To Örebro University

This thesis aims at describing and analysing the structural changes of business networks that emerge as a result of change triggers. Despite previous studies, our understanding of the evolution of the network structure and its influencing factors is still limited. Specifically, the literature falls short in explicit consideration of the aggregate outcomes of various actors’ responses for the structure of the network. The methodological challenges have contributed to these shortcomings.

The Industrial Networks Approach and Complexity Perspective are the theoretical points of departure in this thesis. As a consequence of viewing business networks as Complex Adaptive Systems, Agent-based modelling (ABM) and simulation is the specific methodology adopted. In this thesis, two ABMs are designed and implemented. In the first one, the strategic initiative of a railway operator gives rise to various customer responses. In the second one, a supply network with various supply chains is modelled. The pressure from end-customers triggers responses from business actors in terms of re-arranging their supply chains. The consequent structural changes in both networks and mechanisms involved are systematically explored through various computational experiments.

The results contribute to the literature on business network dynamics by showing the influence of a set of Perceptual-Intentional factors as well as Contextual factors. A contribution of the adopted methodology is the ability to analyse the aggregate outcomes of the actor-level responses. The potential of ABM approach to be combined with case studies is illustrated. Opportunities for systematic experimentation and the formalization of theoretical concepts in ABMs contribute to better theory development. With ABM, more actors, interdependencies and larger time scales can be explored.

IMP research is often treated as an empirical perspective describing complexities of repeated business-to-business exchanges and their embeddedness. While building on some common understandings and concepts, this paper asks: How homogeneous is the IMP research? This paper uses cluster analysis to capture the roots and various sub-groups of IMP research as means to depict the question of homogeneity (i.e. a core focus in the research) or heterogeneity (i.e. using references from other fields or specific to sub-fields) of the IMP thought. In this scientific work in progress paper we introduce how we design to use bibliographical methods in order to harvest data from an extensive amount of IMP-related articles written from the 1970’s onwards. In this first attempt to reveal IMP we used overall 294 articles yielded to 10,615 co-citation relationships. A threshold of minimum number of citations of a cited reference was set to five (5) to capture such references that have been cited in multiple publications. We introduce visual mapping of defined subject area clusters and as an example we describe shortly clusters. Perhaps not surprisingly our findings suggest that IMP research is not so homogenous, with at least four clear clusters of IMP-research each utilizing different key references.

This paper explores the potential cannibalizing effects of introducing a flexible auction marketto the traditionally established market based on long-term contracts. By means of agent-based modellingand simulation based on an empirical case of a railway logistics service provider, we investigate thepotential effects of this new market on previously established customer contracts.

This paper explores the dynamics involved in the role and position transition of a focal actor in a business network as a result of introduction of a new business solution by that focal firm. Having two main classes of customer relationships due to the new business solution, the paper illustrates how the dynamics involved in the customers’ interactions can have consequences for the firm’s role and position in the network. An agent-based model based on an empirical case of a transport service provider is presented. Using agent-based simulation, the paper investigates the role/position change processes of the firm after the adoption of an online auction system. The paper illustrates how the market compositions including micro specifications of customers affect the interaction outcomes of the customers in the auction market at a macro level and hence different roles/positions emerge for the focal actor.

One of the most important issues in managing a supply chain which makes the materials flow more efficiently from suppliers to customers is cross docking. In this paper a vehicle routing and scheduling problem in a network consisting of suppliers, customers and a cross dock is considered. A set of homogenous vehicles transfer products from suppliers to customers through a cross dock. Each vehicle has a limited capacity and both suppliers and customers must be visited within their time windows, also a customer can be visited more than once by different vehicles. A mixed integer non linear mathematical formulation of this problem is provided. A simulated annealing and a hybrid metaheuristic algorithm combining ant colony system and simulated annealing are proposed. These two proposed metaheuristics are implemented on different data sets. The experimental results show the superior performance of the hybrid algorithm compared with the proposed simulated annealing algorithm.