To Örebro University

This article offers new knowledge on the role of industry as external facilitators in the case of designing responsible management education (RME). Drawing on a case of a Swedish business school that developed a two year master's profile in sustainable business, we find that industry partners acted as external facilitators in the form of ‘Legitimizers’. This type of external facilitator, Legitimizer, complements Vazquez-Brust and Yakovleva’s (2017) existing categories: ‘Guides’, ‘Monitors’, ‘Enablers’, and ‘Networkers’. Based on the findings, we propose that business can take on four types of legitimizing roles in academia – business collaboration: The Visitor, The Planner, The Co-operator, and The Co-educator. We further identify various forms of legitimacy, particularly cognitive and pragmatic, that the corporate activities and interactions generate. Interestingly, in the case of RME, companies are instrumental to legitimizing the education, rather than being the ones seeking legitimacy.

The concept of place, as well as physicality of place, impacts  sustainability practices in different ways. While management and organization studies have seen a rise in discussions on sustainable business models, we argue that place has lost its natural place in sustainability studies related to the business organization. Place offers a rootedness and a link to the natural, that all organizational activities are dependent on. Therefore, place has the capacity to drive and deepen sustainability practices.

The purpose of this paper is to uncover the role of place in sustainability research and organizational practice. A topic, which in sustainability research related to the business organization has been rather weakly covered. By applying an abductive research approach, we identify four different settings for the relation between place and sustainability. We then develop a place typology that shows the different roles of place in sustainability research and practice.

This paper presents an empirically-based simulation of an industrial network modeled as an exchange system. It uses a multi-agent simulation model to test for how variations in uncertainty of the input resource and how the changing demand patterns affect the accumulation and distribution of exchange values in the system as a whole. The empirical material is a case study of an industrial network connecting herring supply with demand. This particular network comprises two separate but related sub-networks, identifiable based on the origin of the herring as coming from either Norwegian or Icelandic catchers. While both target the same potential customers in terms of wholesalers and retailers and ultimately European and Asian consumers, they are distinct in their internal organizing aspects. The results indicate that certain types of internal organizing are more adaptive to changes in conditions and are better suited to absorb these changes. The paper contributes to both a theory and method emphasizing the modeling of emergent nonlinear patterns of networks. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Hur organiseras e-handel? På vilka sätt förändrar den kundmötet? Hur fungerar distributionen? Leder e-handel till ökad hållbarhet? Kommer e-handel att ersätta den fysiska butiken? Frågorna är många och viktiga att besvara när detaljhandeln går in i en ny era och elektronisk handel blir en självklarhet.

Den här boken svarar på frågorna. Den tar upp e-handelns organisering, kunder, distribution och frågor om hållbarhet. Särskilt viktigt är det att förstå hybridhandel, som innebär att företag bedriver både fysisk handel och e-handel parallellt. Boken är skriven ur ett företagsekonomiskt perspektiv och fungerar som en introduktion för alla som vill veta mer om e-handel.

Although ethical issues in e-commerce have received increased interest in recent years, the relational context between e-vendor and e-customer has remained relatively unproblematized. Rather than assuming an anonymous interface between e-vendor and e-customer, with specific ethical issues related to it, we examine a case of a hybrid organizational context where physical stores within the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector use an intermediary to sell goods via e-commerce. The co-existence of physical stores and Internet solutions creates multiple relationships to customers and, as we argue, ethical problems of partly different kind compared to the ones identified in the literature. In the article, both the nature of the relationships between e-vendor and e-customer is analysed and ethical issues related to these relationships identified. From a theoretical point of view, the article widens the discussion on e-commerce ethics from a relational perspective inspired by Martin Buber’s philosophy.

Although ethical issues in e-commerce have received increased interest in recent years, the relational context between e-vendor and e-customer has remained relatively unproblematized. Rather than assuming an anonymous interface between e-vendor and e-customer, with specific ethical issues related to it, we examine a case of a hybrid organizational context where physical stores within the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector use an intermediary to sell goods via e-commerce. The co-existence of physical stores and Internet solutions creates multiple relationships to customers and, as we argue, ethical problems of partly different kind compared to the ones identified in the literature. In the article, both the nature of the relationships between e-vendor and e-customer is analysed and ethical issues related to these relationships identified. From a theoretical point of view, the article widens the discussion on e-commerce ethics from a relational perspective inspired by Martin Buber’s philosophy.

Even though current research literature pays much attention to e-commerce as an aspect of retailing, relatively few strategic approaches elaborate on the fact that many contemporary retail firms are hybrid firms, which implies offering products both online and offline. Notably, much of extant research sets off from the premise that traditional retail chains adopt e-commerce to complement the physical stores. An important observation is that today also ‘pure’ e-tailers open physical stores, which means that hybridization develops from different vantage points. Current strategic understandings of hybrid firms’ strategies do not necessarily take into account the different and sometimes contrary approaches to what it means to be a hybrid firm. The purpose of this article is to develop a two-dimensional model of strategic choice in hybrid firms. It makes it possible to identify different strategies along the dimensions of a) locality (of the physical store) and b) the role of the physical store when it comes to distribution. Through this approach, a deeper strategic understanding is reached, for example with regard to the physical distribution aspect of hybrid firms.

The purpose of the paper is to generate an understanding of the prerequisites for sustainable supply chain management. A common tendency in the literature is to see sustainable supply chain management as something that is undertaken by a focal firm at the end of the chain. Even though many scholars point to the need for cooperative approaches, focal firms are still considered to manage supply chains from one fixed and coherent vantage point: the managerial outlook of the focal firm itself, understood as a structurally coherent, top-down controlled unit. Through an illustration from the Swedish retail sector, we argue that such a vantage point is problematic. We suggest a deeper analysis of focal firms and sustainable supply chain management in terms of a network perspective employed mainly in the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) literature. The adopted network perspective recognizes both internal and external complexity of sustainable supply chain management, implying, for example, difficulties to control entire organizations and the existence of multiple supply chains to manage. It is also suggested that sustainable supply networks may be a viable concept to use when dealing with sustainability issues related to production, since it relates sustainability in the supply chain to the more general responsibility context of firms.  

This paper focuses the use of Internet technology in the relationship between SMEs and demanding industrial partners. Four case studies are reported by a cross-case analysis based on three dimensions of stability derived from the work of Thompson; Predictability, Efficiency, and Interaction. Results indicate the occurrence of two types of shifts spurred by the use of Internet technology, between actors in the task environment, and between their activities. In turn, these shifts represent a change in the identity of the SME in question towards the demanding partner.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating role of boundary objects in interaction processes within business networks. From a single case study in the grocery retail industry, we find that such objects are used within interaction processes for collaboration, but are also used extensively for handling conflict, facilitating economic negotiations, and power execution. As such, network-level boundary objects do not require broad consensus by all the involved actors, but instead narrow consensus in a particular interaction process.

This study addresses the lack of knowledge about inter-organizational activity coordination in the contemporary economy. Existing understanding of economic coordination within inter-organizational research is based on the three modes of organization, market, and cooperative relationship. We extend the framework of Richardson that analyses specialization and complementarity within the industrial division of labour in terms of these three coordination modes. We propose a novel mode of coordinating economic activity, namely multi-actor arrangements, which is based on the coordination of very dissimilar yet complementary activities, grounded in the principle of distributed control. This fourth mode is necessary to explain contemporary phenomena such as the circular economy and blockchain because these involve interdependencies that were previously framed as too different or unrelated to coordinate. The extension is important because it changes our understanding of mixed-mode coordination. Our proposed fourth mode enables the conceptualization of how activity interdependencies are coordinated within inter-organizational relationships and networks undergoing transformation.

This paper investigates how the effects of network connections are considered when strategists conduct a planned strategy process. The single case study underpinning the paper is based on qualitative data collected between June and December 2007, which relates to a seven-month strategising process conducted within a project group. The strategising activity was to consider how to develop the company's position by selecting one of several strategic options. The IMP Actors-Resources-Activities (ARA) model is used as a too] to analyse how the effects of network connections are considered within the process. The result is three overlapping network strategising trajectories' (actor, resource and activity). The dynamics of the trajectories is discussed using a matrix which illustrates how network effects are considered in terms of direct/indirect and isolated/relating. In sum, the paper contributes to the ongoing debates within IMP about strategy by bringing a dynamic process dimension to the study of network strategising. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

It is well established in an IMP context that no business is an island (Håkansson and Snehota 1989). This paper discusses findings about how a team of strategists in a firm considers existing network connections within a strategy process for selecting a new strategy. The case company, Nortura, operates with a monopoly position that probably will be radically changed by a World Trade Association agreement. The case study underpinning the findings is based on qualitative data collected between June and December 2007, the seven-month time period of the strategising activity. The Actors-Resources-Activities (ARA) model is used as a tool to analyse how network connections are considered within each strategising phase by the different strategists that participate in the process. The paper highlights three overlapping network strategising trajectories within the process and discusses how teams of strategists handle network connections through the use of tools before proposing three types of network strategising.

There is a growing call for more network-level research on sustainability within marketing that avoids a narrow interorganisational focus. Business networks have a crucial role to play in reorganising and innovating to achieve sustainability and are met with significant challenges because of the scale and scope of changes necessary. We propose connectedness as central to understanding networked, interorganisational responses to the sustainability shift. We contribute by highlighting how systemic interdependence across organisations, which is developed through business network connectedness, is core to achieving sustainable networks and sustainable markets. The text provides an overview of current research on sustainability in business networks before synthesizing six new articles that address multiple sustainability challenges. The editorial concludes with an agenda for further research arranged around four main themes, including network dynamics and measuring and valuing in investigating the transformative change needed by all business sectors.

While there are many papers investigating relationship development and relationship management in IMP, work conceptualising interaction remains limited. This is in particular when studying interaction beyond the level of the dyad. In this paper we shift the empirical lens from the single long-term dyadic relationship to multiple relationships studied across a short time frame. Data from a several court cases relating to the Norwegian food sector captures an intensive set of interactions across five actors over a six month period. We illustrate how boundary objects influence interaction attempts within a network. Connecting and disconnecting effects are produced in the negotiations between multiple retailers and producers as a result of the ongoing use of boundary objects.

This paper investigates essential aspects of business networks in highly concentrated supplier and retail markets. In particular it discusses the interface between industrial supply network organization and end-consumer markets where a certain type of organization exists: the retail supermarket-organization. We argue that certain kinds of power dynamics emerge when retailers interact with producers in supply networks, which is pertinent due to the implications for the actual development of networked economies. This paper analyses this interplay in order to understand more of the mechanisms and the structures of the power games that impact business network dynamics. We identify three power games; the access to market game, the latitude game, and the price dumping game. We furthermore analyse the mechanisms and the transaction patterns that are implicit in these power games. Jointly, these indicate a development towards a neo-mercantilist economy where access to and participation in market supply may in fact be ―taxed‖ by powerful actors in certain network positions. These outcomes point at aspects of networked economies in highly concentrated economies that represent particular challenges to both market practitioners and policy makers

This paper develops a conceptualization of resource interfaces and its two dimensions of connectedness and depth and contributes with enhanced knowledge and understanding of resource interfaces in networks. The purpose is to increase the knowledge of the links between the connectedness and depth dimensions of resource interfaces. To this end we investigate a core physical logistics resource in terms of a railway network that is organized by one actor but utilized by many to create some logistics services. Given the existence of this core physical logistics resource, we investigate how various resources interact in this network as many actors collaborate to produce logistics services. This paper contributes with a model of depth of resource interfaces in networks based on empirical characterisations of resource interfaces in a logistics network. Drawing on a detailed case study we illustrate the character of resource interfaces in an analysis of interacting resource types. We show how the development of resource interfaces in a logistics network context can be understood in terms of models emphasizing the connectedness and depth of resource interfaces.

In this paper, we study the birth and development of an international company, Cermaq. International business, by definition, deals with space, and some business activities are performed across national boundaries. For instance, it can be a company situated in one country but buying from suppliers situated in other countries, selling to customers in other countries or making investments in production or R&D in other countries. Here, we focus on the interrelatedness between the focal firm’s HQ’s ambition to be in control of its own development, and the influence that it experiences from its evolving network. The interplay and possible tension between firm-level control and network influence is used further to understand the construction of identities in networks. We suggest that identities develop as a result of internal features and successful control; the internal features of others and their successful influence; and new demands created by either new positions in old networks or entering into entirely ‘new’ networks. Both space and time emerge as central in the development of firms and networks, where the overall business logic only can be understood in hindsight.

Today, public organisations need to share information in order to complete their tasks. Over the years, scholars have mapped out the social and organisational factors that affect the success or failure of these kinds of endeavours. However, few of the suggested models have sought to address the temporal aspect of inter-organisational information sharing. The aim of this paper is to investigate the reshaping of social and organisational factors of inter-organisational information sharing in the public sector over time. We analysed four years' worth of information sharing in an inter-organisational reference group on copper corrosion in the context of nuclear waste management. We could trace how factors in the model proposed by Yang and Maxwell (2011) were reshaped over time. Two factors in the model – concerns of information misuse and trust – are frequently assessed by organisations and are the most likely to change. In the long run we also found that legislation and policies can change.

Despite the importance of inter-organisational information sharing (IOIS) in the public sector, such endeavours often fail. Existing research has shown that the values held by collaborating organisations are one important factor affecting these kinds of initiatives. However, research has sought only to a limited extent to address how value conflicts come into play over time. Therefore, this paper aims to explore how conflicting values shape an inter-organisational information-sharing practice in the public sector over time. Using the local/global network framework, we analyse four years’ worth of information sharing in an inter-organisational advisory group in the context of Swedish nuclear waste management. We conclude that different value conflicts are emphasised to different extents at different points in time. That is, values do not uniformly affect IOIS activities, and such conflicts over time reduce the set of potential IOIS activities. We also conclude that when IOIS activities are driven by an individual organisation’s values, individual value rational activities may co-exist with a dysfunctional long-term IOIS practice.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to survey existing inter-organisational information securityresearch to scrutinise the kind of knowledge that is currently available and the way in which thisknowledge has been brought about.

Design/methodology/approach: The results are based on a literature review of inter-organisational information security research published between 1990 and 2014.

Findings: The authors conclude that existing research has focused on a limited set of research topics.A majority of the research has focused management issues, while employees’/non-staffs’ actualinformation security work in inter-organisational settings is an understudied area. In addition, themajority of the studies have used a subjective/argumentative method, and few studies combinetheoretical work and empirical data.

Research limitations/implications: The findings suggest that future research should address abroader set of research topics, focusing especially on employees/non-staff and their use of processes andtechnology in inter-organisational settings, as well as on cultural aspects, which are lacking currently;focus more on theory generation or theory testing to increase the maturity of this sub-field; and use abroader set of research methods.

Practical implications: The authors conclude that existing research is to a large extent descriptive,philosophical or theoretical. Thus, it is difficult for practitioners to adopt existing research results, suchas governance frameworks, which have not been empirically validated.

Originality/value: Few systematic reviews have assessed the maturity of existinginter-organisational information security research. Findings of authors on research topics, maturity andresearch methods extend beyond the existing knowledge base, which allow for a critical discussionabout existing research in this sub-field of information security.

Purpose: Retail has evolved over the past century alongside megatrends such as urbanization, consumerism and digitalization. To contribute to existing knowledge on patterns of retail form evolution, the purpose of this paper is to investigate when and how novel retail forms have evolved in the Swedish sporting goods market.

Design/methodology/approach: An evolutionary approach that encompasses population thinking is used to interpret the history of sporting goods retailing in Sweden from the interwar era onwards. Drawing on archival data and interviews, the focus in the historical analysis is on the evolution of retail form variation in terms of size, strategy, product range and retail channel (online/offline).

Findings: The paper suggests that evolutionary mechanisms cumulatively have changed the sports retail population from a rather homogenous set of smaller generalist stores toward a larger variety and specialization in mainly two directions: one trajectory toward small and service-focused niche specialists and the other toward high-volume sales outlets.

Originality/value: The paper provides a detailed empirical account of sports retail history in Sweden and an application of theoretical concepts contributing to an integrated investigation of empirical issues and theoretical positions. It concludes that being able to attain closures - finding ways to close off a section of the market and avoid direct competition - has historically been a crucial capability for individual retailers to thrive.

While Darwinian theory has been applied in industrial network analysis to understand how business firms find and select each other, how business relationships survive, and how stability in buyer–seller relationships can be sustained, a recent review shows that there is a paucity of empirical investigations accounting for the whole set of core principles of ‘General Darwinism’ (GD) (Johansson & Kask, 2013). Accordingly, there is a need to extend the research efforts to all core parts of GD for a more complete analysis of business networks.

GD is about explaining adaptive fit, the accumulation of complex designs over time, and the development of variety from a common origin. Most prior research on industrial networks adopting GD is hampered by a one-sided focus on explaining adaptive fit. The result is partial understanding and limited knowledge of the applicability of GD in industrial networks. It also circumscribes the possibility to further develop the theoretical interfaces between network theories and GD. According to Brennan (2006) IMP research could benefit from incorporating elements from “[…] an evolutionary process into dynamics of change within inter-firm relationships and networks.” (p. 829). Furthermore, GD requires auxiliary theory to be useful as a conceptual framing and IMP thinking can provide this.

We address the prior theoretical unbalance by drawing on the whole paradigm of (GD) to investigate a case of a production and distribution-network of sporting goods in Sweden. The purpose is to explain the evolution of the network by analysing a longitudinal case over a period of 50 years. We contribute with an analysis of the development of a business network based on the whole set of core principles of GD, extending our knowledge of evolution in networks. It also provides an empirically based application of GD to a specific problem, contributing to the development of auxiliary frameworks to GD, responding to the critique of GD as being largely void of empirical studies.

Empirical studies that explicitly draw on a General Darwinism (GD) mode of explanation is hard to find and the field of management is hampered by the heterogeneity and mix of investigations subsumed under the general heading of ‘evolutionary theory’. Among the GD studies that do exist, most research efforts have been devoted to generalizing Darwinism away from biology, and to discuss how adaptive fit comes about thereby highlighting concepts rather than empirical research. Less focus has been directed towards the accumulation of design variety and evolution from a common origin. Particularly, the accumulation of design variety (such as business concepts, retail formats, and other socio-economic entities) from some common origin is painstakingly under-researched. This paper addresses this by drawing on a rich longitudinal case, reporting on the evolution of the sporting goods sector in Sweden during a century. The case serves as the empirical base for the application of GD to investigate the accumulation of design variety from a common origin in the sporting goods retail set; where the retail set is seen as an open adaptive multi-final system. Our findings indicate that being able to attain ‘closures’, that is, finding ways to close off a section of the sector, becomes a crucial resource for the individual actors. We discern the evolutionary mechanism taking the designs from generalists to specialists. It seems easier for the individual actor to become specialized if the resource context to which it needs to relate is smaller because it makes it easier to control and influence. Yet, this also implicates that this actor becomes more dependent on that particular resource context and also more susceptible to impact and influences from it. The relationship is reciprocal and specialisation always entails specialisation in relation to something – in our case to a closed off specific resource context.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the dynamics of networked power in a concentrated business network. Power is a long standing theme in inter-organizational research, yet there is a paucity of studies about how power emerges and is constructed over time at the network level. The paper adopts process, systems and network theory to interpret a rich single case study from the food industry. Three power mechanisms are identified, gatekeeping, decoupling and resource allocation, which form the basis of a model of networked power dynamics. Empirically tracing the dynamics of networked power highlights the economic contents of interactions. The paper extends current understandings of power as ‘conflict and coercion’ to include influencing, leveraging and strategic maneuvering in the actual performance of networked power.

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to provide a solid theoretical base to the study of paradox in organized activity. It draws upon activity theory to show the managerial and analytical potential of the activity systems model (ASM) as a systematic tool to analyze paradox in organizational practice.

Design/methodology/approach: The methodology employed in the study can be described as a longitudinal multiple case study approach. The focal organization was followed over a period of three years. About 25 interviews and 50 participatory observations were made. Text documents were analysed using an analytical tool developed from theory - the "Analysis Readiness Review (ARR)" - to structure and categorize data.

Findings: This study shows that the locus of paradox can be empirically identified within and between the constituent elements of an ASM, and that the consequence of such paradox is the emergence of a new genetically more evolved ASM. Hence, paradox in organized activity will eventually usher in change, such as the rearrangement of the elements of organized activity, and the replacement of one or many of those elements.

Research limitations/implications: This research is limited in that it models only two principal types of contradictions in activity systems, both of which are inner contradictions intrinsic to the activity system in question. The case study is merely indicative and more empirical research is needed to further extend our knowledge of paradox in various types of organized activity.

Originality/value: Managers can utilize the ARR-tool as a systematic checklist to identify the elements of the organizational practice and to locate paradoxes. In doing so, they can actively take part in shaping the dialectical processes of change that the paradoxes create, by paying attention to the contradictions present in the activity system. This is the challenge to management that paradoxical organizational practice poses, and this paper provides one tool to help managers and researchers to better face this challenge.

This paper describes a multi-agent based model (ABM) with the purpose of simulatinginteraction processes in business networks. Such an ABM must be able to capture time andprocess in networks while retaining a level of comprehension and overview. The ABM restson the assumption that business networks can be viewed as complex adaptive systems (CAS)and draws on the opportunities to build and use ABMs to simulate processes in such systems.This paper outlines the conceptual foundations and the methodological challenges andopportunities associated with such an endeavor with special reference to issues concerning themodeling of the complexities of business networks. It contributes with suggestions on howone concretely can handle these issues and challenges when using ABMs to model non-lineardynamic interaction processes in networks.

This paper describes the use of an agent-based model (ABM) with the purpose of simulating interaction processes in business networks. Such an ABM must be able to capture time and process in networks while retaining a level of comprehension and overview. The ABM rests on the assumption that business networks can be viewed as complex adaptive systems (CAS) and draws on the opportunities to build and use ABMs to simulate processes in such systems. This paper outlines the conceptual foundations and the methodological challenges and opportunities associated with such an endeavor with special reference to issues concerning the modeling of the complexities of business networks. Specifically it discusses the use of ABM and research case in combination in an effort to produce a robust methodology. It contributes with suggestions on how one concretely can handle these issues and challenges when using ABMs to model non-linear dynamic interaction processes in networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of International Journal of Business Administration is the property of Sciedu Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This commentary essay explores some broader implications of the article by Aarikka-Stenroos and Sandberg (in this issue) concerning two issues: the principal character of innovation processes and the delineation of networks. The article provides an interesting discussion on how firms can overcome the obstacles of successful commercialization of innovations by the utilization of various types of networks involving developers, producers and users alike. This commentary recognizes two problems in this setting: An overly linear view on innovation processes and NPD, and an overly simplistic view on the delineation of networks. © 2011 Elsevier Inc..

The affinity between IMP industrial networks and complexity theory has been pointed out drawing on many accounts of systems facing turbulent environments. The character of industrial networks, business interactions and business relationships closely resembles that of complex adaptive systems displaying emergence, self-organization and distributed control. Given the idea that industrial business networks are essentially empirical manifestations of complex adaptive systems, a number of issues arise. First, this means that we combine two distinct ontologies: network and systems ontology, which needs to be explicated. This paper addresses the ontological and methodological issues arising from a combined mixed systems and network ontology. It contributes with a systematic discussion on how network and systems ontologies can be combined to produce better understandings of business networks. It also provides a brief review of the state-of-the art research literature on the topic as a starting point for our discussion. The purpose is to highlight the ontological implications of combining network and systems ontologies to conceptualize industrial networks as the empirical manifestations of complex adaptive economic systems. Findings indicate that: 1) Networks may be enclosed in each other constituting sub- and supra-networks comprising increasing complexity. In these cases, sub-networks that are black-boxed can be seen as entities in themselves producing inputs and outputs to the supra-network. 2) Networks, once they become black-boxed, can assume the functions of generative mechanisms within a wider supra-network. From a methodological point of view agent-based modeling can be one modus operandi. These findings are discussed and areas in need of more research are identified.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide an account of who forms what market assets bymaking what market investments in a business network.

Design/methodology/approach: To investigate what market investments were made by certainactors into resource interfaces as market assets, the author draws on a case network based on aninvestigation of the Chilean salmon production network. To this end, the author chose the fish–beingthe focal object resource in that network–as a point of departure. The author systematicallyinvestigates the resource interfaces that this resource has with three other specific resources: feed,fishmeal, and vaccines in a thick case study.

Findings: This study shows that market investments entail committing resources toresource interfaces which turns them into market assets. Resource interfaces as market assets haveimplications on how we characterize and value resource interfaces. Multilateral resource interfacesbecome valuable to firms as a result of continuous market investments made into them. This producesdifferent types of resource interfaces, some of which are of mediatory character bridging betweendistant resources in a network.

Research limitations/implications: This study focuses on the market investments being made tocreate and sustain market assets. Of course such assets are linked to a firm’s internal assets which thisstudy do not investigate. In addition, this study emphasizes the commitment of resources into existingresource interfaces, the ensuing creation of market assets, and its use and value for firms anddownplays a firm’s need to account for market investments and the market investments required tocreate a new resource interface.

Practical implications: As resource interfaces are valuable market assets, it is important tounderstand the functioning of different types of resource interfaces so as to exploit their potential asefficient as possible. This paper shows that some resources act as bridging resources connecting theborders of two indirectly related resources. Controlling bridging resources becomes an essential taskfor managers in business networks.

Social implications: Understanding the market investments into resource interfaces enables firmsto become more skilled in organizing and controlling networks. These networks can play importantroles in the economic development of society and create improved societal conditions for people,organizations, and economies.

Originality/value: By combining a market investment and market asset conceptualization ofinvestments in networks with a resource interaction approach, this paper provides an enhancedunderstanding of resource interfaces as market assets. Theoretical implications for our understandingof resource interfaces–its value and character–are discussed.

The actor-dimension of the Activitiy-Resource-Actor (ARA)-model has not gained the same attention among Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) scholars as the resource and activity dimensions. However, the issue of what an actor actually is, in the sense of its interactive constitution, is important from an industrial marketing and purchasing perspective that emphasizes the interactive character of the business landscape. This is adressed in this paper. As a concequence of their interactive constitution, actors come in many forms and they are never pre-determined but rather continuously forged out of interactions. In this paper, the Activity-Resource-Actor-model is used to illustrate how actors are forged by interaction and to explore interaction-patterns around an actor of an unusual shape: A city. The purpose is to explore the small world of a city as a business actor and to illustrate the multi-level and variable character of actors. The paper concludes with a definition of what is termed interactive actors.

This paper explores some meta-theoretical sources to cultural-historical activity theory by focusing on the concept of cultural mediation as it is construed in activity systems theory. Links to Charles S. Peirce's pragmaticism are identified and elaborated by comparison of the semiotic version of mediation with cultural mediation. The philosophical influence from Hegelian thought to both pragmaticism and activity systems theory is identified and elaborated with a focus on mediation. By a reinterpretation of C.S. Peirce's category the third-Thirdness, as "phaneroscopic mediation"-a partial overlap is found with cultural mediation. Although overlapping in the emphasis on mediation, activity theory, and pragmaticism also show some significant differences in scope and application.