Logo: to the web site of Uppsala University

Purpose

Firms regularly have to handle business-related market changes on the market, such as new market entrants, increased competition, changing prices and changing demand. However, firms active on a market subject to political interventions, resulting in changes of the market, also have to handle different support systems with subsidies, taxes, regulations, etc. As these interventions affect both firms and customers, it is important for firms to adapt to them, but if they continue to change, firms also need to adapt to changing conditions. The purpose of the paper is to study how firms handle continuous market changes and shifting governmental interventions through market-political ambidexterity.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on a qualitative approach, 13 in-depth interviews focusing on how firms handle market changes and political interventions over time were conducted during two time periods. The data was coded in several steps, using systematic combining.

Findings

The empirical results reveal that firm size is crucial in developing market-political ambidexterity; small firms lack the resources needed to handle all changes in an ambidextrous way. Changes on the market require firms to be active, whereas changes of the market, e.g. interventions, require internal stability in the firms. Changes on the market are easier to handle, wherefore there seems to be a need for firms to develop political exploration and exploitation activities related to market-political ambidexterity.

Originality/value

This study contributes to industrial marketing by increasing our understanding of how SMEs handle the simultaneous but sometimes contradicting demands from market changes and political interventions by developing market-political ambidexterity.

 Purpose

This paper aims to explore the role of heuristics in the reassessment of relationship events and how it influences perceptions of commitment, fairness and relationship value. It answers the question of how heuristics interrelate with decision-makers’ evolving interpretations of commitment, fairness and relationship value in a specific buyer-supplier relationship.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper presents data from a longitudinal study of an evolving buyer–supplier relationship involving a multinational supplier of fast-moving consumer goods and a medium-sized and highly specialized supplier. It analyzes qualitative data about the use of heuristics in buyer–supplier relationships, and it is based on evidence collected from interviews, presentations, meetings and secondary data.

Findings

This paper shows that a buyer’s unexpected behavior can lead to a reassessment of commitment, fairness and relationship value. Heuristics can delay relationship reassessments, however. The case shows that heuristics have a preserving quality and that the effect of transformative events only slowly changes the perception of the value of the relationship. In this change process, the link between commitment, perceived fairness and heuristics is crucial.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to research on the relationship between buyer–supplier relationships and heuristics. In particular, the paper contributes to the understanding of how relational events in a buyer-supplier relationship change the commitment and perception of fairness, and how heuristics change accordingly. On a more overarching level, the study contributes to our understanding of business relationship dynamics.

The growing attention to the climate crisis in today's business environment, increases the need for B2B firms to integrate corporate sustainable branding activities in stakeholder interactions. Motivated by a continuous push for market reforms to promote a sustainability agenda for B2B firms, this research uses an intensive single case study design to showcase how corporate sustainable brand identity work is carried out in B2B firms and how business network embeddedness affects this work. We describe how Petter Place, a company that attempted to introduce a radically new way of providing charging for electric cars, provides an opportunity to outline and discuss corporate sustainable brand identity work in B2B networks. We identify how corporate sustainable brand identity work is carried out through different sub-processes, such as building corporate sustainable brand identity and awareness, network mobilizing, and ongoing actor commitment and coalignment, and how network embeddedness facilitates and restricts these processes in different ways.

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) face significant challenges when applying their technologies in baseof-the-pyramid (BoP) contexts. This paper explores the mobilization of MNE technologies and local actors in the case of Grundfos LIFELINK and deploys an actor-network theory (ANT) translation framework to unravel immersion processes of MNE technologies in local BoP contexts. The study adopts a longitudinal single-case design to analyze the introduction of MNE pump technology, which provides clean water in Kenyan rural villages. The findings show that a lack of understanding of the local BoP context leads to failure in mobilizing relevant actors for the intended water-provision network and, subsequently, to an initial rejection of the technology. By focusing more on the local actors and by mobilizing additional actors, the MNE technology is successfully translated into the BoP context-albeit without the intended creation of MNE value. The paper contributes to the understanding of how MNEs can achieve technology development in BoP contexts, as well as to the evolution of BoP approaches.

The purpose of this paper is to create a conceptual model of constraints on business relationship reactivation after bankruptcy-acquisition. Previous research has predominantly focused on contexts where positive aspects of reactivation come to the forefront; accordingly, it is argued that more research is needed on elements con- straining reactivation. A case study in the Swedish automotive industry is used to develop the model. The model contributes to studies on business relationship reactivation by showing that during different relationship episodes (ending, dormant and expected future episodes) it is possible to identify elements that constrain a subsequent reactivation. In the empirical context of the study, these elements are unsettled debts, unilateral switching costs and expected future losses.

Changes in industrial systems increase the efforts needed to attract a counterpart for resource mobilization. The purpose of the article is to elaborate on the impact of customer attractiveness on supplier resource mobilization during radical changes such as bankruptcy. We use a case study method and focus on an extreme case of supplier resource mobilization, i.e. the study of mobilization during the bankruptcy process of a large company. We investigate how the bankruptcy estate managed resource mobilization necessary for maintaining the bankrupt company's facility from the time of declaration of bankruptcy until the facility could be sold to a new owner (from dusk till dawn), providing a detailed description of how the bankruptcy estate attracted suppliers despite the bankrupt company's previous losses. Our findings show that attractiveness is a valid theoretical tool in order to understand resource mobilization also in situations that lack social aspects of relationships. Furthermore, the study shows that resource embeddedness and knowledge transfer affect customer attractiveness and impact supplier resource mobilization. Finally, we demonstrate that even in settings characterized by relationship ending, both experience- and expectation-based attractiveness exist.

While a project design provides several managerial advantages within the project life cycle, there are numerous challenges regarding its long-term effects. The aim of this article is to increase our knowledge on the continuity aspect of the project form of organizing, and especially the recurrence of project-based business relationships in subsequent projects. Focusing on the role of network relationships in leveraging between projects, we investigate the reasons for relationship recurrence. Based on a longitudinal case study of three construction projects, our results show that in addition to terminated and dormant relationships after project closure there are recurring relationships, which, unlike the others, do not need reactivation.

Purpose: Building on a business network perspective, the paper addresses the following question: Why do firms move between cooperation and competition in the context of high-tech industry? Hence, the purpose of this study is to contribute to the understanding of the complex cooperation–competition interplay between actors in a business network.

Design/methodology/approach: A single case study within the information and communication technology industry is undertaken and illustrates the cooperation–competition interplay in projects of technology.

Findings: The authors discuss the implications of interdependence on relationship dynamics. The main argument is that business relationships survive despite periods of competition if interdependence is high. Thus, firms move between a state of cooperation and a state of competition within business relationships, rather than ending the relationships when starting to compete.

Practical implications: This study suggests that managers need to pay attention to how different degrees of interdependence lead firms to be embedded in cooperative or competitive forms of relationships.

Originality/value: The paper contributes to the ongoing debate about cooperation, competition and coopetition within international business and industrial marketing literature. An interesting aspect in the paper is the cooperation–competition interplay, which is associated with positioning. A centrally positioned actor will choose who to bring into the partnership, with positioning concomitantly changing from project to project. The willingness of being a central actor, i.e. a project leader, places traditional buyer–supplier partners in competition. Thus, cooperation and/or competition becomes contextual.

This paper explores the role of big-science organizations in a lead-user context. Lead users are valuable for suppliers because they are active in co-developing products and foreshadowing market needs. Big-science organizations represent a special breed of co-developers, as their demands are not necessarily the avant-garde of a coming market. Yet, they may provide a valuable test bed for suppliers because they are pushing the boundaries of technological capacities and, thus, challenging suppliers' talents. They are also prestigious collaboration partners that help producers to be acknowledged as being at the forefront of technology. They are often deeply engaged in their suppliers' manufacturing and development activities, which is seen as a characteristic of the customer-active paradigm upon which the lead-user notion builds. This paper investigates whether and how interacting with the European Organization for Nuclear Research concerning their development needs may contribute to suppliers' innovation. We ask the question: What characterizes interactions with big-science organizations as a type of lead user, and how do these characteristics impact the potential innovation benefits accruing to the suppliers?

In this chapter the business network view will be extended by the introduction of an actor with a purpose other than that of business orientation—the scientific organisation. The main purpose of a scientific organisation is the production of knowledge. Few, if any, are questioning the role of science as such, but there is a large debate over the usefulness of science in industry and how this utility can be increased by improved transfer mechanisms. The debate is often unclear concerning what knowledge should be transferred, but in the case of the focal actor, the European Organization for Nuclear Research—CERN—the discussion revolves around the transfer of different kinds of technological knowledge. Thus, in this chapter, we analyse how technological knowledge is transferred from science to industry, and some of the difficulties involved in this task.