ABSTRACT. In B2B markets, the long-standing answer to the make or buy decision is either to transact in the market or to engage in relational exchange. Our point of departure in this short paper is that three convergent forces, digitalisation, sustainability imperatives, and geopolitical turbulence, are transforming the conditions under which B2B interaction takes place. B2B governance decisions have typically been framed as a binary choice between market transactions and relational exchange (Day, 2000). However, contemporary conditions suggest this captures only two points on a much broader spectrum. This paper returns to a foundational insight within the Interaction Approach, that the environment is not a backdrop to interaction but rather the condition within which all interaction takes place. This is clearly illustrated in the Interaction Model (Håkansson, 1982). We argue that how we understand interaction flows in single and multiple relationships, based on episodes of exchange and adaptations over time, is challenged by contemporary conditions. The three convergent forces do not change whether or not interaction occurs, but impact the conditions, speed, form and governance logic under which it does. We propose a relational governance matrix along two axes, voluntary versus forced/structural formation and thick versus thin interaction, generating four configurations: Married, Casual Dating, Arranged Marriage, and Speed Dating. A fifth dynamic, On-again Off-again, captures turbulence-driven movement between them. Overall, we aim to extend the IMP tradition while remaining anchored in its core commitment to interaction as the unit of analysis.

ABSTRACT. Introduction and Literature background This paper wants to analyze the impact that environmental turbulence can have on business relationships and supply networks. It thus wants to enter an in depth analysis of how macro-variables affect business interactions, sustaining that in times of turbulence business relationships can lose their value as resources. By our analysis, we stress that in present turbulent situation the very short-term perspective in which companies have to operate make companies view the risky aspects of being involved in business relationships. It can prevail a view of dark sides of business relationships and the view of business relationships as costs, more than as resources. Research on business relationships and supply networks has long emphasised the central role of inter-organisational interactions in value creation, knowledge development, and innovation processes (Dubois & Waluszewski, 1998; Snehota & Håkansson, 1995; Gadde & Håkansson, 2008; Håkansson et al., 2009; Bocconcelli et al., 2020). Within this body of research, relationships are commonly interpreted as strategic resources through which firms stabilise exchanges, develop mutual adaptations, and combine complementary resources (Håkansson et al., 2009). It is widely accepted that elements such as trust, commitment, and structural interdependencies are traditionally regarded as key drivers of competitive strengthening within business networks (Guercini & Tunisini, 2017; Handfield, 2019). Nevertheless, this predominantly positive framing has been criticised for underplaying the potential disadvantages of relational embeddedness. Prior research has emphasised relational benefits, yet the conditions under which business relationships may generate rigidity, inflexibility, or vulnerability have been overlooked. This has resulted in a form of positive determinism in networking research (Hakansson et al., 2009). Contemporary business environments are increasingly characterised by heightened environmental turbulence, driven by geopolitical instability, volatile energy markets, fragile global supply chains, and accelerated technological change (Petricevic & Teece, 2019). Although macro-environmental dynamics have been acknowledged as relevant contextual factors, they are often treated as background conditions rather than as active forces shaping relational dynamics. In conditions of extreme uncertainty and reduced decision-making horizons, firms are compelled to reassess the value of their relational commitments, reconsider dependency structures, and re-evaluate the balance between relational benefits and constraints. Recent contributions have begun to examine how turbulence affects the development and functioning of business relationships, highlighting that environmental instability may amplify the darker sides of inter-organisational ties (Zafari et al., 2023). In particular, turbulence has been shown to intensify relational tensions, increase perceived relational risk, and trigger decisions to suspend, downscale, or sever inter-organisational ties (Wadell & Bengtson, 2023). The present study draws upon this emerging stream of research to problematise the traditional IMP perspective by conceptualising relational negativity under turbulence as a dynamic and processual phenomenon. Business relationships are understood as inherently ambivalent: the same relationship may function as a protective mechanism that supports adaptation and collective problem-solving, or as a constraining force that limits strategic flexibility and amplifies vulnerability, especially in situations of asymmetrical dependence. Environmental turbulence has been shown to activate latent ambivalence, thereby rendering the shifting roles of business relationships both visible and consequential.

Methodology The present study employs a qualitative research design, underpinned by multiple case studies, an approach that has been demonstrated to be well suited to the investigation of complex relational processes and contextual dynamics (Eisenhardt, 1989; Stake, 1995). A qualitative methodology facilitates an in-depth exploration of how firms interpret environmental turbulence and reassess the value of inter-organisational relationships under conditions of high uncertainty. The empirical context under scrutiny is the European technical textile sector, which is characterised by intricate supply networks involving manufacturers, suppliers, business-to-business customers, and intermediaries, and is particularly exposed to environmental turbulence. The data presented herein were collected through semi-structured interviews with key organisational actors, complemented by documentary analysis and observations of inter-organisational interactions. This combination of data sources is consistent with established qualitative approaches in business network research (Dubois & Gadde, 2014). The study follows an abductive research logic, in which empirical data collection and analysis developed iteratively through systematic combining, allowing theory and empirical observations to continuously inform each other. This approach enabled the progressive refinement of analytical categories as insights emerging from the case were confronted with existing conceptual frameworks, ensuring both empirical grounding and theoretical sensitivity.

Expected results The study is expected to demonstrate that environmental turbulence significantly reshapes how firms interpret and manage inter-organisational relationships. This finding aligns with recent research on business relationships in turbulent environments (Zafari et al., 2023), which suggests that turbulence does not uniformly compromise relational value. Instead, it activates the inherent ambivalence of business relationships. The findings are expected to indicate that, in some cases, relational ties enable firms to mitigate exogenous shocks by supporting joint problem-solving, adaptation, and coordinated responses across network actors. In other cases, particularly where relationships are characterised by asymmetrical dependence or rigid commitments, relational ties have been shown to intensify perceived risk, escalate coordination costs, and contribute to relational negativity (Wadell & Bengtson, 2023). Furthermore, relational negativity under turbulence is expected to emerge as a dynamic process rather than as a static outcome, affecting not only individual relationships but also broader network configurations. These dynamics have the potential to constrain short-term collaborative innovation and to disrupt existing supply network structures. Concurrently, they may also initiate specific processes of relationship reconfiguration, which can have ramifications for longer-term resilience.

References

Bocconcelli, R., Carlborg, P., Harrison, D., Hasche, N., Hedvall, K., & Huang, L. (2020). Resource interaction and resource integration: Similarities, differences, reflections. Industrial Marketing Management, 91, 385-396. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2020.09.016 Dubois, A., & Gadde, L. E. (2014). "Systematic combining"-A decade later. Journal of Business Research, 67(6), 1277-1284. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2013.03.036 Dubois, A., & Waluszewski, A. (1998). A Networks Approach to Industrial Dynamics–Identifying two objects and two forms of organizing. Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). Building theories from case study research. Academy of management review, 14(4), 532-550. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/258557 Gadde, L.-E., & Håkansson, H. (2008). Business relationships and resource combining. The IMP journal, 2(1), 31-45. Guercini, S., & Tunisini, A. (2017). Formalizing in business networks as a tool for industrial policy. Imp Journal, 11(1), 91-108. https://doi.org/10.1108/Imp-07-2015-0040 Håkansson, H., Ford, D., Gadde, L.-E., Snehota, I., & Waluszewski, A. (2009). Business in networks. John Wiley & Sons. Handfield, R. (2019). Shifts in buyer-seller relationships: A retrospective on Handfield and Bechtel (2002). Industrial Marketing Management, 83, 194-206. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2019.08.012 Petricevic, O., & Teece, D. J. (2019). The structural reshaping of globalization: Implications for strategic sectors, profiting from innovation, and the multinational enterprise. Journal of International Business Studies, 50(9), 1487-1512. Runfola, A., Perna, A., Baraldi, E., & Gregori, G. L. (2017). The use of qualitative case studies in top business and management journals: A quantitative analysis of recent patterns. European Management Journal, 35(1), 116-127. Snehota, I., & Hakansson, H. (1995). Developing relationships in business networks. In. London: Routledge. Stake, R. E. (1995). The art of case study research. Sage. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/135638909600200211 Wadell, O., & Bengtson, A. (2023). On the starting situation for business relationship initiation in turbulent business networks. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 39(13), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1108/Jbim-06-2022-0251 Zafari, K., Biggemann, S., & Garry, T. (2023). Development of business-to-business relationships in turbulent environments. Industrial Marketing Management, 111, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2023.03.002

ABSTRACT. It is well recognised that the multitude of environmental and social sustainability challenges, materialized in the UN SDGs, requires inter-organisational responses in business networks and markets (Sharma, 2020; Harrison et al., 2023). In particular, the need to protect biodiversity – “the interconnectedness of all forms of life on our planet” (Altman, 2023 ) – underpins inter-organisational sustainability challenges and responses (Salmi et al., 2023). In this paper, we relate to one of the five main drivers of global biodiversity loss, invasive alien species (IPBES, 2023); that is, the non-native plants, animals or microorganisms (i.e. non-human species) that spread into a new environment and can change ecosystems, biodiversity, the economy or human health.

Business activity is not only shaped by markets, technologies and institutions, but also by ecological processes that interact with and sometimes disrupt business relationships (Whiteman, 2013), such as the impact of invasive aquatic species on global shipping. Within these intertwined systems, non-human species are not merely passive resources upon which firms draw; they also influence, constrain and co-create the conditions under which economic actors operate. As we propose in this paper, non-human species can function as participants with agency to affect business relationships and activities.

The growing recognition that relational interaction in business networks is embedded within complex socio-ecological systems has created an imperative to rethink the role of non-human species in economic life (Waddock et al., 2011; Rupprecht et al., 2020; Helkkula & Arnould, 2022). The idea of agency as not exclusively linked to humans is both well established and increasingly relevant (Latour, 2002; Schatzki, 2025). This agency does not need to be inherently intentional but nevertheless comes with the potential for encouraging some form of network change. For example, pollinators such as bees not only provide an ecological service essential for agricultural value chains. They can also reshape these value chains when their populations fluctuate, prompting firms to innovate, reorganize sourcing practices or collaborate in new ways (see Aitkins & Aitkins, 2017). Recently, stingless bees have been awarded legal status in Peru - a world first for the protection of insects - that gives them the right to exist, thrive, live in a pollution-free habitat and be legally represented in court if harmed or threatened.

We posit that there is a lack of research about the role of non-human species as actors with agency in business networks. In the proposed paper, we respond by addressing agency from an Industrial Network Approach (INA), emphasizing this as an important, necessary and emerging line of study.

The idea that non-human species possess agency is well established across multiple disciplines. Existing research shows how species actively shape economic, organisational and governance outcomes. Business ethics scholarship has long argued for recognizing non-human stakeholders in decision-making (Starik, 1995; Norton, 2007). In accounting, activists speak on behalf of plants and animals that cannot articulate their interests within economic systems (Laine & Vinnari, 2017; Vinnari & Laine, 2017). Studies have sought to translate ecological value into investable forms such as biodiversity credits and habitat banks (Cuckston, 2019; Siddiqui, 2013). In project management, the breeding cycles of a protected frog species have been shown to disrupt construction timelines, financial decisions and project temporalities (Tryggestad et al., 2013). In organisation studies, perspectives that frame animals as workers with rights are increasingly present (Shaw, 2018; Tallberg & Hamilton, 2022).

Taken together, existing debates in social science demonstrate that non-human species both have stakes and, sometimes, possess agency in industrial contexts, albeit in diverse and uneven forms. However, most studies focus on how human actors perceive, manage, value or control nature through human-centric lenses, rather than on how non-human species influence business networks, even if unintentionally. As Tryggestad et al. (2013, p. 73) observe, “the question of the identity of the stakeholder is more interesting when it assumes agency and forces humans and non-humans to act in a different way”.

The INA offers an under-utilized conceptual space for bringing non-human species into analysis as actors with influence. While nature has always been part of the activity chain in industrial systems (Harrison & Prenkert, 2026), its agency has remained subdued within extant INA conceptualisations that have implicitly recognised non-human species as resources. In this paper, we focus on invasive species as a critical empirical context through which to explore non-human agency in business networks. Invasive species, while often posing threats to biodiversity loss, exemplify how ecological processes are entangled with industrial activity. Often emerging as unintended consequences of logistics, infrastructure and global trade (see Harrison et al., 2018), invasives can generate network-level disruptions, while simultaneously resist managerial control. As such, the aim of this paper is to understand the role of non-human species as active agents in business networks, rather than as passive resources to be consumed or managed. We ask: How do invasive species affect relational activities in business networks? We will answer the research question by both teasing out different types of “invasives agency” through different qualitative case vignettes (such as zebra mussels, Russian king crabs, Japanese knotweed) based on primary and secondary data across different industrial contexts, and by questioning who pays or gains from the invasives in different settings.

Conceptually, taking INA as the starting point, we add Schatzki’s (2025) agency ideas and Callon et al.’s (2025a, 2025b) notion of ecologisation to discuss non-human species as asset-actifs in business networks. The former describes agency as ‘acting’, doing’ and ‘effecting’. The latter describes non-human species as simultaneously assets (resources, objects of valuation) and actifs (actors with the capacity to act), with agency to influence industrial networks by doing and effecting unintended yet consequential effects. We contribute to the INA by foregrounding biodiversity management as a core component of business networks, and wider network understandings of agency by non-human actors. In doing so, we demonstrate that whether welcomed or resisted, non-human species shape business relationships and network dynamics. Recognizing their agency reveals important paradoxes of control, responsibility and adaptation in contemporary industrial systems, and opens new directions for theorizing network change in an era of ecological disruption.

ABSTRACT. Company success and growth depend on key-customers, and large customers—often treated as key accounts—are particularly influential. These customers can generate substantial opportunities but also create significant risk: while they may strengthen a firm’s market position and profitability, the loss of even a single key account can threaten performance and, in extreme cases, organizational survival. As a result, accurately identifying, selecting, and managing key accounts is especially critical in highly competitive markets, and can be particularly challenging for international and multinational firms operating in foreign environments.

This study provides a comprehensive understanding of how key accounts are identified and analysed as part of implementing key account management (KAM) programs in the Arab context, where distinctive cultural and institutional conditions shape business relationships. Findings from our qualitative research suggest that quantitative metrics alone are insufficient for key account identification and selection. Instead, qualitative criteria—strongly influenced by the host-country environment—also play a central role. Drawing on the Industrial Network A–R–A framework, Holt and Guesalaga’s three-step key account qualification process, and Ojasalo’s KAM implementation framework, we specify relevant selection criteria and discuss their implications for foreign firms’ strategy implementation. The paper concludes by outlining directions for future research.

ABSTRACT. 1. Introduction During the 1970s, the industrial marketing and purchasing group was established. The uniting interest among scholars was understanding business markets (cf. Håkansson et al., 2009). This interest led to the formulation of an interaction model, which has been the heart of the community’s research since then (Håkansson, 1982). According to the interaction model, short-term daily exchanges or transactions (transactions) of a social and economic nature will, together, form an interaction that will lead to the creation of a business relationship. The business relationship, composed of, for example, trust, adaptation, and commitment, will then shape future interactions (Håkansson et al., 2009). From this point of view, interaction is accordingly a manifestation of change, while the business relationship is a state (a frozen point in time). From this point of view, interaction and relationships are accordingly two things that can be separated. This view of business markets is beneficial to establish measures of different relational outcomes. However, in this paper, the concept of transrelating is introduced. Transrealting can be defined as the performances through which two business actors relate to and transact with each other in their everyday lives (e.g., Goffman, 2022 [1959]). This concept accoringly focuses on the daily practices such as talking on the phone, answering emails, making payments and deliveries. The concept of transrelating then focuses on the day-to-day actions, practices, and routines through which humans, on the one hand, relate to each other. This includes building, destroying or reproducing relational aspects such as trust, commitment, and adaptations. But there is also a transactional aspect to each encounter, with each actor trying to gain something that benefits them and/or their organization. The purpose of this paper is accordingly to introduce the concept of transrealting as a way to understand the interplay between actors on business markets. The paper is conceptual in nature. However, the trade credit transaction route, through which most business-to-business companies make deliveries and payments, will be used as an illustrative example. This paper offers one major contribution. The contribution implies complementing the conceptual duality of interaction and business relationship (Håkansson & Snehota., 2017) with the concept of transrelating. As pointed out, the concepts of interaction and business relationship primarily emphasize the long-term effects in business markets. The concept of transrealting then complements this view by focusing on the day-to-day actions and routines that actors perform. By developing the concept, we can hopefully move towards a more practical understanding of business markets and a view that puts human actors' daily activities more into focus. This can hopefully give us a more fine-grained understanding of business markets. An understanding that can help many companies in their daily operations. The paper is structured as follows. In the next section, the interaction and business relationship view of business markets is presented. In the second section, the transrelating concept is introduced. In the third section, the concept is illustrated with an empirical example (i.e., trade credit transactions). The paper ends with a concluding discussion, avenues for future research and managerial implications.

References Goffman, E. (2022) [1959]. The presentation of self in everyday life. Penguin Books

Håkansson, H. (Ed.). (1982). International marketing and purchasing of industrial goods: An interaction approach (Vol. 389). Chichester: Wiley.

Håkansson, H., Ford, D., Gadde, L. E., Snehota, I., & Waluszewski, A. (2009). Business in Networks. John Wiley and Sons

Håkansson, H., & Snehota, I. (Eds.). (2017). No business is an island: Making sense of the interactive business world. Emerald Group Publishing.

Johanson, J., & Mattsson, L. G. (1987). Interorganizational relations in industrial systems: a network approach compared with the transaction-cost approach. International Studies of Management & Organization, 17(1), 34-48.

ABSTRACT. A significant portion of business relationships are structurally asymmetrical (Holmlund & Kock, 1996): the parties have different sizes, resource sets, market access, and decision-making freedom. Supply chain literature (e.g., Brito & Miguel, 2017) often examines power asymmetry in these buyer-supplier relationships. Siemieniako et al. (2025) investigate the value co-creation from the perspective of the weaker supplier in the initial stage of product- and technology development. The research examines the positive aspects of asymmetric relationships that led to growth opportunities. Based on their findings, mutual learning and knowledge creation helped improve the balance of power between buyers and suppliers. In the sustainable supply chains examined by Talay, Oxborrow, and Brindley (2020), the requirements of large buyers place significant pressure on small suppliers, yet their responsiveness, flexibility, and rapid adaptability can also be a critical competitive advantage. In the IMP (Industrial Marketing and Purchasing Group) literature, only a limited number of publications deal with asymmetric relationships. Lee and Johnsen (2012) describe the dynamics of asymmetric relationships in three phases. The characteristics of the exploratory phase are high uncertainty and low trust. The developing phase is characterized by increasingly close alignment in the technical, organizational, and behavioral dimensions. In the stable phase, structural asymmetry remains unchanged, but it becomes functional, with both parties relying on each other's distinct resources. The conditions for the stable phase to develop are behavioral mirroring, where the supplier adjusts its communication, administrative, and decision-making rhythms to those of the buyer; a standard quality system and technical adaptations in the form of standardized processes; and the supplier gradually gaining legitimacy within the buyer's organization. According to Munksgaard, Johnsen, and Patterson (2015), this is a dual goal-setting process in which the supplier must simultaneously maintain its own interests and develop common goals with the buyer. Johnsen and Ford (2006; 2008) interpret asymmetry as a relational state shaped by the characteristics of the relationship (mutuality, intensity, interpersonal consistency) and the quality of adaptations. Asymmetry can be destructive, in which case vulnerability, loss of resources, and rigid dependence are its fundamental characteristics. In contrast, the characteristics of functional asymmetry are complementarity, mutual learning, and value creation. According to Johnsen & Ford's (2008) typology, the "quality" of asymmetry depends on mutuality, the nature of the relationship, power dependency, conflicts, and the intensity of the relationship. Johnsen & Ford (2006) distinguish four interaction capabilities of small suppliers: human, technological, managerial systems, and cultural interaction capabilities. We believe that not only the interaction capabilities of small suppliers but also those of large buyers influence the development of the relationship. These interaction capabilities also help small suppliers shape their networks. While the IMP literature extensively discusses dependency and constraints for small firms in asymmetrical relationships, less attention has been given to how these firms can proactively shape networks and create value with large buyers (Lacoste et al. 2023, Ouppara et al. 2024). According to the concept of network performance developed by Bayne, Schepis, and Purchase (2017), functional asymmetry creates efficiency (better functioning interfaces, coordinated processes) on the one hand. It ensures effectiveness (common goals, long-term stability) on the other. Although significant research has been conducted on buyer-dominated networks, most studies only establish the passive dependence of small suppliers. Few empirical studies focus on the active position-building activities of small suppliers. They do not examine how destructive asymmetry evolves into functional asymmetry across the relationship's different stages, i.e., the exploratory, developing, and stable stages. The key concept of our research is functional asymmetry. The working definition of the concept is: a relationship in which structural differences do not disappear but instead fulfill a value-creating function through adaptation, the development of interaction capabilities, and learning between the parties. The purpose of our paper is to develop a deeper understanding of functional asymmetry, value co-creation through the interaction capabilities of both parties, and small suppliers' network shaping. Based on the reviewed theoretical background, we formulate the following research questions related to asymmetrical business relationships: RQ1: How do relationship characteristics - mutuality, power-dependence, and conflicts change over the phases of an asymmetrical relationship? RQ2a: What interaction capabilities do suppliers develop to meet customer expectations over the phases of an asymmetrical relationship? RQ2b: What interaction capabilities are needed from the buyer in an asymmetrical relationship with a small supplier? RQ3: How do small suppliers build and shape their network position by using their interaction capabilities throughout the asymmetrical relationship? We apply the case study as a research method. The focus of our research is a supplier program of a large food retail chain that gathers small- and medium-sized regional suppliers. At the IMP2026 conference, the preliminary results of qualitative interviews with managers at different levels and other key employees at the buyer, as well as with some small suppliers, will be presented.

ABSTRACT. This paper examines how small firms maintain resilience while creating value in asymmetric B2B relationships with a dominant digital platform. Grounded in the IMP tradition, which conceptualises value as relational and network-embedded, the study employs an abductive, multiple-case study of four small confectionery firms cooperating with a digital intermediary platform in Poland. We identified eight resilience-building elements that small companies can use in their business practices to create value in asymmetric relationships. The findings show that small firms actively develop resilience through interaction, resource mobilisation, and network positioning, countering assumptions that weaker actors are merely passive recipients of powerful partners' decisions. The paper contributes to IMP research on asymmetry, value creation, and resilience in digitised business networks.

ABSTRACT. Firms operating in seismic-prone territories face persistent and spatially differentiated conditions of uncertainty that affect not only physical assets but also interaction patterns and business network stability. Within the IMP perspective, firms are embedded actors whose behaviors emerge from relationships rather than isolated decisions. Yet seismic risk is still often treated as a temporary shock, overlooking its structural and place-based nature. This paper advances IMP theory by conceptualizing seismic risk as a continuous territorial condition shaping how firms adapt, reconfigure resource ties, and adjust relationships. We argue that resilience and antifragility are emergent network-level properties conditioned by micro-territorial variability in seismic hazard, urban form, accessibility, and service provision. These localized features generate differentiated adaptive trajectories even within the same municipality. The study focuses on the Marche Apennine seismic crater, leveraging high-resolution seismic microzonation data developed after the 2016 earthquake sequence. An abductive, systematic-combining design integrates spatially explicit hazard information with qualitative evidence from interviews with firms, municipalities, and domain experts. This approach allows territorial conditions to operate as an active analytical dimension in explaining indirect economic impacts and network disruptions occurring even in the absence of physical damage. Findings show that resilience depends on coordinated adjustments among interconnected actors embedded in specific territorial configurations. The paper contributes to IMP research by introducing spatially differentiated risk as a missing dimension of embeddedness and by highlighting the need for place-based, network-oriented strategies for firms located in high-risk environments.

ABSTRACT. Over the last two decades, social enterprise (SE) has attracted increasing attention from both academics and practitioners (Mikołajczak, 2020; Social Enterprise Alliance, 2018). However, as is often the case in the academic field, there is no single definition of SE, and its meaning can vary from country to country depending on legislative, cultural, and economic contexts (Poledrini and Borzaga, 2021). Nevertheless, although SEs vary from country to country and even within the same country, they can be defined as any enterprise with a social aim combined, totally or partially, with a profit orientation (Poledrini, 2015; Searing et al., 2022). Given this difference, compared to companies that are “only” profit-oriented, SEs also have additional differences and issues that “other” enterprises do not have, such as tensions between social missions and business ventures, as well as issues about whether to hire according to a social logic, such as helping people in need of work, or a performance capacity. Therefore, SEs are organisations with specific characteristics that differentiate them from solely profit-oriented enterprises (Battilana et al., 2015; Smith, Gonin, and Besharov, 2013). SEs often emerge and develop within an inter-organisational network context and in pursuit of objectives related to social sustainability (Granados and Rivera, 2018; Littlewood and Khan, 2018). It is important to emphasise that companies began engaging in social activities as early as the 1980s, and many large corporations were donating part of their profits to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities (Carroll, 1999). Therefore, the SEs that have emerged in the last two decades differ from CSR activities in that the social dimension is part of the company's purpose (Borzaga and Tortia, 2009). However, the extent to which the social dimension predominates over the logic of profit as a purpose varies from SE to SE. Therefore, there can be SEs with a lower profit-making purpose because the main one is the social purpose (Young, Searing and Brewer, 2016), or, in other cases, the social purpose is not the predominant one because the company is mainly profit-driven, but it still has a social aim. Some authors consider CSR activities alone to be a prerequisite for being a SE (Cornelius et al., 2008; Wilson, 2012). This is often the case with some USA scholars, who consider the term SE to refer to a wide variety of organisations and activities. In this case, the emphasis is mainly on the generation of profits by entities that also engage in some form of social activity (Kerlin, 2006, 2010 and 2013). Unlike in Europe, scholars have a narrow definition of SEs that are organisations that carry out business activities to achieve a social purpose and mainly belong to the nonprofit sector (Defourny and Nyssens, 2017a, 2017b). The role of business networks in the development of internationalisation processes has long been examined in the IMP approach (Håkansson et al., 2009). The development of business networks characterises internationalisation in companies (Guercini and Runfola, 2010, 2016), just as outsidership has been identified as a key liability in internationalisation processes (Johansson and Valhne, 2009). The role of position in the network is sensitive to the evolution of the geopolitical framework, as evidenced by the fact that insidership can become a source of liability in the internationalisation process (Hilmersson et al., 2026). However, SEs have certain characteristics that can affect not only interpersonal networks, but also the organisations in which they operate. In this paper, we examine the role of this specificity in the internationalisation process. Over the past two decades, SEs have been studied from many perspectives, including their accountability processes (Ebrahim, Battilana and Mair, 2024), governance (Spear, Cornforth and Aiken, 2009), the various financial resources used to achieve their social mission (Searing et al., 2022), and so on. However, there are still important gaps in the literature that need to be filled, one of which is the study of the internationalisation processes of SEs (De Beule, Bruneel and Dobson 2023; Dries, De Beule and Bruneel, 2026). In fact, when SEs first emerged in various countries around the world, they mainly developed within their own countries. However, more recently, many of them have begun to be internationalised both commercially and through foreign direct investment (Alon et al., 2020). The reasons and ways that drive an SE to adopt an internationalisation strategy vary depending on company characteristics, such as size (large, medium, or small), ownership (family businesses or non-family firms), sector of activity, country of origin, and so on. The social side of an SE's international process has not yet been deeply studied, so this research aims to shed more light on it. In particular, this research aims to investigate how the culture of the hosting country can influence the internationalization process of a SE within its business network by answering the following interrelated research questions: (RQ1) How does the social identity and social sustainability of a SE play a role in the internationalization process?, and (RQ2) Which is the role of interorganizational networking in entering the foreign market and approaching cultural differences? To answer the above research questions, a case study of the Cappellino Foundation was conducted. Case study-based research has been relevant to the IMP approach since its inception (Håkansson, 1982). Case study research is an empirical research strategy that investigates a contemporary phenomenon in its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between the phenomenon and its context are not clear (Yin, 2014). Case study research is particularly appropriate when the research seeks to answer “how” questions and when the researcher has little or no knowledge of the event. Therefore, the case study approach was chosen for its potential to provide an in-depth, holistic understanding of the phenomenon. Fondazione Capellino is a non-profit commercial foundation based in Genoa and established with the primary mission of safeguarding the biosphere and protecting biodiversity. Unlike traditional charities that rely on donations, the foundation is financially self-sustaining, funded by the profits of its wholly owned company, Almo Nature Benefit S.p.A., which produces high-quality pet food. Almo Nature has a strong international presence: it operates through multiple offices and subsidiaries in Europe and North America, including Germany, Switzerland, the UK, France, the Netherlands, Canada, and the United States, and serves markets in over 40 countries worldwide. The study is expected to show that the social mission and identity of SEs influence international B2B relationships, shaping trust, partner selection, and long-term collaboration. In particular, the findings highlight the role of cultural distance in mediating how social values are perceived and integrated within internationalization processes. Also, the research shows that SEs maintain stable core values while adapting the expression of their social mission to different cultural and market contexts. Finally, the study provides managerial insights on how SE can balance social objectives, cultural sensitivity, and business performance in international B2B markets.

ABSTRACT. The starting point for the proposed paper is the recent calls within the B2B marketing literature for more understanding of the future perspective in business marketing. Halinen et al. (2023), argue that managers view the distant future as implicit in their current thinking and network interactions. Such visioning, including e.g. openly contemplating the future, designing structural changes, detecting probable trends, and forming of strategic intentions, is argued to be limited by individual cognitive frameworks and network constraints (Abrahamsen et al., 2023). To enable a forward-looking perspective, we should thereby focus on enabling purposeful preparation of alternative futures and envisioning both near-term and distant possibilities. At the same time, companies have been long criticized for short-termism in decision making. For example, strategic planning cycles rarely extend beyond five years, financial reporting privileges quarterly performance, and managerial incentive systems remain tied to near-term metrics (Bansal & Desjardine, 2014).

The multiple temporalities implied are of particular relevance to network collaborations towards solving sustainability challenges. We posit that sustainability challenges are ‘wicked problems’ (Trist, 1983) whose consequences unfold over decades or centuries, such as climate change, biodiversity collapse, or resource depletion. One outcome is that the ‘very long’ or distant futures (Augustine et al., 2019) temporality that shapes planetary processes differs from the “near futures” that firms typically consider in their forecasting and strategy work (Bansal & Desjardine, 2014; Kim et al., 2019).

While the tension between these two futures temporalities – near futures and distant futures - has been acknowledged in management studies (e.g., Bansal et al., 2014), we argue that its implications for how companies interact, build relationships, and shape business networks has been largely overlooked in B2B marketing. The paper proposed here argues that temporal sustainability work in business relationships is a missing link in shaping the business networks underpinning more sustainable markets. This is because B2B relationships are key places where both near and distant futures should be envisioned, negotiated, and rendered actionable, and where managers collectively engage in temporal work towards the “future-making” that underpins sustainability transitions.

In essence, temporal sustainability work is core because images of futures are constructed through the work of human actors. That is, temporal work refers to the practices by which actors create, contest, and manipulate temporal structures to make sense of strategic issues, justify action, or negotiate change (Kaplan & Orlikowski, 2013; Reinecke & Ansari, 2015). Typically, temporal work involves navigating the past, present and future. Bansal et al. 2022) conceptualize temporal work as comprising temporal talk, temporal practices, and temporal objects—each contributing to the construction of shared temporal frameworks.

By shaping how actors perceive time and the future, temporal work can support alignment within and across organizational boundaries. In terms of the latter, Hilbolling et al. (2022) show how joint engagement in future-oriented meaning-making can generate a shared “protovision”—an emergent, co-created picture of the future that supports coordinated action. Similarly, Jarvenpaa et al. (2022) highlight how temporal work can build a collective “willingness to create,” fostering innovation and collaborative experimentation.

This is in keeping with how research has long recognized that organizations’ orientations toward the future profoundly shape decision-making. Following Feuls et al. (2025), existing work on how companies address “distant-future goals” can be grouped into three broad categories. First, some studies examine how actors’ dominant temporal orientation—short-term vs. long-term—affects their capacity to engage with complex issues. Short-term orientations afford flexibility but risk “temporal myopia. Long-term orientations provide foresight but may impair responsiveness to immediate pressures.

A second stream emphasizes the integration of multiple time horizons. Here, effectiveness depends on balancing short-term and long-term concerns. Concepts such as intertemporal trade-offs (Bansal & DesJardine, 2014) capture how progress on sustainability may require sacrifices at one point in time to generate benefits at another.

A third stream moves beyond simple contrasts between present, near-future, and long-term futures, focusing instead on how futures are actively produced. Feuls et al. (2025) introduce the idea of “future-making,” echoing work on “credible imaginaries” (Beckert, 2021) to show how actors construct shared representations of the future that guide present action (see also Kim et al., 2019).

Despite advances made by research on temporality, most contributions remain concerned with relatively near-term projections, incremental extensions of the present. This is especially problematic when considering work in business networks towards sustainability. We argue that it necessitates engaging in what Augustine et al. (2019) propose as the distant future. Augustine et al. (2019) describe distant futures as possessing a distinctive “phenomenological quality” (p. 1933): the challenge is not only uncertainty or risk these futures are bringing, but rather the issue of how to imagine these futures.

Augustine et al. (2019) define distant futures as “a representation of a future state of the world that is fictional in the sense that it presents a discontinuity with present reality and is not grounded in present experience” (Augustine et al., 2019: 1931). In this sense, the distant future is not a chronological extension of current trajectories; it is an imaginary, intersubjectively constructed and socially negotiated.

The importance of temporal sustainability work in business networks working towards more sustainable futures

We argue that temporal sustainability work in business relationships needs to include both a near and distant future. That is, we challenge current conceptualisations of temporal work that are based on the past, present and near future (e.g., Bansal et al., 2022). We aim to illustrate our arguments using empirical vignettes from sectors such as textiles, energy, etc.

References

Abrahamsen, M. H., Halinen, A., & Naudé, P. (2023). The role of visioning in business network strategizing. Journal of Business Research, 154, 113334. Augustine, C., Soderstrom, S., & Milner, J. (2019). Imagining the distant future: Exploring the phenomenology of future thinking in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 44(6), 1925–1950. Bansal, P., & DesJardine, M. (2014). Business sustainability: It is about time. Strategic Organization, 12(1), 70–78. Bansal, P., Kim, A., Wood, M., & Wesely, C. (2022). Temporal work: How organizations construct time for strategizing. Academy of Management Annals, 16(2), 636–668. Feuls, M., Reinecke, J., & Ansari, S. (2025). Future-making and organizational temporality: A framework for understanding time in sustainability transitions. Organization Studies, forthcoming. Halinen, A., Nordberg-Davies, S., & Möller, K. (2024). Time to look forward: Advocating future orientation in business network research. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 39(3), 447-460. Hilbolling, S., Makkonen, H., & Aarikka-Stenroos, L. (2022). Proto-visioning in innovation networks: How actors align on the future. Industrial Marketing Management, 102, 154–166. Jarvenpaa, S. L., Hanseth, O., & Lyytinen, K. (2022). Collective willingness to create in digital innovation: A temporal perspective. Information Systems Research, 33(3), 837–855. Kaplan, S., & Orlikowski, W. J. (2013). Temporal work in strategy making. Organization science, 24(4), 965-995. Kim, S., Kaplan, S., & Naumov, S. (2019). Constructing the future: Temporal work and the emergence of new markets. Academy of Management Journal, 62(6), 1820–1850. Reinecke, J., & Ansari, S. (2015). When times collide: Temporal brokerage at the intersection of markets and developments. Academy of Management Journal, 58(2), 618-648.

ABSTRACT. INTRODUCTION

Industrial marketing and purchasing (IMP) research has emphasized that no business operates in isolation: firms are embedded in networks of interdependent relationships (eg. Håkansson & Snehota, 1989). Achieving sustainability transitions, i.e. fundamental changes towards more sustainable technologies and practices, similarly requires collective shifts across networks of organizations, not just isolated firm efforts (Geels, 2002; Markard et al., 2012). However, simulating such transitions poses a challenge because industrial networks are open systems with fluid boundaries and countless actors influencing each other. The concept of a firm’s network horizon, i.e. how far a company perceives relevant connections in the network (Anderson et al., 1994), highlights that actors can only partially grasp and influence the broader network. This openness and interdependence complicate attempts to model or “gamify” sustainability transitions in a controlled setting. In this paper, we address the challenge of simulating sustainability transitions in open, interdependent industrial networks. We focus on a collaborative business simulation platform called NWoW which is used by approximately 1,500 users annually. NWoW provides an interactive, multi-actor environment where participants manage virtual companies engaged in joint projects and resource exchanges. We argue that NWoW already operationalizes some of the core IMP network concepts, such as the Actors-Resources-Activities (ARA) model (eg. Håkansson & Johanson, 1992), and thus offers a promising basis for modelling network interactions and adaptation. We propose a “network horizon design logic” to better represent open network boundaries in the simulation, aligning with IMP perspectives on network openness. Finally, we outline specific directions for further developing NWoW to simulate sustainability transition dynamics, such as incorporating network openness configuration, institutional change configuration, relationship-level tracking, and innovation diffusion mechanisms.

NWOW SIMULATION AND IMP NETWORK CONCEPTS

The NWoW simulation platform is designed around collaborative business interactions, making it well-suited to represent IMP concepts in action. In NWoW, each team of participants assumes the role of an actor (eg. a firm) that owns and develops resources (eg. equipment, skills, capital) and carries out activities (e.g. bidding on project offers, allocating resources in projects) in conjunction with other firms. This mirrors the ARA model of industrial networks, where outcomes emerge from the interplay of actors, resources, and activities across firm boundaries (Håkansson & Johanson, 1992). Participants in NWoW must negotiate resource use and adjust their plans based on others’ actions, reflecting the notion that business relationships are interactive and dynamic (Ford et al., 2003). A distinctive feature of NWoW is its focus on responsible business performance: firms are evaluated not only on financial results but also on ecological and social sustainability outcomes. This introduces elements of transparency and shared metrics into the simulated network, as participants are able to observe and benchmark sustainability performance. Such transparency encourages network-level awareness, as firms see how their actions contribute to collective outcomes. Moreover, NWoW fosters awareness of interdependence: for example, a company may need to collaborate with others to obtain critical resources or meet sustainability goals for a project. This aligns with IMP insights that firms’ capabilities and outcomes are heavily dependent on network counterparts (Håkansson & Snehota, 1989; Håkansson & Ford, 2002). No single actor in NWoW can alone succeed without considering the activities and resources of others, echoing the network paradoxes described eg. by Håkansson and Ford (2002), where companies both influence and are influenced by their network. The simulation thus implicitly teaches participants about adaptation and coordination in networks: as conditions change (new project opportunities, resource scarcities, etc.), the network of firms must adjust through repeated interactions. In other terms, actors co-evolve through ongoing adaptations in their relationships (Ford et al., 2003).

THE “NETWORK HORIZON” APPROACH TO OPEN NETWORKS

While NWoW captures closed-group interactions well, real industrial networks are inherently open-ended. Firms constantly encounter new potential partners, emerging technologies, and shifting institutional environments beyond their current relationships. We propose extending the simulation’s design using a network horizon logic, so that participants face an open network boundary rather than a fixed set of counterparts. A firm’s network horizon defines the portion of the network it is aware of and actively considers (Anderson et al., 1994). In practice, this horizon can expand or shift when the firm gathers information or when new actors enter its field of view. Translating this into NWoW, the simulation could periodically introduce new actors or external events, forcing players to extend their network horizon. For example, a new company might appear with a unique resource or a novel sustainable innovation, offering fresh collaboration opportunities. Alternatively, a change in the external landscape, such as a new regulatory requirement on carbon emissions, could impact all firms and prompt them to seek new solutions or partners. By allowing the set of relevant actors to evolve, the network horizon approach prevents participants from treating the network as a closed system. Instead, success in the simulation would depend on how well firms adapt to an expanding network context. This reflects the reality that managing in business networks involves coping with partial knowledge and continually scanning for relevant new connections (Håkansson & Ford, 2002). An open-boundary simulation design would thereby capture a key aspect of sustainability transitions: they often involve entrants and cross-boundary interactions that incumbent firms must respond to (Geels, 2002).

FUTURE DEVELOPMENT: TOWARD SIMULATING TRANSITIONS

Building on the network horizon logic, we outline several possible enhancements, many of which would be rather easily adopted, to NWoW that would enable richer exploration of sustainability transition dynamics in industrial networks:

•Network openness configuration: Allow facilitators or researchers to adjust how “open” the simulation network is. For instance, scenarios could range from a stable set of firms (closed network) to highly dynamic entry and exit of actors eg. through mergers. This flexibility would let users examine different strategies for managing wide vs. narrow supplier and partner networks. •Institutional change configuration: Incorporate external pressures such as regulatory changes, societal norms, or sustainability standards that affect all firms. These institutional forces are crucial in real transitions (Markard et al., 2012), driving companies to collectively adopt new practices. In NWoW, this could be modeled by events (e.g. a carbon tax introduction) that require network-wide adaptation and possibly new roles (e.g. a renewable energy supplier). •Relationship-level tracking: Extend the simulation to better track the state of inter-firm relationships (translated into such concepts as trust or commitment). In real networks, the quality of relationships influences how actors respond to change and share innovations. By simulating evolving relationship strength or conflict, NWoW could model how strong ties facilitate or resist transitions. •Innovation diffusion mechanisms: Add features for the spread of new sustainable innovations or practices through the network. For example, one firm’s adoption of a cleaner technology could gradually reduce costs and increase pressure for others to follow. By simulating diffusion within the network, NWoW can capture path dependence and tipping points characteristic of sustainability transitions (Geels & Schot, 2007).

These enhancements would further shift NWoW from a general collaborative business game into a network transition laboratory. With enough actors in the simulation, researchers could eg. experiment with how different network structures and conditions affect the speed and nature of transitions. Practitioners could gain insights into managing change in their own industry networks, eg. learning how new partnerships or increased information exchange could accelerate sustainability goals.

CONCLUSION Sustainability transitions in industry cannot be understood by examining single firms in isolation; they unfold through collaboration in open industrial networks. We argue that the NWoW collaborative simulation, grounded in concepts like ARA and network horizons, offers a valuable platform for modeling such phenomena. With the added features, simulation could more closely reflect the complexity of real transitions. This presents an opportunity to harness simulation not just as a learning tool but as a research method to systematically explore scenarios in network evolution. Ultimately, a network horizon approach to business simulation narrows the gap between research and the systemic challenges of sustainability transitions.

REFERENCES

Anderson, J. C., Håkansson, H., & Johanson, J. (1994). Dyadic business relationships within a business network context. Journal of Marketing, 58(4), 1–15. Ford, D., Gadde, L.-E., Håkansson, H., & Snehota, I. (2003). Managing Business Relationships (2nd ed.). Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. Geels, F. W. (2002). Technological transitions as evolutionary reconfiguration processes: a multi-level perspective. Research Policy, 31(8–9), 1257–1274. Geels, F. W., & Schot, J. (2007). Typology of sociotechnical transition pathways. Research Policy, 36(3), 399–417. Håkansson, H., & Ford, D. (2002). How should companies interact in business networks? Journal of Business Research, 55(2), 133–139. Håkansson, H., & Johanson, J. (1992). A model of industrial networks. In B. Axelsson & G. Easton (Eds.), Industrial Networks: A New View of Reality (pp. 28–34). London: Routledge. Håkansson, H., & Snehota, I. (1989). No business is an island: The network concept of business strategy. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 5(3), 187–200. Markard, J., Raven, R., & Truffer, B. (2012). Sustainability transitions: an emerging field of research and its prospects. Research Policy, 41(6), 955–967.

ABSTRACT. Business-to-business relationship research has generated rich conceptual explanations of trust, commitment, adaptation, dependence, and value creation, but it still lacks a robust way to theorize how these mechanisms unfold jointly over time under turbulence and digitally mediated interaction. This paper develops a conceptual framework for making B2B relationships “runnable” through agent-based simulation. Drawing on the interaction and network tradition, the commitment-trust perspective, the relational view, and ecosystem research, we argue that B2B relationships should be theorized as dynamic systems in which actor-level choices, governance arrangements, and contextual shocks recursively shape one another. We propose that agentic simulation is a theory-building device that enables the field to move from static representations of relationships to explicit representations of relational processes. The paper specifies the conceptual architecture of such a simulation, advances four propositions about governance, AI mediation, and network-level outcomes, and sets out an implementation roadmap based on two empirical inputs: prior academic literature and a large corpus of earnings call transcripts. The contribution is a stronger conceptual basis for studying path dependence, threshold effects, and cascading consequences in business networks, together with a transparent plan for producing an empirically grounded simulation.

ABSTRACT. Nowadays, managers operate in environments that are volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. Future-oriented scenarios effectively support organizational thinking, decisionmaking, and learning by highlighting opportunities and threats. While traditional linear forecasts struggle to account for technological advances or geopolitical changes, scenario planning isincreasingly accepted in strategic management (Tiberius et al., 2020). The scenarios method involves analyzing macro trends to create internally consistent stories that challenge the "official future" held by leadership and break down overconfidence and tunnel vision about the future. They help firms navigate shocks, disruptions, and nonlinear change by constructing multiple, plausible, and internally consistent “what if” scenarios (Schoemaker, 1995). Studies show that scenarios enable companies to explore options across sectors and decisionmaking levels (Wiebe et al., 2018). They are not intended to deliver ready strategic roadmaps but rather accelerate organizational learning by enhancing strategic knowledge and broadening mental models of the future (Bood & Postma 1997). They improve individual and organizational capabilities to understand the future and consider its volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (Rhisiart et al., 2014). However, scenarios also face methodological and operational criticism (Cordova-Pozo & Rouwette, 2023). The method lacks an explanation of how scenarios stretch mental models, so there is a risk that risks reinforcing existing beliefs rather than challenging them (Hillmann et al., 2018). The process is time‑intensive, and its efficiency depends on organizational size and prior experience (Burt & Chermack, 2008). When applying scenarios, research reports the subjective nature of categorisations and rankings of participant-generated inputs (Metz and Hartley 2020), the complexity of scenario generation process (Steinmann et al. 2020), practical difficulties in including knowledge that is broader than an industry views of future and best practices (Wright et al., 2020) and views of broad set of stakeholders (Wiener et al., 2020). That might be especially visible in the case of SMEs, which operate with lean staff and tight budgets (Nyuur 2015; Scott, 2021). This paper aims to address some of these challenges by advancing the scenario methodology through the application of findings from artificial intelligence. It draws on the concepts of agent-based modeling and agents as social actors to incorporate algorithms into the scenario method. In this study, agents are autonomous decision-making entities that may exhibit various behaviors appropriate to their roles in business networks (Bonabeau 2022). They serve as different actors in a business network of the marketing subsector (e.g., marketers, technology providers, customers). Humans collaborate with these agents for scenario development and interpretations (Hillebrand et al., 2025). Empirically, this study presents a case study of using agentic scenarios to discuss the future of the marketing sector, especially perspectives on work and its management under the pressure of generative AI. The study contributes to B2B marketing literature by advancing scenario planning as a futureoriented tool for strategic learning in turbulent business markets, introducing an AI-based agentic approach to scenario development, and providing early insight into how generative AI may transform marketing work, managerial decision-making, and interorganizational coordination in B2B contexts. It also answers the call to advance the scenario technique methodically and to include new specific scenario-generation methods (Jashari et al., 2021).

ABSTRACT. Sustainability transitions in business networks require radical innovation, which is fundamentally fueled by curiosity. However, the prevailing logic in Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) literature often emphasizes "network orchestration", which could sometimes devolve into a policing mechanism aimed at aligning actors and standardizing processes. This paper argues that excessive orchestration stifles the very curiosity required to solve complex sustainability challenges. Drawing on Paradox Theory and empirical data from MNE subsidiaries, we investigate the tension between the "Organizing Paradox" (centralized control) and the "Learning Paradox" (innovation/unlearning). We propose that shifting from rigid orchestration to a liberal approach to curiosity allows local actors to navigate conflicting stakeholder demands more effectively, thus fostering genuine sustainability innovation rather than mere compliance. We conclude with contributions to business network governance.

ABSTRACT. The transition toward a circular economy (CE) is gaining attention in the IMP field, in both conceptual and empirical studies. CE principles aim to close material loops through material recovery, recycling, reuse and waste reduction (e.g., Korhonen et al., 2018). In parallel, CE requires shifts in managerial logic across networks of actors in which revised business models and new forms of interaction between business partners support transition to more sustainable activities. These changes can be explored through an ecosystem perspective which views organizational collectives as interconnected actors in processes of cooperation and competition working toward common goals such as system-level business or other innovation output (Autio & Thomas, 2020). Applied to CE, this perspective can be regarded as a circular economy ecosystem (CEE) in which actors take various roles to achieve shared goals of material cycles and develop new circular-oriented knowledge and value propositions (Aarikka-Stenroos & Ritala, 2017). CEEs typically engage a variety of firms as well as government agencies, NGOs, social entrepreneurs, and institutions. It is only recently that the CEE concept has been linked to development, implementation, and facilitation of CE business activities (Aarikka-Stenroos et al., 2021; Dziubaniuk & Arikka-Stenroos, 2025). Conventionally, factors such as market demand or innovation initiate the ecosystem development (Möller et al., 2020; Möller & Halinen, 2017). New ecosystems grow from a small network of interdependent actors that signals potential for future expansion. This phenomenon can be conceptually explored through a lens of Minimum Viable Ecosystem (MVE) that captures the initial structure of value creation (Pidun et al., 2020). Anger (2021) describes MVE as an early stage of ecosystem development where the smallest architecture of activities, partners and resources is organized to create shared value and attract additional members and support ecosystem growth. Thus, the strategic focus of the MVE is not immediate revenue but creating value that shows business opportunities and mobilizes committed actors. The MVE concept supports strategic ecosystem planning by defining its boundaries, capabilities and focus on core activities (Pidun et al., 2020) and CE-specific visions outlining structured steps (Konietzko et al. 2024). Nevertheless, we still lack empirical understanding of how MVEs form through interaction when incentives, resources and infrastructures are unsettled. More specifically, this area remains insufficiently understood in CE transitions, where early organizing unfolds under considerable uncertainty rather than through predefined structures. Against this background, we pose the following research question: How can the Minimum Viable Ecosystem be organized to facilitate circular material flows in industrial contexts? Empirically, this study focuses on the textile industry, one of the most environmentally and ethically challenged sectors. The industry organizes material and financial flow between business actors and serves a consumer market affected by demand and consumption patterns (Dziubaniuk et al., 2024; Franco, 2017; Niinimäki & Hassi, 2011). Currently, only discarded textiles circulating in B2B contexts such as workwear can be efficiently recycled into new fiber (Kambanou et al., 2024), while most consumer discarded textiles are incinerated due to limited recycling infrastructure (Dziubaniuk & Aarikka-Stenroos, 2025). The challenge is hence how to handle discarded consumer textiles in ways that minimize environmental impact and create viable revenue streams for actors. Regulatory pressure reinforces the need for industrial actors to embed CE principles. For instance, the Extended Producer Responsibility framework (Waste framework directive 2008/98) makes producers responsible for environmental impact across the product life cycle and is expected to influence textile producers directly (Brown & Börkey, 2024). Tracing textile origin and use can support assessment of environmental impact and recyclability. Digital product passports are intended to provide such information, including data on fiber, repair history, and take-back points. Their efficient integration in material cycles, however, depends on a functioning ecosystem of industrial actors, which makes mapping an emerging MVE necessary to understand opportunities and constraints. Our empirical case study explores the textile cycle MVE formation using a small set of actors positioned at the initial stage of circular ecosystem development and operating in the international context. These actors include a technology provider offering digital product passports, firms responsible for collection and sorting of discarded textiles, and non-market actors such as regions, project funders and coordinating institutions. Empirical data are collected through interviews with executives from the key organizations and analyzed through content analysis. The case follows the early development of a circular textile ecosystem anchored around a Norwegian startup that develops digital passports for textile identification. It collaborates closely with a large Norwegian textile apparel brand owner and participates in funded innovation projects with Scandinavian partners focused on product-level transparency and data-enabled circular services. It also has the emerging European partnerships with collection and sorting organizations, among them a sorting facility in Ukraine and a recycled fiber platform in Slovakia. This constellation allows us to observe ecosystem emergence in its very early phase, before roles, routines or technical interfaces have stabilized. The preliminary analysis shows that this MVE is at a formative stage where actors test how digital traceability, logistics and initial recovery options can work together. The Norwegian startup acts as an infrastructural anchor, since the digital passport is the only shared tool that binds the brand owner to logistics partners and sorting actors. At the same time, the partners seemingly have different expectations, time horizons and capacities for the activities. Brand owners adopt digital identification to prepare for regulatory changes and explore new services but sorting and processing firms emphasize continued uncertainty regarding the composition and quality of recycled fibers. Material-processing capabilities vary across countries, creating asymmetries that limit how far, and quickly circular flows can be scaled. Non-market actors involved in project coordination reduce some of this uncertainty by supporting pilots and helping firms interpret forthcoming regulations. Early interaction is characterized by tentative commitments rather than stable agreements. Actors aim to develop circular flows but operate with incomplete information about future needs and infrastructural conditions. This creates tension between regulatory demands, technological constraints and commercial priorities. Even so, a minimal structure is emerging: an informational infrastructure through digital passports, operational actors whose activities determine what flows are technically possible, and a coordinating layer of non-market actors enabling piloting. These findings contribute to IMP studies on CE implementation by focusing on the front-end work through which circular ecosystems begin to take shape. Existing research has described actor categories and governance arrangements in more mature CEEs, but less attention has been given to how circular flows originate when actors have divergent capabilities, ambiguous incentives and limited shared experience. By examining the early movement from isolated initiatives to an emerging constellation of interdependent actors, the study shows the relational mechanisms through which a MVE becomes viable. It also shows how the smallest workable actors set depends on provisional alignment of expectations, the creation of informational interfaces that allow coordination, and the stabilizing influence of non-market actors who reduce uncertainty in the initial phase. Through this lens, this study extends knowledge of CE structures and development stages. It conceptualizes early development of an international circular textile ecosystem and clarifies the roles and interdependencies within its MVE. This provides a basis for explaining how circular flows move beyond pilots and how early relational work influences the CE transition paths. This research thus contributes to IMP work on CE implementation and early ecosystem formation (see, e.g., Aarikka-Stenroos et al., 2021; Konietzko et al., 2024).

ABSTRACT. This paper examines how regulation shapes early market development in hydrogen truck markets. Focusing on Europe since 2019, the study analyses how zero-emission definitions and ambitious emission targets have created strong expectations for hydrogen-based solutions despite limited technological and infrastructural readiness. Using a qualitative, exploratory case design, the research integrates document analysis of EU heavy-duty vehicle regulation with a review of manufacturers’ public statements, supported by an embedded case of a 2024–2025 Finnish public procurement attempt involving 71 communications with 17 manufacturers.

The findings show that regulatory ambition generated institutional momentum around fuel-cell trucks, but system-level constraints, including technological immaturity, hydrogen purity requirements, infrastructure gaps, and value-chain interdependencies, restricted feasible market options. Actors responded not with divergent strategies but through converging behaviours such as delays, scaling down, and withdrawals. In the procurement case, no supplier could deliver a hydrogen truck under viable terms, illustrating a clear gap between policy expectations and market reality.

This study contributes to market-shaping and sustainability-transition research by demonstrating how regulation can both enable and constrain emerging markets, revealing technological and infrastructural limits while redistributing uncertainty and risk across actors. It identifies misalignment between regulatory ambition, technological maturity, and value-chain readiness as a core mechanism shaping early market outcomes and driving converging industry responses. From a practical perspective, the findings show that early regulatory recognition does not guarantee viable market options and highlight the need for coordinated, value-chain-wide readiness rather than isolated policy signals.

ABSTRACT. Universities are increasingly expected to collaborate with public and private organisations to address societal challenges and create societal value (Benneworth & Fitjar, 2019; Lindgreen et al., 2021). This expectation of university–industry collaboration (UIC) has become a well established research field (Perkmann et al., 2013; Passos et al., 2023), yet limited attention has been paid to how research design choices shape collaboration processes and, ultimately, produce different pathways to impact. This aligns with calls to move beyond method toward co production with practitioners, where reciprocal, design conscious research relationships enhance both relevance and theoretical contribution (Young & Freytag, 2021). Existing literature tends to conceptualise collaboration as a relatively homogeneous phenomenon, overlooking how variations in interaction intensity, problem orientation, and the distribution of roles between universities and public and private actors fundamentally alter the types of knowledge produced and the forms of impact that emerge. This paper addresses this gap by developing a conceptual framework for interactive research designs in university–public–private collaboration. Collaboration does not inherently create impact. Instead, impact pathways depend on deliberate research design choices about how problems are defined, the intensity and timing of interactions, and the roles assigned to university researchers, especially in the social sciences and humanities. While scholars have highlighted the need for closer and more reflexive collaboration with practitioners (Di Benedetto et al., 2019; Foote, Sherring & Rundle-Thiele, 2024; Freytag & Young, 2018), the conceptual tools for explaining how research design’s structure, collaboration and impact remain underdeveloped. We build on the UIC literature, the IMP tradition on interaction and network and the distinction between Mode 1 and Mode 2 knowledge production (Gibbons et al., 1994; Spaapen & van Drooge, 2011) to conceptualise research design as a key mechanism shaping the production of knowledge and the emergence of impact. We extend this literature by shifting attention from impact as an outcome to the pathways embedded in the research design. Different collaborative aims demand distinct interactive research designs. Developing a framework, we draw on three research projects with universities, public and private firms varying in objectives, collaboration forms, interaction intensity, and researcher roles. They exemplify three ideal typical interactive research designs. The first design is an exploratory, interpretive research design aimed at understanding a phenomenon through qualitative methods. Collaboration with firms or public actors primarily provides access to empirical material and contextual insights. However, interaction is episodic and often organised around scheduled meetings or data collection activities rather than ongoing joint engagement. The researcher acts as an analyst, maintaining analytical distance and reconstructing interaction dynamics retrospectively. The primary pathway to impact is therefore indirect: conceptual development, analytical frameworks, publications, tools and game development, and contributions to broader academic and societal debates. This logic enables the identification and articulation of meanings, interdependencies, framings, and constraints shaping collaboration over time (Olmos Peñuela et al., 2014). From an IMP perspective, this design supports theorising about interaction and relationships by connecting accounts across actors, contexts, and temporal layers, but as the study builds on retrospective data, dynamics are only partly visible (Hakansson & Waluszewski, 2026). Impact thus emerges primarily through diffusion of ideas and conceptual reframing rather than through immediate changes in practice. The second design is a translational and implementation oriented research design, exemplified by a public innovation support programme targeting small and medium sized enterprises navigating the transition from prototype to market. In this design, university researchers act as integrators, translating technological development, market requirements, user needs, and organisational routines. In line with IMP’s interaction perspective, co produced research designs foreground reciprocal learning and value creation with business and government partners (Young & Freytag, 2021). Interaction is more intensive, iterative, and dialogic than in the exploratory design, and SSH competencies contribute directly to service development, implementation, and adoption processes. Impact is mediated: research activities do not impose solutions but support implementation, enhance firms’ absorptive capacity, and increase the likelihood of successful market uptake. This logic foregrounds translation as a critical mechanism: knowledge moves between actors with different logics, competencies, and expectations. Learning occurs both between researchers and firms and among firms participating in shared activities. Impact follows mediated pathways such as competence development, reframing of assumptions, and improved implementation capacity rather than direct attribution (Spaapen & van Drooge, 2011). Yet broader network effects beyond the programme may be underrepresented: spontaneous or emergent interactions outside the formal programme are often less visible, even though they can influence long term impact trajectories. The third design is a co creative and mission oriented research design (Mazzucato, 2018), illustrated by a Living Design Lab based public–private innovation programme. Here, societal challenges constitute the central problem. Collaboration is characterised by high interaction intensity, shared ownership, and iterative experimentation across multiple test environments. University researchers act as co designers and process experts, facilitating collective sensemaking, user involvement, and the integration of diverse knowledge forms. Impact is direct but often realised beyond the formal project timeframe. This design represents a shift toward infrastructural observation logic: research becomes embedded in living infrastructures and everyday practice. Problems are not defined ex ante but co evolve with emerging insights and interactions among municipalities, firms, frontline employees, users, and researchers. Design thinking functions as a mode of knowledge production by enabling the articulation of tacit knowledge and collective learning in real life contexts (Brown & Wyatt, 2010). Knowledge, data, and impact are produced simultaneously, blurring traditional distinctions between research, intervention, and implementation. Impact becomes visible through changes in expectations, relational configurations, and institutional arrangements rather than through isolated outcomes (Mazzucato, 2018). At the same time, this design challenges conventional criteria for boundary drawing, causality, and evaluation, requiring explicit reflexivity and methodological transparency to preserve research integrity. Across three designs, we identify five key parameters where research designs vary: (1) problem definition, (2) degree of interaction and co creation, (3) role of SSH researchers (analyst, integrator, or co designer), (4) underlying research logic (linear, translational, or iterative), and (5) pathways to impact (indirect, mediated, or direct). These parameters form the basis of a conceptual framework linking design choices to distinct forms of knowledge production and impact. The paper contributes in three ways. First, it advances a design oriented view of collaboration by theorising interactive research designs. Second, it specifies how interactive design parameters shape impact pathways and offers practitioners guidance for aligning research ambitions, collaboration forms, and desired impact. For researchers, it provides a more precise language for positioning collaborative projects and recognising trade offs across research designs.

References Benneworth, P., & Fitjar, R. D. (2019). Contextualizing the role of universities in regional development: Introduction to the special issue. Regional Studies, 6(1), 331–338. Brown, T., & Wyatt, J. (2010). Design thinking for social innovation. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 8(1), 31–35. Di Benedetto, A., Lindgreen, A., Storgaard, M., & Clarke, A. H. (2019). How to collaborate well with practitioners. Industrial Marketing Management, 77, 232–239. Foote, L., Sherring, P. & Rundle-Thiele, S. (2024) Why can’t we be friends? Bridging the academic/practitioner gap in social marketing. Journal of Social Marketing Vol. 14 No. 1, 26-51. Freytag, P. V., & Young, L. (Eds.). (2018). Collaborative Research Design: Working with Business for Meaningful Findings. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5008-4 Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P., & Trow, M. (1994). The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies. Sage. Håkansson, H., & Waluszewski, A. (2026). Researching network‑like phenomena – The importance of considering three different observation logics. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 41(13), 1–10. Lindgreen, A., Di Benedetto, C. A., Clarke, A. H., Evald, M. R., Bjørn-Andersen, N., & Lambert, D. M. (2021). How to define, identify, and measure societal value. Industrial Marketing Management, 97, A1–A13. Mazzucato, M. (2018). Mission‑oriented innovation policies: Challenges and opportunities. Industrial and Corporate Change, 27(5), 803–815. Olmos‑Peñuela, J., Castro‑Martínez, E., & D’Este, P. (2014). Knowledge transfer activities in social sciences and humanities: Explaining the interactions of research groups with non‑academic agents. Research Policy, 43(4), 696–706. Passos, J. B., Enrique, D. V., Dutra, C. C., & Ten Caten, C. S. (2023). University–industry collaboration process: A systematic review of literature. International Journal of Innovation Science, 15(3), 479–506. Perkmann, M., et al. (2013). Academic engagement and commercialisation: A review of the literature on university–industry relations. Research Policy, 42(2), 423–442. Spaapen, J., & van Drooge, L. (2011). Introducing “productive interactions” in social impact assessment. Research Evaluation, 20(3), 211–218. Young, L., & Freytag, P. V. (2021). Beyond research method to research collaboration: Research co‑production relationships with practitioners. Industrial Marketing Management, 92, 244–253.

ABSTRACT. Researching how to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Objectives requires a conceptual framework to study the necessary transitions to a sustainable economy and society. This conceptual paper presents a theoretical framework formulated to study just transitions to sustainable transport, drawing on the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) to sustainability transitions, rooted in the sociology of innovations (Geels, 2006) and on the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing Interaction Framework (IMP-IF), rooted in the industrial marketing discipline (Håkansson & Waluszewski, 2016). The discussion focuses on a low carbon transport offering, Mobility as a Service (MaaS). MaaS is defined as a “digital interface to source and manage the provision of a transport related service(s), which meets the mobility requirements of a customer” (Enoch & Potter, 2023) in environmentally sustainable ways. Commentators assert that MaaS presents opportunities to reduce the environmental impact of transport (cf. Hensher et al., 2020), by reducing numbers of vehicles in circulation. Enoch and Potter (2023) conceptualize MaaS as constituted by a network of transport providers connected by smartphone apps and the associated infrastructure supporting MaaS, i.e. road and railway networks, battery charging stations and a social-legal infrastructure supporting quality and safety of the performance of the associated transport practices. The implementation of MaaS can be seen as a large-scale transition to a sustainable transport system. However, transitions need to be “just”. A just transition offers equal opportunities and minimises negative impacts on stakeholders (Wang & Lo, 2021). Ensuring transitions are just requires efficient governance.

The MLP analyses transitions through conceptualising change at three levels (Geels, 2006), the socio-technical landscape, a patchwork of socio-technical regimes, combining technological, science, policy, socio-cultural and market regimes (Geels, 2004) and strategic niches, protected spaces “isolated” from the influence of the dominant socio-technical regime (Ceschin, 2013). The MLP proposes that sustainable innovations such as MaaS are designed and implemented in protected strategic niches (Hensher et al., 2020), housing small scale “pilots” or demonstrator projects by networks of providers (Enoch & Potter, 2023), including car and bicycle sharing companies, public transport providers, universities and social enterprises. The framework this paper proposes aims to address some of the limitations of the MLP, which is an historical perspective, with little attention to the agency of stakeholders in directing change and forming networks, by combining it with the IMP IF, which offers conceptual apparatus to analyse these very processes. Since MaaS is a network, the IMP IF is suited to provide the elements to study network creation and management. IMP IF conceptualizes relationships underpinning networks as having three layers, the elements of the best-known conceptual framework proposed by Håkansson and Snehota (1995), the Actors, Resources, Activities (ARA) model. Relationships within an industrial network can be analyzed in terms of the bonds between actors, through social interaction between company executives, which underpins the co-creation of trust to establish links between the activities of organizations through collaboration between actors, and the ties between the partners’ resources. Furthermore, the IMP IF focuses on structural elements of relationships (continuity, complexity, symmetry, and informality) and process elements (adaptations, cooperation-conflict, social interaction, and routinization) within the relationship unit of analysis. Therefore, the research question addressed is,

What approach could be used to research how business networks constituting Mobility as a Service can be assembled and governed in multiple levels?

The discussion uses Tesla Inc, a USA company providing Electric Vehicles (EV), as a case study based on publicly available information, to illustrate how the proposed novel framework can be used. Tesla had to establish interconnected networks to encourage a transition towards sustainable transport through EVs, because the company had to secure a capillary charging network to power their cars. The analysis suggests that the MLP provides the situatedness of the novel framework, i.e. the three levels in which networks come together, develop and come apart. The IF in turn provides the “tools” to analyse the processes by which business networks form and develop, within the contexts of niches and patchworks of regimes described by the MLP. Tesla, as in the IF, established actor bonds, activity links and resource ties through collaborations leading to open innovation and distributive production (Moritz et al., 2015). In summary, the case study shows how networks can be established across strategic niches and socio-technical regime and are performative, demonstrating the ability of the networks to shape the market for this novel mobility offering.

References

Ceschin, F. (2013). Critical factors for implementing and diffusing sustainable product-Service systems: insights from innovation studies and companies' experiences. Journal of Cleaner Production, 45(0), 74-88. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.05.034 Enoch, M., & Potter, S. (2023). MaaS (Mobility as a Service) market futures explored. Transport Policy, 134, 31-40. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2023.02.007 Geels, F. W. (2004). From sectoral systems of innovation to socio-technical systems: Insights about dynamics and change from sociology and institutional theory. Research Policy, 33(6–7), 897-920. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2004.01.015 Geels, F. W. (2006). Major system change through stepwise reconfiguration: A multi-level analysis of the transformation of American factory production (1850–1930). Technology in Society, 28(4), 445-476. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2006.09.006 Håkansson, H., & Snehota, I. (1995). Developing Relationships in Business Markets. In H. Håkansson & I. Snehota (Eds.), Developing Relationships in Business Markets. Routledge. Håkansson, H., & Waluszewski, A. (2016). “Methodomania”? On the methodological and theoretical challenges of IMP business research. IMP Journal, 10(3), 443-463. https://doi.org/10.1108/IMP-01-2016-0001 Hensher, D. A., Ho, C. Q., Mulley, C., Nelson, J. D., Smith, G., & Wong, Y. Z. (2020). Understanding Mobility as a Service (Maas): Past, Present and Future. Elsevier. Moritz, M., Redlic, T., Krenz, P., Buxbaum-Conradi, S., & Wulfsberg, J. P. (2015, August 2–6, 2015). Tesla Motors, Inc.: Pioneer towards a New Strategic Approach in the Automobile Industry along the Open Source Movement? PICMET '15: Management of the Technology Age, Portland, Oregon, USA,. Wang, X., & Lo, K. (2021). Just transition: A conceptual review. Energy Research & Social Science, 82, 102291. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2021.102291

ABSTRACT. Building a sustainable world through business relationships and networks requires stable partnerships on a mid- to long-term perspective. Therefore, a critical factor of success is the detection of suitable partners with similar views and expectations for such networks and business relationships. A common shared attitude and common value positions respectively mind sets can indicate the suitability of partners for joint activities and stable partnerships (Kreipl 2004, 2020). Then partners together can take over responsibility for their organisations and for external stakeholders. Due to Carroll’s pyramid, this responsibility includes economical, legal, ethical and philanthropical responsibility (Carroll 1999, 1991). Especially the connection of ethical with philanthropical responsibility refers to a responsibility towards society. Organisations will accept societal challenges and advance sustainability, when they see a necessity for these responsibilities. This can be based on intrinsic motivations, on the opportunity to realise competitive advantages or simply on fulfilling the demand of stakeholders. A combination of these drivers will create a person’s attitude towards social responsibility. Kreipl (2020) developed a model to create the space of (organisational or people’s) attitudes towards societal responsibility. This is based on the integration of four theoretical approaches. The first perspective is provided by Friedman who sees a rather low responsibility of organisations. It is fulfilled by paying taxes, preferably high, so public goods can be financed. Additionally, only the adherence to the rules of a society is required (Friedman 1970). Drucker broadens this perspective by integrating societal responsibility as one of three core tasks of managers (Drucker 1984, 1985, 1986). This raises the meaning of societal responsibility to the same level as the choice of business models and the demand for efficiency. Therefore, this position reflects a relative high degree of responsibility. Both perspectives create a continuum between a low and a high degree of responsibility. As third perspective, the position of Homann is included (Homann 1993). This expert in business ethics regards incentives as core drivers for securing ethical behaviour, especially in situations where ethical and economical demands conflict. Managers than react on these incentives. Ethical behaviour is regulated in this way. This is assessed as a reactive approach of managers exercising societal responsibility. The fourth and last position is delivered by Ullrich. This expert in business ethics considers ethic as the fundament of a society. Ethics are developed in a society and economics are based on this foundation. Everybody and every organization contribute to further development of a society including managers and companies (Ullrich 1988, 2008). This can be considered as a proactive approach. Uniting the four perspectives, a decisional space emerges. It ranges between a low respectively high degree of responsibility on one hand and on the other hand a re-active vs. a pro-active contribution of managers respectively organisations. They find their position within this decisional space. This model can be helpful to discuss and possibly agree on people’s or organisations’ attitude towards societal responsibility. Moreover, it supports the selection of partners and the evaluation of the suitability of partners. And last not least, it offers clues to promote and support these responsibilities and therefore to strengthen social responsibility. Stable environmental situations such as stable working and living conditions, stable and sufficient incomes, as well as stable political and monetary systems are the fundament of global welfare and development generally and for companies’ activities in particular. Ecological, social, and economic sustainability secures an environment for human beings to make their living. Sustainability in this way contributes to global welfare. On one hand, companies and their deciders require a sustainable environment to do business secure and efficient. On the other hand, they influence sustainability with their business activities, whether they create new business models or they cause external damages (Kreipl 2020). Building the future world will be in the hands of future deciders. Especially academics will get into these positions. This means that the students of today will be the deciders of tomorrow. They will decide about the role of societal responsibility and the role of sustainability. Their perception of the responsibility of managers combined with the meaning of sustainability will influence the role and working mechanisms of networks. Therefore, a survey was performed including international students of business management at Fulda University of Applied Sciences in 2025 to shed light on the following research questions: Research question 1: How do students of business management assess the responsibility of managers with respect to the position of the four scientists described in the model? Research question 2: How do students of business management assess the extent of the companies’ responsibility (e.g. environmental, social, regional responsibility)? Research question 3: How is the relationship between the assessment of managers’ responsibility and the assessment of the meaning of sustainability? Results of the survey as well as recommendations for further developments of networks are presented and discussed in the paper as a contribution to the conference.

Literature Carroll, A. B. (1991). The pyramid of corporate social responsibility: Toward the moral management of organizational stakeholders. Business Horizons, 34 (Juli–August), 39–48. Carroll, A. B. (1999). Corporate social responsibility. Evolution of a definitional construct. Business & Society, 38(3), 268–295. Drucker, P. (1984). The new meaning of corporate social responsibility. California Management Review, 26, 53–63. Drucker, P. (1985). Innovations-Management für Wirtschaft und Politik. Düsseldorf: ECON. Drucker, P. (1986). Management: Tasks, responsibilities, practices. New York: Truman Talley Books. Friedman, M. (1970). The social responsibility of business is to increase its profit. The New York Times Magazine, S. 122–126. Homann, K. (1993). Wirtschaftsethik – Die Funktion der Moral in der modernen Wirtschaft. In: J. Wieland (Hrsg.), Wirtschaftsethik und die Theorie der Gesellschaft (S. 32–34). Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Kreipl, C. (2020). Verantwortungsvolle Unternehmensführung - Corporate Governance, Compliance Management und Corporate Social Responsibility. Wiesbaden: Springer Gabler. Kreipl, C. (2004). Efficient Consumer Response und die Bereitschaft zur Kooperation. Wiesbaden: Springer Gabler. Ulrich, P. (1988). Wirtschaftsethik als Wirtschaftswissenschaft. St. Gallen: Beiträge und Berichte des Instituts für Wirtschaftsethik. Ulrich, P. (2008). Integrative Wirtschaftsethik. Bern: Haupt.

ABSTRACT. Digital health innovations are increasingly promoted as key contributors to the long-term sustainability and resilience of public healthcare systems, expected to enhance coordination, improve efficiency, and support ‘transformation’ of treatment and care processes in the face of constrained resources (Hill & Powell, 2009; Falk, 2005). Yet empirical studies repeatedly show uneven use, partial embedding, and persistent rejection of digital technologies in medical prtice, even when clinical outcomes and user satisfaction are high (Van Gemert-Pijnen et al., 2011). This paper addresses the challenges faced by digital tools in fulfilling their anticipated role as facilitators of a sustainable healthcare system through an in-depth qualitative case study of a digital solution to treat addiction and mental health issues, used across municipal social services and regional healthcare organizations. Departing from an IMP view of resources’ value creation (Håkansson & Waluszewski, 2007; Baraldi et al., 2012) and extending it with insights from institutional logics (Friedland & Alford, 1991), the paper reconceptualizes digital health innovation not as a transferable solution but as an interactional and institutional accomplishment within a fragmented public healthcare system. From an IMP perspective, the focal digital solution is understood as a heterogeneous resource constellation whose value emerges through ongoing interaction between multiple actors, including municipalities, regional healthcare providers, managers, therapists, and patients (Wagrell, 2017). Rather than focusing on implementation, the analysis examines how interaction processes succeed, or fail to embed the digital technology in everyday practice. The case shows that eventhough the digital solution is procured and formally available at dispersed healthcare providing entities, its use remains limited (typically 8–10% of patients), highly variable, and dependent on context specific factors such as, individual professionals, budgets and the organization of healthcare procedures and responsibilities. To deepen the analysis, the paper mobilizes institutional logics as a complementary lens. The case is situated at the intersection of multiple, partially conflicting logics: a medical-professional logic emphasizing diagnosis, evidence hierarchies, and standardized treatment pathways; a social-welfare logic focused on rehabilitation, everyday functioning, and conditional support; and a managerial efficiency logic concerned with availability, cost control, and resource prioritization (Friedland & Alford, 1991; Thornton et al., 2012). These logics shape how actors interpret the value and outcome of the technology, such as what counts as legitimate use, and who is responsible for acting on the data it produces. While this digital tool aligns relatively well with social-welfare practices and managerial aspirations, it remains weakly anchored in medical-professional routines, particularly due to unclear diagnostic status, lack of integration with medical record systems, and strict jurisdictional boundaries between municipalities and regions. By combining IMP theory and institutional logics, the paper shows that underutilization is not primarily a problem of resistance, lack of evidence, or insufficient training. Instead, it is the outcome of established systemic structures, and weak interaction possibilities amongst entities within a pluralistic institutional environment where responsibility is distributed but authority is not. The digital tool functions as a partial boundary object: it enables new forms of visibility and monitoring across organizational boundaries, but without corresponding institutional arrangements to redistribute responsibility, decision rights, and workload (Star & Griesemer, 1989; Pache & Santos, 2013). As a result, the technology rahter adds to the current workload in healthcare by extended coordination work for frontline professionals, even as it improves treatment outcomes and patient experiences. The paper contributes to IMP research by extending its application to digital health, highlighting non-use and partial use as outcomes of interaction—and of neglected resource interconnectedness across the healthcare system. It also contributes to institutional theory by showing how institutional logics are enacted through everyday use decisions and interaction patterns, rather than solely through formal structures or discourses. For digital health research and policy, the findings suggest that coordination problems cannot be resolved through technological solutions alone; instead, they require sustained institutional and relational work that aligns interaction patterns across organizational and professional boundaries. Overall, the paper argues for a shift in how digital health innovations are theorized and evaluated: from tools that move into systems to sociotechnical arrangements that are continuously shaped, constrained, and remade within networks of practice. References Baraldi, E., Gressetvold, E., & Harrison, D. (2012). Resource interaction in inter-organizational networks: Foundations, comparison, and a research agenda. Journal of Business Research, 65(2), 266-276. Eklinder-Frick, J., Perna, A., Fremont, V. 2023. Guest editorial: Understanding digital transformation from an inter-organisational network perspective. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 38, nr 6, s. 1245-1250 Falk, P., (2024). Assemble Care//Align Data: An Ethnographic Study of Datafication in Swedish Public Care (Doctoral dissertation, Karlstads universitet). Friedland, R., & Alford, R. R. (1991). Bringing society back in: Symbols, practices, and institutional contradictions. In W. W. Powell & P. J. DiMaggio (Eds.), The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis (pp. 232–263). University of Chicago Press. Hill, J. W., & Powell, P. (2009). The national healthcare crisis: Is eHealth a key solution?. Business Horizons, 52(3), 265-277. Håkansson, H., & Waluszewski, A. (2007). Interaction: the only means to create use. In Knowledge and innovation in business and industry (pp. 147-167). Routledge. Pache, A.-C., & Santos, F. (2013). Inside the hybrid organization: Selective coupling as a response to competing institutional logics. Academy of Management Journal, 56(4), 972–1001. Star, S. L., & Griesemer, J. R. (1989). Institutional ecology, “translations,” and boundary objects. Social Studies of Science, 19(3), 387–420. Thornton, P. H., Ocasio, W., & Lounsbury, M. (2012). The Institutional Logics Perspective: A New Approach to Culture, Structure, and Process. Oxford University Press. van Gemert-Pijnen J, Nijland N, van Limburg M, Ossebaard H, Kelders S, Eysenbach G, Seydel E, (2011). A Holistic Framework to Improve the Uptake and Impact of eHealth Technologies. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 13(4):e111. Wagrell, S. (2017). Drivers and Hindrances to Med-Tech Innovation: A device's guide to the Swedish healthcare galaxy(Doctoral dissertation, Företagsekonomiska institutionen, Uppsala universitet).

ABSTRACT. In industrial marketing and organization research, value is often implicitly theorized through presence: value is created when actors perform activities and combine resources (Håkansson & Snehota, 1995), materialized in products and services, and captured through transactions. Whether framed as value-in-exchange, value-in-use, or value co-creation, the dominant imagery is one of adding, adding features, capabilities, and measurable performance improvements, such that value becomes something that can be demonstrated, calculated, and communicated (Johanson & Strömsten 2005). Even when value is understood as relational and emergent, value is typically associated with positive outputs and tangible contributions. This paper presents a different value logic based on absence. This shift raises a fundamental question for studies of business markets and organizing: how can organizations valorize “nothing”? (Giovannoni & Quattrone, 2018; 2025)

This paper develops an alternative perspective on value by examining the practices through which CO₂ absence becomes visible, credible, and economically meaningful in industrial markets. Drawing on a qualitative case study of “TechCo”, a provider of industrial heat exchanger equipment and related services. The paper is based on 30 interviews, observations, meetings, and unique access to a calculative device used to quantify and visualize avoided emissions in a supplier–customer interface (Baraldi & Strömsten 2008). We analyze how TechCo attempted to valorize its offering by translating established industrial benefits, energy savings, heat recovery, reduced losses, into a new value object: avoided fuel combustion and, consequently, avoided CO₂ emissions. In doing so, TechCo’s sales and engineering work did not simply add another “feature” to an existing value proposition; it reorganized the very basis on which the offering could be evaluated and justified.

A central empirical focus is TechCo’s calculative device. We show that this device did not merely document or represent value; it actively performed valuation by making absence calculable and comparable through assumptions, baselines, and counterfactual scenarios (e.g. Kornberger 2017) . Importantly, the device also re-qualified and re-categorized the heat exchanger. Rather than remaining an operational efficiency component judged by local performance criteria (throughput, reliability, payback time), it increasingly became framed as a decarbonization device, evaluated through CO₂ avoidance, reporting relevance, and strategic legitimacy.

Empirically, we demonstrate how CO₂ absence became an actionable yet contested value object within the refinery customer organization. Sustainability and strategy stakeholders within the customer organization championed avoided emissions as valuable for legitimacy, reporting, and regulatory anticipation, whereas the operational and maintenance function experienced decarbonization initiatives as potentially disruptive, given the risk of unevenness across interdependent production processes. We argue that the successful selling of “nothing” depends on organizing valuation around absence, through calculative devices and champions who can frame, represent and defend what cannot be directly observed. The paper contributes to research on industrial value creation and customer interface management by showing how “nothingness” becomes an organizing resource through which products, categories, and purchasing rationalities are reconfigured.

References

Baraldi, E., & Strömsten, T. (2008). Configurations and control of resource interfaces in industrial networks. In Creating and managing superior customer value (pp. 251-316). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Giovannoni, E., & Quattrone, P. (2018). The materiality of absence: Organizing and the case of the incomplete cathedral. Organization Studies, 39(7), 849-871.

Giovannoni, E., & Quattrone, P. (2025). Nothing is Right in Individual and Collective Action: Placing unknowability at the heart of theorizing through rhetoric. Organization Theory, 6(3), 26317877251366658.

Håkansson, H., & Snehota, I. (1995). Developing relationships in business networks. London: Routledge.

Johanson, M., & Strömsten, T. (2005). Value processes in industrial networks: Identifying the creation and realisation of value. In Managing opportunity development in business networks (pp. 110-124). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Kornberger, M. (2017). The values of strategy: Valuation practices, rivalry and strategic agency. Organization Studies, 38(12), 1753-1773.

ABSTRACT. Many promising healthcare innovations fail to scale, particularly those requiring systemic change. While research identifies complexity as a barrier, longitudinal studies on the link between entrepreneurial action and institutional contexts remain scarce. Drawing on a seven-year case study of remote patient monitoring in a public healthcare system, we analyze how digital services challenge established service models.

We contribute to innovation and procurement theory by illustrating how complexity is managed through emergent, sequential stages. Findings reveal that while demand-side instruments like Innovation Partnerships build initial momentum, they play a limited role in systemic adoption. We argue the transition from pilot to scaled solution is hindered by an “orchestration void” that traditional procurement cannot bridge. We propose a process model for systemic innovation, suggesting that forming new healthcare markets requires moving beyond simple intermediation toward a networked governance structure with a hierarchical orchestrator to align architectural design with bottom-up innovation.

ABSTRACT. Despite the central role of cooperation for the international growth of SMEs, their alliances often fail (Dickson et al., 2006). A primary reason for the inability of alliance partners to achieve their goals and objectives is relationship violation (RV) (Dickson et al., 2006; Russo and Cesarani, 2017), defined as perceived violation of rules, norms, and expectations regulating the relationship (Leonidou et al., 2019) to seek unilateral goals at the expense of another party (Luo, 2006). Cross-border B2B exchanges expose SMEs to heightened relational risks stemming from institutional differences (Zeng et al., 2022), power asymmetries (Yata and Hurd, 2021), and limited opportunities for formal contract enforcement (Butler, 2020). The issues of relationship violations are mainly discussed from the perspective of transaction cost economics (Williamson, 1985) and social exchange theory (Blau, 1967; Cropanzano et al., 2017). Although RVs are more likely in international business due to difficulties in monitoring partners, information asymmetries, heightened self-interest incentives, and the uncertainty and complexity of foreign market environments (Leonidou et al., 2019), prior research did not pay attention to mechanisms governing SME relations with their foreign business partners. Instead, contractual and relational governance mechanisms (Huo et al., 2015; Zaheer and Venkatraman, 1995) were studied with little focus on RV preventive and responsive strategies in cross-border settings where firms often operate under constrained conditions, a gap especially salient for SMEs. Moreover, existing research does not sufficiently explain how firms manage the tension between preserving valuable relationships and safeguarding the firm from potential losses. In addition, differences in legal systems, enforcement effectiveness, and business norms may influence firms' perceived ability to safeguard their interests through formal means and push them toward more relational or more formal strategies. Despite the recognized importance of institutions for governance mechanisms (North, 1990), we still know relatively little about how institutional environments shape SMEs’ approach to relationship violations in cross-border B2B exchanges. To address these gaps, we studied relationships with foreign business partners of SMEs operating in two distinct institutional contexts, Poland and Austria - countries that differ markedly in rule of law, regulatory quality, and innovation performance (ESS Data portal, 2025; European Commission, 2025; The World Bank, 2024), making Poland a more challenging institutional environment for internationally active SMEs. Accordingly, the study addresses the following research questions: RQ1: How do SMEs prevent and respond to relationship violations in cross-border B2B exchanges? RQ2: How does the institutional context shape SME strategies towards relationship violations in cross-border exchanges? Our study employs an abductive qualitative design based on semi-structured interviews with respondents from 8 Polish and 8 Austrian manufacturing exporting SMEs that maintain B2B relations with foreign partners. The analysis reveals that SMEs address relationship violations in cross-border B2B exchanges through a combination of prevention- and response-oriented mechanisms, which can be grouped into relational, contractual, and structural governance mechanisms. Overall, the studied SMEs' respondents place greater emphasis on prevention (ex ante mechanisms) than on reactions (ex post mechanisms), indicating the salience of anticipating and mitigating relational risks. Ex ante mechanisms mainly focus on reducing uncertainty, limiting exposure, and preventing RVs through vigilance, strategic safeguards, and proactive relationship management that stabilizes the cooperation, while contractual and legal safeguards are rarely used, reflecting scepticism towards the feasibility and effectiveness of contract enforcement in cross-border contexts. Responses to relationship violations take multiple forms, including assertive but negotiated responses, direct and firm reactions, conciliatory approaches, and, in some cases, no reaction (reflecting either strategic restraint aimed at preserving the relationship or a sense of powerlessness due to resource constraints or power asymmetry). Most SMEs seem to prioritize preserving relationships over enforcing contractual rights, partly because the latter option is often beyond their reach due to the power imbalance. Both quantitative (based on MAXQDA software) and qualitative content analysis of the interviews (Silverman, 2012) indicate some differences between Polish and Austrian SMEs in how they deal with relationship violations by their foreign partners. Although both groups recognize that over-reliance on formal mechanisms can harm relationships, Austrian respondents, to a greater extent, emphasize contractual prevention through clarifying mutual expectations and obligations. At the same time, Polish SMEs focus on difficulties in enforcing contracts or see contracts as instruments of relationship violations. This may be due to the legal system, which less effectively provides governance through contracts and ensures legitimate interorganizational behaviors in the supply chain (Bai et al., 2016). When it comes to the reaction after RV, Polish firms were more likely not to react to RV or to adopt a conciliatory, relationship-preserving approach. They also mentioned two behaviors not present in the Austrian sample: the dissemination of information about RV and the shifting of problems to other partners, both of which indicate a lack of conviction in enforcing contracts. In the Austrian sample, direct and firm reactions were more pronounced. Such reactions included relation termination, which was twice as frequently mentioned as in the Polish sample. This study contributes to international B2B and SME research in four ways. First, it advances understanding of how SMEs manage relationship violations. Second, it introduces the distinction between relationship protection and firm safeguarding as a central lens for analyzing SME’s attitude to RVs. Third, it moves beyond the common dichotomy between contractual and relational governance by highlighting the role of structural mechanisms in preventing and responding to relationship violations. Fourth, the study highlights how institutional context shapes the way SMEs manage relationship violations through various governance mechanisms. These contributions offer a nuanced account of how SMEs navigate relational risks in international markets. Although qualitative research provides deep contextual understanding of phenomena under study, it is constrained by limited generalizability and susceptible to researcher bias (Lim, 2025). We have introduced mitigation strategies to overcome these shortcomings, however the findings should be verified in quantitative studies, conducted in other country settings, to capture the institutional determinants of the identified phenomena.

References Bai, X., Sheng, S. and Li, J. J. (2016) 'Contract governance and buyer–supplier conflict: The moderating role of institutions', Journal of Operations Management, vol. 41, pp. 12–24 [Online]. DOI: 10.1016/j.jom.2015.10.003. Blau, P. M. (1967) Exchange and Power in Social Life, New York, John Wiley & Sons. Butler, P. (2020) 'International Commercial Arbitration Put to the Test in the Commonwealth', Victoria University of Wellington Law Review, vol. 51, pp. 357–378. Cropanzano, R., Anthony, E. L., Daniels, S. R. and Hall, A. V. (2017) 'Social Exchange Theory: A Critical Review with Theoretical Remedies', The Academy of Management Annals, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 479–516. Dickson, P. H., Weaver, K. M. and Hoy, F. (2006) 'Opportunism in the R&D alliances of SMES: The roles of the institutional environment and SME size', Journal of Business Venturing, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 487–513. ESS Data portal (2025) ESS11 - integrated file, edition 3.0 [Online]. Available at https://ess.sikt.no/en/datafile/242aaa39-3bbb-40f5-98bf-bfb1ce53d8ef?tab=1&elems=516a53f9-4639-4471-9dd4-fbeaf454b320 (Accessed 3 November 2025). European Commission (2025) European innovation scoreboard [Online]. Available at https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/statistics/performance-indicators/european-innovation-scoreboard_en (Accessed 7 October 2025). Huo, B., Ye, Y. and Zhao, X. (2015) 'The impacts of trust and contracts on opportunism in the 3PL industry: The moderating role of demand uncertainty', International Journal of Production Economics, vol. 170, pp. 160–170 [Online]. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2015.09.018. Leonidou, L. C., Aykol, B., Spyropoulou, S. and Christodoulides, P. (2019) 'The power roots and drivers of infidelity in international business relationships', Industrial Marketing Management, vol. 78, pp. 198–212. Luo, Y. (2006) 'Opportunism in Inter-firm Exchanges in Emerging Markets', Management and Organization Review, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 121–147. North, D. C. (1990) Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, Cambridge University Press. Russo, M. and Cesarani, M. (2017) 'Strategic Alliance Success Factors: A Literature Review on Alliance Lifecycle', International Journal of Business Administration, vol. 8, no. 3, p. 1. Silverman, D. (2012) Prowadzenie badań jakościowych, Warszawa, Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN. The World Bank (2024) Worldwide Governance Indicators [Online]. Available at https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/worldwide-governance-indicators/interactive-data-access (Accessed 8 April 2026). Williamson, O. E. (1985) The economic institutions of capitalism: Firms, markets, relational contracting, New York, London, The Free Press; Collier Macmillan. Yata, S. and Hurd, F. (2021) '‘Keep Your Friends Close’: The Role of Informality in the Management of Unequal-sized Collaboration for NZ SMEs', Journal of Asia-Pacific Business, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 84–104. Zaheer, A. and Venkatraman, N. (1995) 'Relational Governance as an Interorganizational Strategy: An Empirical Test of the Role of Trust in Economic Exchange', Strategic Management Journal, vol. 16, no. 5, pp. 373–392 [Online]. Available at http://www.jstor.org/stable/2486708. Zeng, W., Lillis, A. M., Grafton, J. and Dekker, H. C. (2022) 'The Influence of Institutional Differences on Control Mechanisms in Alliances', The Accounting Review, vol. 97, no. 3, pp. 415–441.

ABSTRACT. In recent years, global value chains (GVCs) resilience has emerged as a central concern in both International Business (IB) (Malik & Terzidis, 2025; Gereffi, 2025) and Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) (Guercini et al., 2024; 2025) research. Within this debate, GVCs reconfiguration has been widely discussed as a primary mechanism through which firms respond to environmental turbulence (Contractor et al., 2026). Existing studies have largely focused on how multinational enterprises (MNEs) adjust the geographical dispersion of activities, redesign governance structures, diversify suppliers, or rebalance control and coordination mechanisms across their international networks (Sacco et al., 2025). From this perspective, resilience (Conz & Magnani, 2020, Hillmann & Guenther, 2021) is primarily interpreted as the outcome of strategic choices made by focal firms (Buckley, 2020; Strange, 2020) operating within complex, globally dispersed, and tightly interconnected networks (Kano, 2018; Statsenko et al., 2025). Moreover, the complexity that firms are assumed to manage is mainly conceived as global in nature, stemming from cross-border interdependencies, institutional heterogeneity, and exposure to exogenous shocks (Bennett & Lemoine, 2014; Petricevic & Teece, 2019), thus adopting a relatively decontextualised view (Welch et al., 2022). Much less attention has been devoted to how this complexity is influenced by the specific sub-national territorial contexts in which firms are embedded (Boschma, 2024). As a consequence, resilience strategies are often implicitly assumed to unfold in environments characterised by adequate infrastructure, institutional support, access to specialised resources, and proximity to dynamic industrial ecosystems (Prashantham & Bhattacharyya, 2020). This assumption becomes particularly problematic when shifting the analytical focus to peripheral areas (PAs) (Pugh & Dubois, 2021; Pike et al., 2023), which are still neglected in both IB and IMP studies. These territories are not simply less developed than core regions, but contexts characterised by structural and persistent constraints, such as geographical remoteness, limited accessibility to markets, weak institutional capacity, and a scarcity of specialised resources and services (Pugh & Dubois, 2021). Firms operating in these areas face a form of complexity that is not episodic but embedded in the territory itself (Copus & Skuras, 2006; Korsgaard et al., 2015). Even in stable periods, they must cope with resource constraints, thin networks, and limited opportunities for diversification (Gherhes et al., 2021; Khan et al., 2024). When GVCs’ disruption occurs, firms located in PAs are therefore exposed to a double complexity. On the one hand, they experience the same disruptive pressures affecting global networks, including supply interruptions, demand volatility, and governance instability (Petricevic & Teece, 2019). On the other hand, these shocks interact with pre-existing territorial vulnerabilities, exacerbating constraints related to distance, dependence on external actors, and limited strategic alternatives (Brown & Cowling, 2021; Almeida & Daniel, 2023). In such contexts, resilience cannot be understood merely as a firm-level response to temporary disruptions, but must be analysed as an ongoing process shaped by both global dynamics and local structural conditions (Crespo et al., 2017; McIntyre & Roy, 2023). Against this background, this study addresses the following research question: What are the main resilience strategies adopted by firms involved in GVCs that are located in peripheral areas? By focusing on the interplay between global disruptions and peripherality (Khün, 2015), the study aims to contribute to a more contextualised and network-oriented understanding of GVC resilience, highlighting how firms and business networks cope with a double complexity that is simultaneously global and place-based. In the light of the explorative and descriptive nature of the research (Halinen & Törnroos, 2005) and because it is particularly suitable to capture the relationship between a focal phenomenon and its embedding context (Rynes & Gephart, 2004), which is an important element of this research, the research adopts a qualitative methodology (Halinen & Törnroos, 2005; Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007) based on a small number of case studies analysed with retrospective longitudinal explorations. Dyer & Wilkins (1991) justify the small number of cases as it allows for a more accurate analysis of the realities being studied and a better narrative of them. The analysis focuses on SMEs, which predominate in PAs and often play a crucial role as specialised suppliers or niche producers connected to larger MNEs and distant markets, but there are also cases that are sufficiently structured and skilled to be considered orchestrators. Data analysis adopts an abductive approach (Dubois & Gadde, 2002; La Rocca et al., 2017), moving iteratively between empirical data and the literature. More in-depth, results are analysed through the IMP lens (Håkansson & Snehota, 1995; Håkansson et al., 2009), which allows us to understand resilience beyond firm-centric and purely strategic explanations, and focusing instead on how resilience is enacted through the interaction of heterogeneous resources, actors, and activities within and across networks (Cinti et al., 2025; Bondeli & Havenvid, 2022). The article makes a significant contribution to the IB and IMP literature through its empirical contextualisation in PAs, which is particularly insightful to highlight the relational and place-based foundations of resilience that may otherwise remain obscured in more resource-rich environments.

References

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The theory and empirics of the structural reshaping of globalization. Journal of International Business Studies, 51(9), pp. 1580-1592. Cinti, A., Marcone, M. R., Sabatini, A., & Temperini, V. (2025). Enhancing supply chain resilience through the supply network approach. Journal Of Business & Industrial Marketing, 40(4), pp. 858-876. Contractor, F. J., Cantwell, J., Gereffi, G., & Sauvant, K. P. (2026). The shift to a more turbulent IB environment, and how MNEs respond to this shift. International Business Review, 35(2), 102538. Conz, E., & Magnani, G. (2020). A dynamic perspective on the resilience of firms: A systematic literature review and a framework for future research. European Management Journal, 38(3), pp. 400-412. Copus, A., & Skuras, D. (2006). Business networks and innovation in selected lagging areas of the European Union: A spatial perspective. European Planning Studies, 14(1), pp. 79-93. Crespo, J., Boschma, R., & Balland, P. A. (2017). 12. Resilience, networks and competitiveness: a conceptual framework. In Huggins, R., & Thompson, P. (Eds.) Handbook of regions and competitiveness: contemporary theories and perspectives on economic development, pp. 271-286. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham. Dubois, A., & Gadde, L. E. (2002). Systematic combining: an abductive approach to case research. Journal Of Business Research, 55(7), pp. 553-560. Dyer Jr, W. G., & Wilkins, A. L. (1991). Better stories, not better constructs, to generate better theory: A rejoinder to Eisenhardt. Academy Of Management Review, 16(3), pp. 613-619. Eisenhardt, K. M., & Graebner, M. E. (2007). Theory building from cases: Opportunities and challenges. Academy Of Management Journal, 50(1), pp. 25-32. Gherhes, C., Vorley, T., & Brooks, C. (2021). The “additional costs” of being peripheral: Developing a contextual understanding of micro-business growth constraints. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 28(1), pp. 59-84. 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ABSTRACT. Professional services are often highly customized and call for intensive resource integration from actors in the service relationship to co-create value (Løwendahl et al., 2001; Aarikka-Stenroos & Jaakkola, 2012). Those resources are a combination of material and immaterial, explicit and tacit, operand and operant (e.g. Vargo & Lusch, 2008; Kleinaltenkampf et al., 2003). However, in this specific context, there are particular challenges regarding resource integration (Kerkhoff et al. 2003) due to the loosely coupled nature of professional work (Nätti & Ojasalo, 2008), professional silos (Von Nordenflycht, 2010), and because of the highly tacit, person-embedded and abstract nature of knowledge used to generate these services (Løwendahl et al., 2001). In addition, it is characteristic to professional services that customers may possess highly varied capacities to contribute to the collaboration, which places further challenges on mutual resource integration (Ng et al., 2019). Furthermore, resource integration is a foundational mechanism through which resilience is developed in B2B relationships. The concept of resilience has emerged as a central construct in the recent research describing the ability of firms to prepare for crises, adapt during disruptions, and recover to a stable or improved state (Ali et al., 2017; Bhamra et al., 2011; Pal et al., 2013), thus representing a critically important capability of all organizations.

To overcome challenges related to resource integration, it becomes important to identify ‘actors who possess appropriate resources which they are allowed and able to share, co-creating value using collaborative and integrative processes’ (Kleinaltenkampf et al., 2012, p. 201). This is especially noteworthy in the professional service context, where the individual’s role is critical compared to other service contexts due to the importance of person-embedded expertise (Løwendahl et al., 2001). The more abstract the nature of professional service, the more embedded its generation is to individual actors (Malhotra & Morris 2009), although all too often professional services are handled as one homogenous group (Suddaby et al., 2008; Robertson et al., 2003). This embeddedness is understandable, because the nature of knowledge as a ‘raw material’ for service production varies across different types of professional service sectors. Consider, for example, differences between ICT-consulting firms and advertising agencies. The first one is guided by strong regulatory, explicit, conceptional professionalism and defined output (Oesterle et al., 2022), whereas in the other a creative and tacit aspect, along with uncertainty over the expected outcome, are dominant (Nätti et al., 2017). Therefore, understanding resource integration from the individuals’ perspective and in different types of professional service contexts is important.

Because the role of individuals is so critical, it is also crucial to understand the organizational practices and social structures (Edvardsson et al., 2014) to the extent that they influence individual resource integrators, i.e. professionals and their customers. While this is valuable in understanding the challenges and the individualistic nature of resource integration, we still know relatively little what happens when the resources do not actually match (see Ryan, 2018) when situated in specific relationships among the participating individuals. In such cases, the importance of resilience becomes even more emphasized. Individuals form the micro-foundations of resource integration and resilience because they are the actors who interpret situations, mobilize resources, and coordinate joint action across organizational boundaries. In (professional) B2B relationships setting, boundary spanning individuals facilitate information sharing, align expectations, and connect complementary resources, making integrated operations possible (Håkansson & Snehota, 1995).

By crossing the boundaries between the fields mentioned above, we take a practice approach to relational resource integration to study resource mismatching and required resilience in these cases. To do this, we further adopt a situated approach to resource integration (e.g. Leroy et al., 2013) at the level of participating individuals in a professional business service relationship. In addition to defining aspects and origins of this situated approach to resource integration, we aim to conceptualize practices that can “tackle” the mismatch of resources, facilitating resource integration, and thus resilience of the participating firms. We will answer the following research questions: 1) How is individual´s situated approach to resource integration constructed in professional business service relationship? By answering this question, we want to create an understanding of how and why individuals in the relationship may approach resource integration differently. These differences may result in resource mismatching, and hence our second question asks: 2) What kind of practices facilitate resource integration thus fostering resilience?

To generate a rich description of the phenomenon researched (Kvale, 1996), a comparative case study approach is employed. The case study method enables a holistic understanding of complex phenomena and is well suited for addressing the research questions of this study (Yin, 2003). The selected cases comprise business relationships between an advertising agency and its customers, as well as between an ICT consultancy and its clients. The primary data consists of a total of ten in-depth interviews conducted within the advertising agency context and twenty interviews within the ICT sector. The abductive research approach adopted in this study allows iterative analysis between theoretical insights and empirical data, offering a comprehensive understanding of the phenomena.

The initial findings of the study indicate that collaboration in professional business service relationships is based on person-bound resources and consequent individual criteria to approach resource integration during the relationship. The individual approach and consequent individual expectations for resource integration in the relationship are constructed through four practices: 1) building mutual appreciation, 2) role negotiation, 3) searching for common understanding, and 4) matching relational procedures and positions. In the following stages of the study, we will identify how these resource-integration practices further promote resilience at the individual, company, and business relationship levels.

Theoretically, this research advances the understanding of resource integration in professional business service relationships as dynamic, multi-actor processes in practice. Resource integration does not happen only between organizations, but most importantly between people. By foregrounding the individual and situated nature of resource integration, the study shows how actors contribute to and evaluate resources differently, thereby potentially challenging relational resource integration. To overcome such challenging situations, resilience is emphasized and therefore identifying practices that facilitate resource integration also aids in promoting resilience both inside the organization and in the professional service relationship. Managerially, the study offers actionable insights to actors in professional service businesses to enhance their understanding of buying teams in their customer organizations: individual customers are indeed different, and their perceptions of the relationship and collaboration can vary extensively based on their individual, situational approach in the relationship. Furthermore, the present study provides ideas for boosting multi-sided resource utilization and for enhancing both organizational and relational resilience.

References

Aarikka-Stenroos, L. & Jaakkola, E. (2012). Value co-creation in knowledge intensive business services: A dyadic perspective on the joint problem solving process. Industrial Marketing Management, 41(1), 15–26. Ali, A., Mahfouz, A., & Arisha, A. (2017). Analysing supply chain resilience: Integrating the constructs in a concept mapping framework via systematic literature review. Supply Chain Management, 22(1), 16–39. Bhamra, R., Dani, S., & Burnard, K. (2011). Resilience: The concept, a literature review and future directions. International Journal of Production Research, 49(18). Edvardsson, B., Kleinaltenkampf, M., Tronvoll, B., McHugh, P., & Windahl, C. (2014). Institutional logics matter when coordinating resource integration. Marketing Theory, 14(3), 291–309. Håkansson, H., & Snehota, I. (1995). Developing Relationships in Business Networks. London: Routledge. Kerkhoff C., van den Ende, J., & Bogenrieder, I. (2003). Knowledge management in the professional organisation: A model with application to CMG software testing. Knowledge and Process Management, 10(2), 77–84. Kleinaltenkampf, M., Brodie, R. J., Frow, P., Hughes, T., Peters, L. D., & Worantchek, H. (2012). Resource integration. Marketing Theory, 12(2), 201–205. Kvale, S. (1996). Interviews: An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing. London: Sage Publications. Leroy, J., Cova, B., & Salle, R. (2013). Zooming in VS zooming out on value co-creation: Consequences for BtoB research. Industrial Marketing Management, 42(7), 1102–1111. Løwendahl, B. R., Revang, Ø., & Fosstenlokken, S. M. (2001). Knowledge and value creation in professional service firms: A framework for analysis. Human Relations, 54(7), 911–931. Ng, S. C., Sweeney, J. C., & Plewa, C. (2019). Managing customer resource endowments and deficiencies for value cocreation: Complex relational services. Journal of Service Research, 22(2), 156–172. Nätti, S. & Ojasalo, J. (2008). What prevents effective utilisation of customer knowledge in professional B-to-B services? An empirical study. The Service Industries Journal, 28(9), 1199–1214. Malhotra, N. & Morris, T. (2009). Heterogeneity in professional service firms. Journal of Management Studies, 46(6), 896–922. Oesterle, S., Buchwald, A. & Urbach, N. (2022). Investigating the co-creation of IT consulting service value: Empirical findings of a matched pair analysis. Electronic Markets, 32(2), 571–597. Robertson, M., Scarbrough, H., & Swan. J. (2003). Knowledge creation in professional service firms: Institutional effects. Organization Studies, 24(6), 831–857. Ryan, A. (2018). Practice (mis) matching: multiple performations of a cultural sponsorship network. Journal of Marketing Management, 34(17-18), 1445-1469. Pal, R., Torstensson, H., & Mattila, H. (2014). Antecedent of organizational resilience in economic crises - an empirical study of Swedish textile and clothing SMEs. International Journal of Production Economics, 147(1), 410–428. Suddaby, R., Greenwood, R., & Wilderom. C. (2008). Introduction to the Journal of Organizational Behavior’s special issue on professional services firms: Where organization theory and organizational behavior might meet. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 29, 989–994. Vargo, S. L. & Lusch, R. F. (2008). Service dominant logic: Continuing the evolution. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 36, 1–10. Von Nordenflycht, A. (2010). What is a professional service firm? Toward a theory and taxonomy of knowledge-intensive firms. Academy of Management Review, 35(1), 155–174. Yin, R. K. (2003). Case Study Research: Design and Methods. 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications.

ABSTRACT. Circular business models rely on collaborations to achieve their promised environmental and economic benefits. However, this very reliance on the immediate and up-front need for a network of disparate actors is argued to represent a challenge that is further amplified for digital startup platforms operating with limited resources. While existing research highlights collaboration and value co-creation as critical to circular business model success (Re and Magnani, 2022), there remains limited understanding of the challenges facing CBMs (Baldassarre and Calabretta, 2024), despite our understanding of network theories of value (Håkansson and Snehota, 1995; Guercini et al., 2024). In this empirically based longitudinal study of a fashion technology startup – CAMP – focused on the creation of its circular business model, we reveal how a series of network tensions in the core components of the model unfolded, which eventually led to a destabilisation and failure for the firm to create value through and across a necessary network, leading to subsequent failure of the circular business model. More specifically, our research focuses on how the contradictory yet interdependent value components within a business model can interfere with the formation of the network required for platform viability. Drawing on paradox theory (Smith and Lewis, 2011), we conduct an abductive case study utilising interviews, field notes, and documents acquired as an organisational insider to develop a value interference framework which explains how CAMP’s circular value propositional paradoxically undermined the very collaboration outcomes they were designed to enable. Our analysis identifies five configurations through which value components interacted: 1) synergies (the ideal but rarely realised outcome), 2) dilemmas, 3) dependencies, 4) paradoxes, and 5) misjudgements. Synergies, where value components mutually reinforce one another, were central to CAMP’s promises but rarely materialised; instead, our evidence shows the platform’s circular commitments generated dilemmas based on resource scarcity, dependencies resulting from the multi-sided nature of the platform, paradoxes due to conflicting goals, and misjudgements due to overly optimistic expectations. Together, we show how combined dynamics inherent in these configurations inhibited stakeholder participation and prevented the formation of a functioning network – an unintended consequence of pursuing specific circular economy strategies. This paper makes two key contributions. First, it demonstrates how what we term value interference, including persistent paradoxical tensions, occurs within circular business models themselves, thus explaining the persistent barriers to collaboration and theorising pathways to navigate these tensions through sequencing, resource acquisition, business model reconfiguration, and improved evaluative judgement. Second, it attempts to extend IMP theory by theorising pre-relationship barriers, showing how circular economy commitments create specific configurations – dilemmas, dependencies and paradoxes – that work to prevent the initial commitment and activity linking required for successful relationship formation across a network. While IMP research extensively studies interaction, relationships and networks (Håkansson and Snehota, 1995), less attention appears to be paid to addressing why relationships fail to form despite strong normative pressures for collaboration existing. Our five configurations identify specific mechanisms, including paradoxical tensions between interdependent (environmental and economic) circular values, through which circular value propositions prevent the initial commitment and activity linking that relationship formation requires, leading to paradoxes and unintended consequences. The findings also offer practical guidance for managers designing circular business models and navigating their inherent tensions. Finally, we discuss limitations and directions for extending the framework. References Baldassarre, B. & Calabretta, G. (2024) Why Circular Business Models Fail And What To Do About It: A Preliminary Framework And Lessons Learned From A Case In The European Union (Eu). Circular Economy and Sustainability, 4(1), 123–148. Guercini, S. et al. (2024) The IMP research on business networks: a systematic literature review and research agenda. Italian Journal of Marketing, 2024(2), 149–175. Håkansson, H. & Snehota, I. (eds) (1995) Developing relationships in business networks. London ; New York: Routledge. Re, B. & Magnani, G. (2022) Value co-creation in circular entrepreneurship: An exploratory study on born circular SMEs. Journal of Business Research, 147, 189–207. Smith, W.K. & Lewis, M.W. (2011) Toward a theory of paradox: A dynamic equilibrium model of organizing. Academy of management Review, 36(2), 381–403. Academy of Management Briarcliff Manor, NY.

ABSTRACT. When Power Meets Sustainability: Paradoxes in Interorganizational Relationships Keywords: paradox theory; power asymmetry; inter-organisational relationships; social sustainability; governance design; relational enactment Social sustainability increasingly depends on what happens between organisations, because many social issues are distributed across tiers, partners, and communities rather than contained within a single firm. Research on social issues in business relational structures, including supply chains, highlights their heterogeneity and context sensitivity. For example Jarzabkowski et al. (2013, pp. 245-246) argue that “some contexts are more prone to producing tensions than others.” These makes it difficult to manage social issues solely through company-level policies and increases the reliance on inter-company coordination and governance (Siemieniako et al. 2021; Yawar and Seuring, 2017). At the same time, common governance responses, such as supplier assessment, collaboration routines, and broader multi-actor initiatives, often generate mixed results: reporting and visible compliance may improve while substantive remediation, learning, and candour remain uneven (Sancha et al., 2016; Soundararajan et al., 2019). These inconsistencies are difficult to explain without defining the concept of power more precisely, because the relationship associated with power asymmetry influences who sets expectations, distributes responsibilities and determines, from their perspective as the more powerful party, what outcome is satisfactory (Marttinen and Kähkönen, 2022; Siemieniako et al. 2025). This paper develops a paradox-theory perspective to explain why power-laden governance for social sustainability can produce contradictory outcomes. Paradox theory treats tensions as persistent because the opposing elements are interdependent and jointly necessary; focusing on one pole of a tension tends to intensify the other, producing repeated cycles rather than a permanent solution (Lewis, 2000; Smith and Lewis, 2011). A recent review of the paradox literature defines paradoxes as enduring contradictions between elements that are interdependent (Schad et al., 2016). Building on this view, the paper distinguishes two families of paradoxes that are specifically about power in inter-organisational relationships for social sustainability. Governance-based paradoxes are embedded in the design of governance architectures through which power is organised and exercised. Governance can be understood as the set of mechanisms through which organizations and societies function, covering how exchanges and relationships are structured and managed over time. Palay (1984) highlights its contractual dimension, how agreements are set up, bargained over, overseen, adjusted, and ultimately brought to an end. Heide (1994) takes a broader view, emphasizing governance as a multifaceted process that shapes not only the start and end of relationships but also their ongoing maintenance among involved parties. Governance-based paradoxes of power in inter-organisational relationships typically involve tensions such as monitoring versus development, standardisation versus contextual sensitivity, and participation versus accountability (see: Siemieniako et al., 2025).These paradoxes matter because social sustainability governance must be credible and enforceable, while also enabling learning, capability development, and joint remediation that enforcement alone cannot generate. Relational-based paradoxes in industrial relationships were defined by Korkeamäki et al. (2022, p. 16) as “persistent and interdependent antinomies between cooperative and uncooperative motives in interfirm relationships”. Relational-based paradoxes arise in the enactment of power within relationships, where the same governance design is interpreted, negotiated, resisted, or embraced through interaction. They matter because social sustainability frequently requires early disclosure of emerging social risks and operational problems, voice by weaker actors, and cooperative problem solving, all of which become behaviourally risky under power asymmetry (Kubacki et al., 2024). The key explanatory link is the notion of relational enactment mechanisms, defined here as recurring processes through which a governance design tension becomes behaviourally consequential as a relational enactment tension. Relational enactment mechanisms are needed because governance is not self-executing: actors interpret governance signals, anticipate consequences, and adjust behaviour accordingly. The paper emphasises a small set of relational enactment mechanisms that are both power-sensitive and sustainability-relevant: meaning-making (what governance signals about intent), perceived coercion versus perceived support, fairness judgements about burden allocation, voice versus silence dynamics, and the quality of information exchanged (reportable versus actionable). These mechanisms clarify why the same governance practice can yield divergent outcomes across relationships. For example, when assessment-oriented governance is applied under conditions of strong power asymmetry, it may be enacted through defensive compliance behaviours, including “mock compliance”, in which suppliers signal adherence to social sustainability initiatives demanded by a powerful partner while strategically concealing underlying noncompliance (e.g., Hoque & Maalouf, 2022; Huq & Stevenson, 2020). In contrast, collaboration-oriented governance can foster learning and joint problem solving when it is enacted as supportive engagement rather than as indirect control, and when relational risks associated with openness are perceived as acceptable (Sancha et al., 2016). Likewise, multi-actor governance may look legitimate because participation is expanded, yet still produce limited improvement if accountability is diffused or if deliberation is constrained by power (Soundararajan et al., 2019). To keep the framework parsimonious, six paired paradoxes are articulated, each linking a governance-based design tension to a corresponding relational-based enactment tension and a typical failure mode for social sustainability. The paper’s contribution is to offer a clear two-level paradox framework and a testable translation logic that explains heterogeneous sustainability outcomes across seemingly similar governance designs. The framework implies a focused research agenda: longitudinal studies to capture escalation and repair cycles (Smith & Lewis, 2011), dyadic designs to observe asymmetric interpretations and fairness perceptions, and models that include both governance architecture and enactment indicators (candour, voice, perceived coercion/support, information quality). By treating social sustainability as a relational outcome produced through power-laden governance and interaction, the framework provides a disciplined foundation for future inter-organisational research.

References: Heide, J. B. (1994). Interorganizational governance in marketing channels. Journal of Marketing, 58(1): 71-85. Hoque, I., and Maalouf, M.M. (2022), "Quality intervention, supplier performance and buyer–supplier relationships: evidence from the garment industry", Benchmarking: An International Journal, 29 (8), 2337-2358. Huq, F.A., and Stevenson, M. (2020), "Implementing socially sustainable practices in challenging institutional contexts: Building theory from seven developing country supplier cases", Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 161 No. 2, pp. 415–442. Jarzabkowski, P., Le, J. K., & Van de Ven, A. H. (2013). Responding to competing strategic demands: How organizing, belonging, and performing paradoxes coevolve. Strategic Organization, 11(3), 245–280. Korkeamäki, L., Sjödin, D., Kohtamäki, M., & Parida, V. (2022). Coping with the relational paradoxes of outcome-based services. Industrial Marketing Management, 104, 14-27. Kubacki, K., Szablewska, N., Siemieniako, D., & Brennan, L. (2024). Vulnerability, resilience and empowerment: the tripartite typology for addressing modern slavery in global value chains. Critical Perspectives on International Business, 20(5), 561-588. Lewis, M. W. (2000). Exploring paradox: Toward a more comprehensive guide. Academy of Management Review, 25(4), 760–776. Marttinen, K., & Kähkönen, A. K. (2022). Fostering firms' ability to cascade sustainability through multi-tier supply chains: an investigation of power sources. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 42(8), 1146-1172. Palay, T. (1984). Comparative institutional economics: the governance of rail freight contracting. Journal of Legal Studies, 13 (June): 265-87. Sancha, C., Gimenez, C., & Sierra, V. (2016). Achieving a socially responsible supply chain through assessment and collaboration. Journal of Cleaner Production, 112, 1934–1947. Siemieniako, D., Kubacki, K., & Mitręga, M. (2021). Inter-organisational relationships for social impact: A systematic literature review. Journal of Business Research, 132, 453-469. Siemieniako, D., Makkonen, H., & Mitręga, M. (2023). Buying center–selling center interaction as a driver for power dynamics in buyer–supplier relationships. Industrial Marketing Management, 114, 94–109. Siemieniako, D., Szablewska, N., Kubacki, K., & Makkonen, H. (2025). Examining anti-modern slavery practices in business relationships and networks: power consequences and social value creation perspectives. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing. Smith, W. K., & Lewis, M. W. (2011). Toward a theory of paradox: A dynamic equilibrium model of organizing. Academy of Management Review, 36(2), 381–403. Soundararajan, V., Brown, J. A., & Wicks, A. C. (2019). Can multi-stakeholder initiatives improve global supply chains? Business Ethics Quarterly, 29(3), 385–412. Yawar, S. A., & Seuring, S. (2017). Management of social issues in supply chains: A literature review exploring social issues, actions and performance outcomes. Journal of Business Ethics, 141(3), 621–643.

ABSTRACT. The aim of this article is to analyze large supply network utilization of Key Enabling Technologies (KET) (Calvache, Pruyn and Napoleone, 2025) considering the three network paradoxes (Håkansson & Ford 2002). The context of the case study examples is highly networked ship building industry B2B relations. The three network paradoxes being 1) Opportunities and limitations in networks, 2) influencing and being influenced in a network, and 3) controlling and being out of control in networks. According to Håkansson and Ford (2002), technological knowledge is embedded both within the companies and the relationships of a network. Change in a network is not the result of a single technology, but of the development, synthesis and application of many different technologies, both new and existing across the network. Neither the development nor the application of new technologies occurs in a single company. It is the network that provides the ‘‘bundle’’ of different new and existing technologies, necessary for any innovation (Ford and Saren, 1996). Perez (2024) highlights the significant transformation underway in the shipbuilding industry networks, driven by the integration of digital technologies and sustainability requirements. In modern digital shipbuilding, these technologies, often called KETs (Calvache, Pruyn and Napoleone, 2025), do not always fit into strict categories because their usefulness depends on the specific industrial context and application. It is common for new solutions to combine multiple KETs to create synergistic effects (digital solutions), such as integrating AI-driven analytics within a Digital Twin environment supported by IoT data. However, researchers typically categorize KETs into product, process, people, equipment, and IT system domains (Prayag 2025). In contemporary shipbuilding, the transformation driven by Industry 4.0 is enabled by a range of KETs, such as IoT, AI, big data analytics, robotics, digital twins, blockchain, additive manufacturing, and cloud/edge computing (Ramirez-Pena et al., 2019; Aggarwal, 2024; Zhang and Chen, 2024; Calvache, Pruyn and Napoleone, 2025). These KETs provide the technical foundation for digitalization, but in practice, value is realized through their integration as digital solutions for companies and in advanced cases over the company network. Solutions, including real-time process monitoring, predictive maintenance platforms, blockchain traceability, digital maturity models, computer-based simulations and digital twins, are often designed by combining multiple KETs to address specific operational challenges in network (Baraldi et al. 2025). In this article firstly, we categorize different KETs based on literature review. According to Håkansson and Ford (2002) The network party that is least committed to a relationship is likely to control it negatively by restricting networks development. Conversely, the positive development of a relationship is likely to be driven by the party that is most committed to it. In the focal shipbuilding network, this relates to the willingness to share the data among the network companies. In case examples of digital twin-type overview on sustainability performance and simulation of the network interactions, data sharing is vital. Håkansson and Ford (2002) also stated that, each company will try to develop its position in the network relative to other companies, by influencing the knowledge and understanding within other companies and the direction in which each relationship develops. In practice, this positioning is not an easy task if there is knowledge hoarding among the companies and other data transfer obstacles. In the focal network, researchers are creating a network level digital maturity model in collaboration with companies in order to make this positioning easier. This leads us to have a look at network paradoxes introduced by Håkansson and Ford (2002). Therefore secondly, in the empirical part of the research article, we identify KETs from the shipbuilding network and describe example cases in more detail. Thirdly, we assess these cases considering the network paradox frame. The theoretical contribution will be assessment of KETs and the relation of different technologies to network paradoxes. Managerial implication is propositioning how to ensure that utilization of digital technologies in network context does not lead to contractionary (unwanted) results. References Calvache, M., Pruyn, J., Napoleone, A., 2025. Navigating shipbuilding 4.0: Analysis and classification of technologies for the digital transformation of the sector”. Ship Technology Research 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/09377255.2025.2522600 Baraldi, E., Guercini, S., Prenkert, F. & Perna, A. (2025). What can IMP gain from computer-based simulations? Paper presented at the 41st IMP conference in Gothenburg. Ford D, Saren M. Technology strategy for business. London: Thomson, 1996. Håkansson, H., Ford, D., 2002. How should companies interact in business networks? Journal of Business Research 55, 133–139. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0148-2963(00)00148-X Pérez Fernández, R., 2024. Sustainable Ship Design and Digital Twin Yard. JMSE 12, 1837. https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse12101837 Prayag, A.A., 2025. Reducing waste in the shipbuilding industry through digital solutions: A framework to identify and optimize inefficiencies. Master’s Thesis. Technische Universität Hamburg, Hamburg. Ramirez-Peña, M., Abad Fraga, F.J., Sánchez Sotano, A.J., Batista, M., 2019. Shipbuilding 4.0 Index Approaching Supply Chain. Materials 12, 4129. https://doi.org/10.3390/ma12244129 Singh, P.K., Maheswaran, R., 2023. Analysis of social barriers to sustainable innovation and digitization in supply chain. Environ Dev Sustain 26, 5223–5248. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-023-02931-9 Zhang, X., Chen, D., 2024. Shipbuilding 4.0: A Systematic Literature Review. Applied Sciences 14, 6363. https://doi.org/10.3390/app1414636

ABSTRACT. At the 2025 IMP Conference held at Chalmers University of Technology the Authors had the opportunity to chair a special track whose title was “It’s a SIN! Simulating Industrial Networks”. The overall goal of the special issue was ‘to stimulate a discussion among IMP researchers on the topic of computer-based simulation models, how they can be developed and used for studying network dynamics, as well as their problems and advantages in this area of studies’. The papers presented at the 2025 IMP conference contributed to enhance the understanding of the potential benefits – as well as the limitations – of adopting simulation models to explore interactions within industrial network settings. Interestingly, among the computational simulation types the Agent-based modelling (ABM) emerged particularly suitable for conducting studies such as those on value appropriation in networks (Følgesvold & Prenkert, 2009). However, as highlighted by Baraldi et al. (2025), there are substantial rooms to further develop and apply ABM as methodological tool within the IMP tradition. In light of this, this paper falls into the topic of simulating industrial networks and it is aimed to advance the discussion on agent-based modelling (ABM) as a valuable methodological option for IMP scholars. To improve the knowledge about ABM among IMP scholars (see Baraldi et al., 2025) we aim to increase awareness and understanding of how ABM can be effectively used to study business networks, particularly as a complement to more established qualitative methods. While IMP research has traditionally relied on the use of case studies (Möller and Halinen, 2022) to explore business relationships and business networks, ABM offers a complementary lens that would enable the simulation of complex phenomena network oriented. Case studies provide rich empirical grounding and interpretive depth, whereas ABM formalizes behavioural rules and allows for dynamic experimentation. As Abar et al. (2017) point out, ABM provides a "bottom-up" modeling paradigm that is especially suited to complex, dynamic, and decentralized systems — making it inherently compatible with the process-oriented focus of IMP research based on the use of case studies. An important aspect is the coding of the rules of behaviour for agents in the simulation model. The data based on case research can highlight both the structure of the roles of actors in business networks and the rules adopted for decisions and behaviours in interaction processes, also known as heuristics (Simon, 1963; Gigerenzer and Gaissmeier, 2011), such as the reciprocity or tit-for-tat (Axelrod, 1984) and, more generally, the rules adopted by actors in interaction processes (Guercini, La Rocca and Snehota, 2022). Combining together these approaches could improve the potential of building new theories. As part of this effort, we present an initial review of ABM platforms suitable for industrial network research, including NetLogo, AnyLogic, Repast, and Mesa, evaluated on their compatibility with IMP study related purposes. The study of such platforms constitutes a first step to understand what can be modelled – such as key IMP concepts and models such as ARA (Håkansson & Snehota, 1995) but also how accessible and intuitive the modelling process is for researchers unfamiliar with computational methods. Two research questions are proposed; 1) Which agent-based modelling platforms are best suited for simulating industrial business networks from an IMP perspective, and why? 2) What criteria can guide IMP scholars in selecting agent-based modelling platforms? On the one hand, IMP literature can offer a description of structures and processes that may represent a precursor to the setting of the process being simulated. On the other hand, the results of the simulation process can offer a tool for analysing the effects of interaction processes in business networks that are of interest to the IMP approach. The adoption of different simulation systems can therefore be evaluated on the basis of a grid of elements that include both antecedent aspects and results made possible by the adoption of the ABM platform. In terms of methodology, the paper presents the results of an exploration involving a set of ABM platforms, proposing ad analysis and evalutaion grid and describing and comparing their characteristics and finally highlighting the implications of their use both in terms of the type of input data that can be used and their contribution of the results of simulation to the study of business network dynamics.

List of references Abar, S., Theodoropoulos G.K., Lemarinier, P. & O’Hare, G.M.P. (2017) Agent Based Modelling and Simulation tools: A review of the state-of-art software. Computer Science Review 24,13-33. Axelrod, R. (1984). The evolution of cooperation. New York: Basic Books Publishers. Baraldi, E., Guercini, S., Prenkert, F. & Perna, A. (2025). What can IMP gain from computer-based simulations? Paper presented at the 41st IMP conference in Gothenburg, Sweden Følgesvold, A. & Prenkert, F. (2009). Magic pelagic—An agent-based simulation of 20 years of emergent value accumulation in the North Atlantic herring exchange system. Industrial Marketing Management, 38(5), 529–540. Gigerenzer, G., & Gaissmaier, W. (2011). Heuristic decision making. Annual Review of Psychology, 62(2011), 451-482. Guercini, S., La Rocca, A., & Snehota, I. (2022). Decisions when interacting in customer-supplier relationships. Industrial Marketing Management, 105, 380-387. Håkansson, H., & Snehota, I. (1995). Developing relationships in business networks. London: Routledge. Möller, K., & Halinen, A. (2022). Clearing the paradigmatic fog—how to move forward in business marketing research. Industrial Marketing Management, 102, 280–300. Simon, H. A. (1963). Experiments with a heuristic compiler. Journal of the ACM (JACM), 10(4), 493-506.

ABSTRACT. The present case study investigates how intersectoral actors employ institutional work practices to shape emerging markets for industrial side stream circulation within municipal and industrial water treatment. By applying an institutional work lens, the research identifies both purposive and unintentional actions taken by organizations and individuals to create, maintain, or disrupt institutional structures to overcome regulatory, technological, and economic barriers to circularity. Initial findings reveal a multi-level process where macro-level regulatory shifts, such as new EU directives and national guidelines, are translated through meso-level regional networks into micro-level operational practices. The study highlights that systemic change requires specific practices from various actors across different sectors. By default, governments drive institutional creation, side stream manufacturers, processors and utilizers lead institutional disruption of standard and linear market norms, and micro-level practitioners ensure the long-term maintenance of sustainable standards would take place. Ultimately, the paper contributes to both institutional work and market-shaping literature by demonstrating how collective and cross-sectoral work can reconfigure market legitimacy, develop regional and local economies and ultimately, pursue systemic change towards circular economy.

ABSTRACT. This study aims at understanding how sustainability and circular economy strategies and practices affect and are affected by business relationships, from a business network perspective. By developing sustainable and circular solutions, companies propel and incorporate changes and innovations into their businesses. Circular economy and business networks can be seen as interconnected concepts where a company develops and preserves different relationships with different companies, within a network, as a way to support and be supported in the changes necessary to their circular journey. A case study in the fashion industry was developed for that purpose. This study highlights the need to build strong, stable, and long-term relationships for a company to successfully transition to a circular economy. At the same time, for this transition to happen, several changes and adaptations need to occur in terms of actors, resources, and activities. Sharing knowledge and combining resources through the development of business relationships is extremely beneficial for developing practices favouring environmental, social, and economic goals. Finally, small changes and solutions, not directly related to a company's core business, can also play a significant role in the circular business model over time.

ABSTRACT. This study examines the attempts to address conflict minerals in the diamond industry supply chain through a network lens, focusing on the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme as a multi-stakeholder governance framework. Following increased attention to conflicts in West and Central Africa and concerns about mineral resources fueling violence and human rights abuses, western consumer pressure threatened the diamond industry's marketability (Haufler, 2009). The Kimberley Process emerged as a collaborative solution spearheaded by De Beers, governments of diamond-producing countries, and NGOs to restore consumer confidence (Haufler, 2009). While the Scheme successfully limited market access for conflict diamonds by requiring identification of rough diamonds sold by signatories (Borsky and Leiter, 2022), it reveals critical insights about actor behavior and network effects on sustainability outcomes. Despite involving multiple stakeholders across the diamond supply network, the Kimberley Process notably omitted environmental impact considerations in its wording and negotiations (Rush and Rozell, 2017). This absence is particularly significant given that mining activities generate substantial environmental consequences that extend beyond individual actors to affect entire networks and communities. Rather than evaluating the Scheme's operational successes or failures, this study conceptualizes the environment itself as a resource and actor within the network (Håkansson and Waluszewski, 2002; Baraldi et al., 2012; Bocconcelli et al., 2020). Through discourse analysis of founding documents and official communications, we examine how the environment is conceptualized and what status it holds within this multi-party treaty framework (Foucault, 1970). Drawing on post-humanist perspectives, we theorize the environment as a non-human actor with genuine agency in the network (Latour, 1993; Barad, 2003, 2007). Latour's (1993) actor-network theory challenges the modern distinction between human and non-human entities, arguing that networks are heterogeneous assemblages where material objects and natural entities actively participate in shaping outcomes. The environment, in this view, is not merely a passive backdrop or resource to be exploited, but an actant that exercises agency through its material responses-land degradation, water contamination, ecosystem disruption-which in turn affect network relationships and economic exchanges. Barad's (2003, 2007) concept of post-humanist performativity further develops this understanding by proposing that matter itself is agentic, with boundaries between human actors and environmental elements emerging through ongoing intra-actions rather than being predetermined. In the context of mining networks, the environment "acts" through material-discursive practices: soil composition affects extraction methods, water systems respond to industrial interventions, and ecological changes reshape the conditions under which the diamond network operates. By excluding the environment from the Kimberley Process governance framework, network participants effectively denied this non-human actor a voice in decision-making, despite its active role in constituting the network's material realities. Our analysis reveals how actor-centric approaches in multi-stakeholder networks can systematically exclude critical sustainability dimensions when actors prioritize immediate economic concerns over environmental responsibilities. The Kimberley Process demonstrates how formal collaboration mechanisms and international governance structures may fail to integrate environmental considerations despite their centrality to sustainable network outcomes. This case illustrates the tension between actors' financial optimization within their own network positions and the collective environmental impacts generated across the network. We contribute to IMP theory by proposing a conceptualization of non-human actors in business networks and suggesting theoretical adaptations for understanding resource interaction when environmental actors remain marginalized in network governance (Jaakkola, 2020). Our findings have implications for understanding how legislation and multi-party agreements can either enable or constrain sustainable network thinking beyond individual actor perspectives.

References Barad, K. (2003) Posthumanist performativity: toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 28(3): 801–831. Barad, K. (2007) Meeting the Universe Halfway. London, UK: Duke University Press. Baraldi, E., Gressetvold, E., and Harrison, D. (2012) Resource interaction in inter-organizational networks: foundations, comparison and a research agenda. Journal of Business Research, 65(2): 266–276. Bocconcelli, R., Carlborg, P., Harrison, D., et al. (2020) Resource interaction and resource integration: similarities, differences, reflections. Industrial Marketing Management, 91: 385–396. Borsky, S. and Leiter, A.M. (2022) International trade in rough diamonds and the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme. World Development, 152. Foucault, M. (1970) The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Vintage Books. Håkansson, H. and Waluszewski, A. (2002) Managing Technological Development: IKEA, the Environment and Technology. London: Routledge. Haufler, V. (2009) The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme: An innovation in global governance and conflict prevention. Journal of Business Ethics, 89: 403–416. Jaakkola, E. (2020) Designing conceptual articles: four approaches. AMS Review, 10: 18–24. Latour, B. (1993) We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Rush, S.J. and Rozell, E.J. (2017) A rough diamond: the perils of the Kimberley Process. Archives of Business Research, 5(11): 101–107.

ABSTRACT. The adaptation of firms to their political environment has long been discussed in the non-market strategy literature, where political engagement is typically framed as a strategic choice aligned with firms’ economic interests (Baron, 1995; Hillman et al., 2004). However, the rise of populist regimes introduces a qualitatively different form of political pressure. In such contexts, companies increasingly face politically imposed obligations that they have not voluntarily chosen and that cannot be reduced to conventional non-market strategies. Populism, by claiming exclusive representation of “the people,” generates institutional pressures that fundamentally reshape firms’ operating conditions (Mudde, 2004; Moffitt, 2016). Building on the Interaction and Network Approach (IMP), this conceptual paper argues that populist regimes do not merely alter the external environment of firms but actively intervene in relationship and network structures. While the IMP tradition conceptualizes business networks as emergent systems shaped by interaction, mutual dependence, and joint value creation (Håkansson, 1982; Håkansson & Snehota, 1995), populist regimes impose politically constructed relational patterns that distort these processes. From an IMP perspective, populism therefore represents a direct intervention into the interaction logic of business networks rather than an exogenous environmental condition. Following the logic of conceptual theory development outlined by Lindgreen et al. (2021), the paper connects two previously weakly linked theoretical domains: the IMP view of interactive business networks and the concept of Corporate Political Obligations (CPO). Conceptual research, as emphasized by Jaakkola (2020) and MacInnis (2011), advances theory by redefining constructs, establishing new relationships between concepts, and identifying boundary conditions. In this spirit, the paper does not seek empirical generalization but develops a theoretically grounded explanation of how political obligations function as network-level mechanisms within business relationships. Corporate Political Obligations refer to explicit or implicit political expectations imposed on firms by populist governments, compelling them to demonstrate loyalty, compliance, or participation in politically prioritized projects, irrespective of their own market and interaction logic (Hartwell & Devinney, 2024). While CPO has primarily been discussed as a non-market constraint and a source of ethical and institutional tension, this paper reconceptualizes CPO as a politically induced relational mechanism. Drawing on insights from institutional work and market-ordering perspectives (Kjellberg & Helgesson, 2007; Lawrence et al., 2009), CPO is theorized as a force that actively reorganizes interaction patterns and power relations within business networks. Using the Hungarian populist system as an empirically informed extreme case, the paper theorizes how CPO affects core IMP dimensions. First, activity structures are distorted as managerial attention and organizational resources are redirected toward political compliance rather than market-oriented interaction and innovation. Second, resource interaction is reconfigured as politically legitimized resources—such as domestic ownership and political connections—are revalued, while others—such as international partnerships and foreign capital—are systematically devalued, contradicting the IMP emphasis on joint resource development (Håkansson & Waluszewski, 2002). Third, dependency relationships are asymmetrically realigned: firms become increasingly dependent on a centralized political-business power node, undermining the reciprocity that characterizes IMP-based mutual dependence (Håkansson & Ford, 2002; Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978). The paper conceptualizes CPO as an extreme form of network risk that constrains relational embeddedness, limits interactive learning, and freezes the natural evolution of business relationships (Ritter et al., 2004). In contrast to the IMP view of network change as a gradual, multi-actor, and emergent process (Ford et al., 2011), populist systems reduce network heterogeneity and reorganize interaction around dominant political centers. As a result, relationship development becomes politically conditioned rather than interaction driven. The paper contributes to IMP theory in three ways. First, it introduces Corporate Political Obligations as a politically driven boundary condition for business network analysis, extending the scope of IMP research to populist institutional contexts. Second, it develops a CPO–IMP Interaction and Network Model that distinguishes between three coexisting but competing logics guiding firm behavior: Interaction Logic (IMP), Social Legitimacy Logic, and Political Compliance Logic. Third, it advances the IMP research agenda by theorizing business networks in environments where relationships are not emergent outcomes of interaction but politically constructed arrangements.

References Baron, D. P. (1995). Integrated strategy: Market and nonmarket components. California Management Review, 37(2), 47–65. Baron, D. P. (2018). Business and its environment (7th ed.). Pearson. Ford, D., Gadde, L.-E., Håkansson, H., & Snehota, I. (2011). Managing business relationships (3rd ed.). Wiley. Granovetter, M. (1985). Economic action and social structure: The problem of embeddedness. American Journal of Sociology, 91(3), 481–510. Håkansson, H. (1982). International marketing and purchasing of industrial goods. Wiley. Håkansson, H., & Ford, D. (2002). How should companies interact in business networks? Journal of Business Research, 55(2), 133–139. Håkansson, H., & Snehota, I. (1995). Developing relationships in business networks. Routledge. Håkansson, H., & Waluszewski, A. (2002). Path dependence: Restricting or facilitating technical development? Journal of Business Research, 55(7), 561–570. Hartwell, C. A., & Devinney, T. M. (2024). Corporate political obligations and the populist challenge. Journal of International Business Studies, 55(2), 259–279. Hillman, A. J., Keim, G. D., & Schuler, D. (2004). Corporate political activity: A review and research agenda. Journal of Management, 30(6), 837–857. Jaakkola, E. (2020). Designing conceptual articles: Four approaches. Academy of Marketing Science Review, 10(1–2), 18–26. Kjellberg, H., & Helgesson, C.-F. (2007). On the nature of markets and their practices. Marketing Theory, 7(2), 137–162. Lawrence, T. B., Suddaby, R., & Leca, B. (2009). Institutional work: Actors and agency in institutional studies of organizations. Cambridge University Press. Lindgreen, A., Di Benedetto, C. A., Brodie, R. J. & Jaakkola, E. (2021): How to develop great conceptual frameworks for business-to-business marketing. Industrial Marketing Management, 94, A2-A10 MacInnis, D. J. (2011). A framework for conceptual contributions in marketing. Journal of Marketing, 75(4), 136–154. Moffitt, B. (2016). The global rise of populism. Stanford University Press. Mudde, C. (2004). The populist zeitgeist. Government and Opposition, 39(4), 541–563. Pfeffer, J., & Salancik, G. R. (1978). The external control of organizations. Harper & Row. Ritter, T., Wilkinson, I. F., & Johnston, W. J. (2004). Managing in complex business networks. Industrial Marketing Management, 33(3), 175–183.

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ABSTRACT. Introduction and Purpose Sustainability in business markets can be understood as the capacity of relationships and networks to endure, adapt, and remain resilient through continuous interaction, trust development, and institutional embeddedness (Håkansson & Snehota, 1995; Ford et al., 2011; Wilkinson & Young, 2002). Digitalisation is reshaping these processes by transforming how actors interact, coordinate, and maintain relationships across organisational and national boundaries (Pagani & Pardo, 2017; Hoholm et al., 2020). Recent studies show that digital platforms increasingly function as relational resources embedded in network structures, influencing trust formation, coordination, and value creation (Cartwright et al., 2021; Bazi et al., 2023; Ferreira et al., 2024). However, limited attention has been paid to how locally dominant digital infrastructures sustain interaction and relationship continuity in institutionally distinctive contexts. This paper examines how WeChat functions as a digital interaction infrastructure sustaining international business networks in the Chinese wine trade. Rather than conceptualising WeChat as a promotional channel, it is framed as a network arena and coordination device that supports trust, knowledge circulation, and informal governance across producers, distributors, and sommeliers. The study addresses the question: How does digital interaction through WeChat sustain business relationships and network coordination in the Chinese wine trade?

Theoretical Framing Markets are constituted through repeated interaction among interdependent actors embedded in networks of relationships (Håkansson, 1982; Håkansson & Snehota, 1995). Relationship sustainability emerges through trust, mutual adaptation, and the development of shared routines and social norms (Ford et al., 2003; La Rocca et al., 2017). Networks are coordinated not only through formal contracts but also through informal communication, social embeddedness, and interaction arenas that enable sensemaking and legitimacy (Håkansson & Ford, 2002; Araujo et al., 2003). Digital platforms increasingly operate as such interaction arenas, shaping how actors connect, exchange knowledge, and coordinate resources across boundaries (Pagani & Pardo, 2017; Hoholm et al., 2020). Value creation in contemporary business networks depends on the combination of digital and non-digital resources (Ferreira et al., 2024), while digitally mediated social presence and content sharing contribute to trust and relational continuity (Cartwright et al., 2021; Bazi et al., 2023). In institutionally specific contexts such as China, dominant platforms become embedded infrastructures that condition access, legitimacy, and ongoing participation (Peng, 2003; Liu et al., 2002). Sustainability thus refers to the capacity of networks to reproduce themselves over time through stable yet adaptive interaction patterns supported by socio-digital infrastructures (Ford et al., 2011).

Method The study draws on 12 in-depth semi-structured interviews with Chinese wine distributors, sommeliers, a multinational brand manager, and a winery owner. The data capture communication practices, platform choices, and relationship management across domestic and international ties. Following an interaction-oriented qualitative approach (Easton, 1995; Dubois & Gadde, 2002), thematic analysis focused on how digital interaction supports trust, coordination, and network continuity.

Findings Relational Continuity and Trust through Ongoing Interaction WeChat supports continuous, low-threshold interaction that sustains relational presence between geographically distant partners. Relationships are maintained through frequent, informal, and multimodal exchanges combining text, voice, images, and rapid feedback. This continuity enables ongoing calibration of expectations and intentions, reducing relational distance and uncertainty. As one distributor noted, “WeChat is modern life in China… fast and quick,” reflecting how sustained contact becomes taken for granted. Trust is built through the accumulation of small interaction episodes rather than single transactions. Voice messages, quick confirmations, and visual sharing of products and events create a sense of co-presence and emotional attunement. A brand manager observed that “pictures can be delivered… you don’t need to open computers,” highlighting how immediacy and richness of communication support reassurance and engagement. Such practices help actors interpret tone, reliability, and commitment, reinforcing confidence in the relationship and willingness to invest over time.

Network Coordination and Informal Governance in Group Arenas Beyond dyadic ties, WeChat groups function as shared interaction arenas in which multiple actors observe, respond to, and align with one another. Distributors circulate market information, announce promotions, and coordinate activities while monitoring participation and responsiveness. One participant explained: “Everyone can speak out in the group… I often post links… and some dealers are only for the group members.” Visibility of actions and reactions enables coordination without formal hierarchy, creating soft forms of social control and expectation alignment. Moments and Official Accounts further extend this visibility by allowing actors to signal expertise, reliability, and engagement. Posts about tastings, trends, or personal experiences contribute to reputation formation and relational positioning. As one distributor stated, “I’m expressing myself and my wine… this is a kind of personal marketing.” Such public self-presentation supports informal governance by making commitment and competence observable, encouraging reciprocity and discouraging opportunistic behaviour.

Institutional Embeddedness and Legitimacy Participation in WeChat-based interaction is not optional but constitutes a basic condition of network membership. Several respondents emphasised that “if you want to do business in China, WeChat is necessary,” indicating that the platform functions as an institutionalised infrastructure for access and legitimacy. New or peripheral actors must become visible and responsive within these digital arenas to be recognised as credible partners. Routine participation in chats, groups, and content sharing demonstrates alignment with local communication norms and relationship practices. Sommeliers described how Moments postings and group interactions generate word-of-mouth and social endorsement, while distributors emphasised that continuity of presence signals commitment. In this way, WeChat embeds relationships within a shared socio-digital space that stabilises expectations, facilitates learning, and supports coordination across organisational and cultural boundaries.

Contribution and Implications The study conceptualises WeChat as a relational and network infrastructure that sustains business relationships through continuous interaction, trust formation, and informal coordination. It shows how digitally mediated interaction becomes embedded in governance and sensemaking processes that support the durability and resilience of international exchange relationships (Håkansson & Snehota, 1995; Ford et al., 2011). By highlighting how a locally dominant platform stabilises interaction patterns, supports knowledge circulation, and enables legitimacy in an institutionally specific setting, the paper advances understanding of how network sustainability is enacted through socio-digital infrastructures rather than formal structures alone. Sustainability is thus located in the ongoing reproduction of relationships and coordination mechanisms that allow business networks to endure and adapt over time.

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ABSTRACT. Freight transport is a main contributor to climate impact responsible for 24 % of direct CO₂ emissions globally (IEA, 2022). A lot of efforts have been made on reducing emissions at the ‘supply side’ of the transport system, including initiatives relating to technological development, for example electrification of vehicles. However, the ‘demand side’ has been largely ignored. One reason for this is that transport is often an integrated part of the offerings of suppliers, leading to emissions (and costs) related to transport of goods from suppliers to customers often being ‘hidden’ from the customers. However, an increasing number of buying firms are now aiming to get a grip of the emissions generated in their ‘upstream’ supply chains, so called Scope 3 emissions. Previous research shows that purchasing decisions can impact sustainability of logistics- and transport services directly – through a firm’s purchases of such transport services (Huge-Brodin et al., 2020) – and indirectly, through location of product suppliers (Böge, 1995). However, for firms to get knowledge about the transport activities generated by their purchasing activities and how to act on this knowledge is not as straight forward as one might think. This is in line with Ellram et al. (2022, p. 4) stating that “it appears that emissions reduction for purchased transportation has not reached a high level of importance and is hiding in plain sight”. Transport activities are often performed by many different actors and the decisions on transport modes and routes are taken in different parts of the supply network. From a buying firm’s perspective, to be able to impact scope 3 emissions, it will be important to understand how these transport activities are carried out and how decisions concerning these activities are taken. The limited awareness that follows from that transport activities are ‘hidden’ from the buying firms entails difficulties for buying companies to understand how their purchasing behaviour impacts on the transport activities embedded in their supply networks (Eriksson et al., 2022). This, in turn, makes it hard for firms to know what actions should be taken to reduce the climate impact resulting from these transport activities.

In this paper we focus on how buying firms can approach this problem by interacting, both internally, between different company functions, and with suppliers of products as well as of transport services.

The paper is theoretically grounded in the Industrial network approach (Håkansson & Snehota, 1995) and focuses on the interface between internal and external organising in supply networks (e.g. Hessel, 2014). We elaborate on interactions in view of different ways to reduce transport emissions upstream in a buying firm’s supply network.

The paper is based on a single case study focusing on a manufacturer of heavy equipment in the energy sector (henceforth referred to as MAN) and its efforts to reduce its scope 3 emissions in their ‘up-stream’ supply network. The data collection started 2022 and is ongoing. Interviews with representatives from different departments at MAN have been conducted. Interviews have centred on both (1) external issues such as the supplier base, how goods are transported to the production site in Sweden, and (2) internal issues such as who has information about the suppliers, the transport modes and routes, the scope 3 emissions and who takes decision that impact on transport and scope 3 emissions. The case company has recently initiated collaborations with its suppliers of transport services and across a range of firm-internal functions aiming at finding ways to reduce its transport emissions.

The paper points to that to tackle the issue of reducing transport emissions upstream, a set of problem dimensions need scrutiny and inclusion. First, the links between supply chains and transport networks. Second, the links between buying of products and buying of transport services. Third, the links between firm-internal networks and external business networks. The complexity entailed by variation in these dimensions is addressed as interaction patterns in the paper and each situation relate to the involvement of different internal and external actors. Interaction among various actors is needed to adjust activities and adapt resources within and across firm boundaries and thus such adjustments and adaptations need to be related to these interaction patterns. Some examples of measures that can be taken to reduce transport emissions are elaborated on. Such measures include (1) Longer lead times, (2) Choice of product suppliers and locations, and (3) Reduced emission demands on transport suppliers. The paper argues that these three types of measures point to different interaction patterns. Based on generic aspects of supply networks and transport networks and how these relate, we suggest a framework for analysis of the interaction between internal and external actors that need to adjust their activities and/or adapt their resources to reduce transport emissions upstream. There are several interrelated units of analysis to consider when analysing the transport activities embedded in the supply network of a buying firm. First, the products and how these relate to transport service features need to be considered. Second, the features of the deliveries/transport missions in terms of transport mode(s), frequency, distances etc need to be considered. Third, the supplier relationships with product suppliers and suppliers of transport services need to be considered. Fourth, the ‘geography’ of suppliers, warehouses, ports are important aspects. The paper highlights that interaction between previously non-interacting parties is needed. However, all actors cannot interact about all measures and therefore identification and further exploration of how certain interaction patterns relate to certain measures may be valuable for practice as well as research.

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ABSTRACT. Today, the ESG (environmental, social and governance) provides a structured framework that extends firms’ approaches to sustainability by integrating it into core business strategy (Passas, 2024; Acito et al., 2009). In addition to ESG targets, organizations are aligning their efforts with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)(United Nations, 2015). Both the SDGs and the ESG framework guide organizational sustainability; however, focusing solely on standard targets is insufficient to drive progress. To enhance credibility and impact, businesses in different sizes must go beyond compliance and embed sustainability in day-to-day practices (Halme et al., 2020; Hult, 2011; Porter and Kramer, 2006).

There has been analysis of different strategic orientations identified by previous research to understand and meet market requirements (e.g., Hult, 2011; Gebhardt et al., 2006; Siguaw et al., 2006). A relatively recent addition is the growing academic attention towards Sustainability Orientation (SO), which considers the integration of environmental, social, and economic concerns and practices into the strategic and cultural activities of an organization (Tardin et al., 2024). So far, articles have explored individual perspectives such as managerial and entrepreneurial attitudes toward sustainability orientation (e.g., Roxas and Coetzer, 2012; Kuckertz and Wagner, 2010; Banerjee, 2002, 2001), green human resource practices (e.g., Obeidat et al., 2020; Pellegrini, 2018), and the impact of sustainability on financial performance and competitive advantage (e.g., Zameer et al., 2022; Danso et al., 2019; Calic and Mosakowski, 2016; Weber et al., 2010; Fraj-Andrés et al., 2009; Menguc and Ozanne, 2005).

Still, no systematic overview of the aspects that enhance this orientation currently exists. This research paper contributes to the evolving literature on SO by identifying the internal and external factors that promote this orientation.

The study addresses the following research question:

• What are the central aspects of organizational sustainability orientation research in contemporary Marketing and Management literature?

To answer the research question, we conducted an exploratory study using the method of bibliographic analysis. The analysis was based on literature searched and retrieved through the Scopus database produced by Elsevier.

Due to the variety of existing terminology referring to sustainability, the search terms, in addition to "Sustainability Orientation," included related terms: "Ecological Orientation," "Economic Orientation," "Environmental Orientation," "Green Orientation," "Social Orientation," "Societal Orientation," "SDG Orientation," and "ESG Orientation." The search included the title, abstract, or keywords of the articles. Loose words and truncations were used to include plurals and variants.

Based on the keyword search, the number of articles was restricted to those focused on business. After applying this limitation, 139 journal articles were selected for further analysis. The bibliographic analysis was conducted using VOSViewer software, which revealed eight clusters in total. These articles, published between 2001 and 2025, demonstrated a consistent and steady increase in the number of published journal articles over the examined period.

The eight clusters present articles with various drivers that support OSO:

1. The largest cluster focuses on internal culture focusing on human resources activities. 2. The second largest cluster categorizes articles related to sustainability as a strategic driver in smaller organizations. 3. The third cluster, focuses on organizational capabilities in relation to SO 4. The fourth cluster addresses SO integrated in organizational strategy. 5. The fifth cluster is related to achieving a competitive advantage through SO 6. The sixth cluster has a more holistic view of integrating sustainability to businesses. 7. The seventh cluster is limited to articles on intentions to strive sustainable entrepreneurship. 8. The smallest cluster consists of articles focusing on cooperation to advance sustainability, including collaborations beyond organizational boundaries.

Apart from the last cluster, the number of articles across the clusters is distributed evenly. They cover various topics related to either internal or external organizational aspects that support sustainability orientation. While clusters one, three and six mostly highlight the role of internal processes and activities, clusters two, four, five, seven, and eight consider external aspects. Although the unit of analysis differs within each cluster, some commonalities are evident. The role of collaboration and the impact of individual perspectives, including leaders and employees, have a strong emphasis on driving SO in several clusters.

With the results of this study, we aim to enhance the understanding of the internal and external aspects that support sustainability orientation in B2B organizations. The results of this analysis offer tools for managers to integrate sustainability into the organizational culture, fostering a future-proof and responsible business. Moreover, directions for future research are discussed.

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ABSTRACT. Recent global disruptions have exposed vulnerabilities in how supply networks are designed and managed, and in the buyer-supplier relationship structures that underpin them. The dominant responses, resilience and robustness, seek to restore the pre-disruption configuration as the desired state. Yet it was that configuration which created the vulnerabilities disruption exposed. This paper argues that antifragility, the capacity to gain from disorder rather than survive it, emerges through the evolution of buyer-supplier relationships in response to disruption, enabled by network capabilities co-developed through interaction rather than held within individual firms. Drawing on the IMP interaction view, the ARA model, and network capability theory, we address two research questions: how do buyer-supplier relationships evolve through disruption, and what enables that evolution to produce antifragility rather than adaptation? We propose that relationships follow one of three trajectories through disruption, damaged, unchanged, or transformed, and that the transformation trajectory depends on the relational infrastructure and network capabilities developed through interaction prior to disruption. We develop a framework integrating these elements and identify implications for theory and practice.

ABSTRACT. Digital platforms intensify the coopetition paradox in agricultural value chains, requiring competing actors to simultaneously collaborate through data sharing. In dairy sectors, farmers face pressure to share commercially sensitive data with processors and government agencies to access system-level benefits, yet face distinctive challenges: power asymmetries favor processors, data creates permanent exposure beyond original intent, and value distributes asymmetrically across actors.

Drawing on an interaction approach and extended resource-based theory, we examine barriers to farmer participation in value chain data sharing through qualitative interviews with farmers, processors, advisors, and policymakers. Using Actor-Resource-Activity network analysis, we identify barriers operating across individual, relational, and environmental levels.

This research contributes by: (1) demonstrating how data's unique properties, non-rivalrous yet asymmetrically valuable, shareable yet repurposable, create fundamentally different coopetition dynamics than knowledge-sharing contexts; (2) developing a multi-level framework for understanding technology adoption as embedded in coopetitive relationships; and (3) identifying practical governance pathways addressing farmer concerns around autonomy, data misuse, and value distribution.

ABSTRACT. see uploaded file

ABSTRACT. This paper investigates the adoption and integration of bio-based plastics in industrial supply chains, with a particular focus on the challenges faced by industrial purchasers. Drawing on the IMP network perspective and stakeholder theory, an exploratory multiple-case study was conducted involving five French companies producing bio-based materials. The study examines the operational dynamics, collaborations, and constraints that shape the attractiveness of bio-based plastics in procurement processes. Results indicate that adoption is primarily driven by high value-added sectors such as luxury and cosmetics, where environmental labeling and brand differentiation can justify higher costs. Conversely, cost-sensitive industries, such as agri-food and automotive, exhibit limited uptake. Regulatory and infrastructural constraints, particularly those related to waste sorting and recycling, significantly influence purchasing decisions and compel firms to adapt their business models. Some producers have modified materials to fit conventional recycling streams, while others have shifted toward providing turnkey production solutions in regions where plastic pollution is critical. Overall, the findings highlight the complex interplay of environmental, economic, and regulatory factors that determine the integration of bio-based plastics in supply chains and underscore the need for targeted strategies to enhance their competitiveness and adoption.

ABSTRACT. This WIP paper explores how sustainability is factored into decisions made by buyers and sellers of servitized offerings. A mixed method approach is taken, in the first step netnography is used to explore the digitally available promotional material of servitization providers, these findings are then triangulated with qualitative interviews with buyers and sellers, The primary research for this is in progress and will be reported at the conference.

ABSTRACT. The EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) entered its definitive phase on 1 January 2026, extending carbon accounting and progressive carbon-cost internalisation to imports of selected carbon-intensive goods. Building on an extended abstract developed for this conference, this full paper advances the argument that CBAM is not merely a border-compliance instrument but a market-shaping intervention that reconfigures industrial networks by altering what is exchanged, how exchange is evidenced, and which actors become central. Drawing on Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) research on interaction and resource interdependence (Håkansson & Snehota, 1995; Ford et al., 2003; Bocconcelli et al., 2020) and on Industrial Marketing Management (IMM) research on market shaping and sustainability in business networks (Nenonen & Storbacka, 2020; Baker & Nenonen, 2020; Harrison et al., 2023), the paper develops the concept of a product + carbon biography: a composite exchange object in which the physical good is inseparable from auditable data on embedded emissions, calculation methods, and third-party verification. The study adopts a qualitative document-based research design, drawing on a corpus of publicly available online sources—EU legal and implementing texts, European Commission guidance, industry association position papers, producer sustainability disclosures, and verifier and platform documentation—relating to the European steel ecosystem. Four propositions are advanced and discussed in light of this documentary evidence. The paper contributes to IMP/IMM scholarship by theorising policy-driven calculative infrastructures as structural forces co-evolving with interaction patterns, and by specifying the mechanisms through which regulatory data requirements embed themselves in and reshape industrial networks.