urban vulnerable groups during pandemics creates a special value. Setting a large-scale CVRP with variable fleet size in combination with a clustering algorithm contributes to the originality.

The purpose of this paper is to cast light on the nature of the digitalization process that occurs when digital technologies are adopted in buyer–seller relationships.

The study features a case study from the steel processing industry.

The present research builds on and extends the interaction approach to the context of buyer–seller relationship digitalization process. The study explicates the interrelated elements of digital infrastructure, digital communication and degree of digitalization of the buyer–seller relationship.

The study aims at theoretical generalization and thus produces conceptual understanding that is to some extent applicable to various contexts. The generalization of the empirical insights to other process-focused industries is to some extent possible. However, further research in versatile empirical contexts is needed to validate the results.

For managers, the study presents a success case of digital technologies use for improving a buyer–seller relationship.

The originality of the present research is in the way it depicts how a buyer–seller relationship is gradually digitalized in successive digital technology adoptions, that is, a virtuous cycle of digitalization, that creates and alters the digital infrastructure and digital communication processes between the buyer and the seller resulting in different outcomes (degrees of digitalization in the buyer–seller relationship).

The purpose of this paper was to study the unfolding of an urgent and extensive decommissioning program in Sweden, focusing on the public’s reactions and their arguments when opposing the decommissioning activities.

The public’s responses were studied through local media. Its content was surveyed and divided into actions and arguments. The arguments were further analyzed and categorized into inductively developed themes.

Protest activities, such as demonstrations, meetings and petitions, were not coordinated, but mostly carried out for withdrawals of unique services and services in remote areas. The public questioned the decision makers’ information, calculations and competence, the adequacy of the consequence analyses and whether the decommissioning activities would lead to any real savings. Patient and public safety, the vulnerable in society, and effects on the local areas were important topics. Thus, it seems the decision makers did not fully succeed in communicating the demonstrable benefits or create clarity of the rationales for decommissioning the particular services. Furthermore, it seems the public has a more inclusive approach to health services and their value compared to decision makers that need to keep the budget.

Decommissioning is an emerging field of research, and this study of the unfolding of an urgent and extensive decommissioning program contributes with evidence that may improve decommissioning policy and practice. The study illustrates that it may be possible to implement a decommissioning program despite public protest, but that the longer-term effects on the health system’s legitimacy need to be studied.

This paper aims to report on the Pharma Documentation Ring (P‐D‐R) special meeting 2008 on access and use of publishers' content through multiple channels.

After an introduction to the goals and activities of the P‐D‐R, the paper describes the different sessions of the meeting and then summarises the topics related to document supply.

The paper reports on the use of primary information in pharmaceutical companies, on global services arising from national functions, on outsourcing information management, and on technical solutions to control, monitor and limit access. One of the hot topics of the conference was restriction by digital rights management (DRM) measures.

This report provides insights into the issues currently facing the pharmaceutical industry. The pharmaceutical industry is the only corporate sector with a long and profitable tradition of networking between information professionals.