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Purpose– This paper aims to improve the knowledge of the way business relationships end by using a triadic analysis. Triadic analysis is used as a tool, permitting the examination of a dyadic business relationship in relation to a third actor(s). The triadic approach has been chosen for two reasons: first, because a triad is the smallest possible network and so offers a network perspective on the phenomenon. Second, the triadic approach exposes the process of forming internal and external coalitions, which affects the course of events and, thus, offers a different perspective from the traditional dyadic one on the dissolution of business relationships.Design/methodology/approach– As adopting a triadic perspective on the ending of business relationships and the field of research are relatively new, data gathering and empirical findings play an important role in producing understanding of the phenomenon. This qualitative research uses the abductive approach, in which empirical findings are systematically combined with the theoretical literature related to the topic. The research also draws from the theoretical literature of ending dyadic business relationships and uses a body of literature from the field of sociology where triadic analysis has long been used.Findings– As the result, this paper presents a model describing the end of a triadic business relationship and details the characteristics that derive from a triadic perspective. The study answers questions on what kind of process takes place when a triadic business relationship is ending; what kinds of sub-processes can be identified; and also adds information on what kinds of coalitions companies may form during the ending process of a triadic business relationship. The findings suggest that triadic analysis is an appropriate tool when studying a dyadic business relationship in relation to third actors.Originality/value– The research offers a new insight into the phenomenon of ending business relationships by using a triadic perspective.

Purpose
– The purpose of this study is to build a generic model for relational development of a value proposition for a service concept. The study seeks to answer two questions: First, what kind of process is practical for joint development of a service concept in customer–service provider collaboration? Second, what are the functional principles for such collaboration?


Design/methodology/approach
– A participative, design science approach was used to develop the model for a joint-development process. Researchers developed and analyzed joint activities between a provider of industrial maintenance service solutions and its customer during the process of co-developing a service concept for factory maintenance.


Findings
– The study suggests that a co-development process has to integrate service blueprinting, a stage-gate philosophy, dialogical interaction principles and elements of joint learning to meet the requirement for both efficiency and relationality.


Research limitations/implications
– The study develops a generic model for collaborative development of value propositions that integrates the aforementioned elements of separate streams of research. Applying the developed model to different contexts would further verify and enhance it.


Practical implications
– The model can be applied to the development of a value proposition in different collaborative development situations to enhance interplay between efficiency and relationality.


Originality/value
– The study illustrates a generic model for joint service concept development and proposes a solution balancing contradictory requirements in such a collaboration.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to explore and describe the forces which promote or obstruct a policy-initiated innovation process in the context of a regional strategic network (RSN).Design/methodology/approach– An innovation requires that an invention survives in relevant developing, producing and using settings. This is analyzed as resource interaction in these three settings. Data are obtained from a case study of an innovation process undertaken from 2007 to 2011 where 24 respondents representing the involved actors in the development of a geographical information system technology platform were interviewed in separate meetings lasting 60-100 minutes. Primary sources of secondary data have also been analyzed.Findings– The strategy imposed by the RSN enabled knowledge to be exchanged between the involved actors, but problems remained regarding resource interaction of the relevant settings. The studied case showed that achieving resource interaction between the producing and using settings was particularly challenging when the innovation processes is policy-initiated and thus involves both the private sector and the public sector. This serves to explain why policy initiatives to turn scientific knowledge into commercialized innovation often fall short of their objectives.Originality/value– Research investigating policy-initiated innovation and regional economic growth often focuses on achieving information exchange between the actors that make up the innovation systems. This paper sheds light on the resource interaction between the members of RSN s and how this can facilitate the innovation processes.

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to deal with business-to-business distribution, with a strong focus on the relationships developed by a distributor with its customers and its producers.


Design/methodology/approach
– This paper is based on an in-depth analysis of a wholesaler specialized in fresh fruit and vegetable distribution. Data were gathered on the basis of 18 in-depth interviews. An additional important work of second-order data analysis was also conducted (sector analyses; statistics; companies' Web sites).


Findings
– This paper qualifies the different stages a wholesaler goes through in the relationships with its suppliers on the one side and its customers on the other. This work also identifies the nature of the impact of one type of relationship (wholesalers/producers) on the other (wholesalers/customers).


Research limitations/implications
–


Practical implications
The findings allow distribution firms to view distribution channels as places where they can have some latitude to find new positions other than the ones imposed by producers.


Originality/value
– This research uses different concepts connected with triadic settings (dynamics, triggers and interconnectedness) and integrates them to provide a new perspective on how a business-to-business distributor can take a position in a distribution channel.

Purpose– This study aims to investigates the possible gap between the logic of these information technology (IT) systems and industrial firms' marketing practices. Industrial firms rely extensively on IT systems for their business.Design/methodology/approach– Based on the contemporary marketing practice (CMP) model, which depicts firms' marketing practice as ranging from transactional to more relational and networked-based, the logic of IT systems and how users in industrial firms adopt them are amended to create an extended model. The extended model is used to analyze an in-depth case based on 63 interviews regarding one industrial firm's business with customers and suppliers and how IT is utilized in this setting.Findings– Results show that industrial firms' relationship-oriented business is poorly supported by currently used IT systems. This gap between the IT systems, which are transaction-focused, and industrial firms' marketing practice, which is relationship-based, has severe effects on adoption and efficiency of IT systems. The marketers prefer local, non-integrated, IT with limited usefulness on an overall firm level while resisting the firms' comprehensive IT systems. This forms an IT–marketing gap given that current IT does not match the marketing practice of relationship-oriented industrial firms.Originality/value– This study applies an extended CMP model in a novel way focusing one industrial firm, its customers and suppliers and the IT used in this setting. The study shows that all marketing practices of the CMP model can be found in one firm's business, albeit one category, i.e. interaction marketing (a relationship approach), is dominating. The use of the CMP framework offers new and valuable insights into the fundamental cause to the industrial marketers' limited use of integrated IT.

Purpose
– The purpose of this study is to develop a sales process framework to facilitate business-to-business (B2B) customer reacquisition. A comprehensive CRM process needs to include reacquisition strategies. Yet, very few firms have formal procedures to guide reacquisition efforts. This gap in the sales process reflects the relatively sparse literature on B2B customer reacquisition models. The present research intends to fill this gap and creates a sales process model to guide salespeople to regain B2B lost customers.


Design/methodology/approach
– Using critical incident technique (CIT), this study conducted in-depth interviews with 54 B2B salespeople. Each salesperson reported one successful and one unsuccessful reacquisition incidents. A total of 108 critical incidents were collected for analysis.


Findings
– A four-step sales process model to regain B2B customers was developed and empirically supported, including: Segment lost customers; Assess reasons for loss; Develop reacquisition activities; and Implement reacquisition strategies.


Research limitations/implications
– This study is qualitative and exploratory in nature; future research should develop dyadic surveys to validate the results.


Practical implications
– This four-step reacquisition process allows sales firms to identify essential elements and establish protocols/policies to train and motivate salespeople. The framework can facilitate salespeople develop problem-focused solutions to correctly diagnose the situation and effectively re-negotiate with defected customers. Thus, this process may help reduce inefficiency in the reacquisition process and increase reacquisition ratios.


Social implications
– By considering justice/fairness from customer's perspective, sales firm may properly recover lost business relationship, and do so in ways that are considered both just and ethical.


Originality/value
– This is one of the first studies to examine the reacquisition of lost B2B customers. It expands on the traditional sales process to include four steps that enable a sales reacquisition process.

Purpose– The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between ethical climate and facets of job satisfaction among organizational buyers.Design/methodology/approach– This research is an empirical study. Data are collected from the industrial buyers using online panel. The INDSALES scale, the scale developed to measure job satisfaction of boundary spanners, was used to measure the job satisfaction. Partial least squares, a components-based structural equation modeling approach, was employed to conduct data analysis.Findings– The key finding was that buyer's organizational policy mediates the relationship between buyers' perception of ethical climate and buyers' satisfaction with pay and promotion as well as satisfaction with coworkers and supervisors. The findings also show that work satisfaction can be achieved at different levels based on particular components associated to the work environment.Practical implications– The role of ethical climate in this study offers insights into managers who constantly observe lower levels of job satisfaction among their buying team. Given that companies specify rules and regulations as a way to standardize employee behaviors and prevent unethical practices, managers must ensure that such codes specifically address issue pertaining to compensation, supervision and promotion.Originality/value– Most of the previous studies in the business-to-business boundary spanning literature address ethical climate primarily from the salesperson's perspective. Ethical issues relating to organizational buyers in business-to-business setting has largely gone underexplored. This research is one of the few studies that focus on industrial buyers and ethical issues.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to investigate how technological hubs (THs), defined as knowledge intermediaries, can assist companies in creating successful partnerships to develop innovations. Specifically, the authors ask how THs can help firms connect with horizontal networks and how THs can assist firms on finding suppliers and customers from the vertical network with whom to collaborate. By answering these two main questions, the paper sheds light on the important role of THs and its incubators as knowledge intermediaries in innovation co-creation.Design/methodology/approach– The research is founded on a longitudinal case study of an Italian technologic hub, ComoNExT, that aims to improve the competitiveness of its local economy. Specific attention is given to the role of the incubator that was formed as a joint effort in the technology hub.Findings– The authors find that THs can facilitate networking among tenants and among tenants and external actors within the same epistemic network. The TH that the authors studied is characterized by a new business model that is founded on providing value-added services and networking. The TH sustains the networking at different levels: within tenants, with local actors, extra-local and international actors. The authors' analysis suggest that THs become knowledge intermediaries who allow firms to identify innovation parties and transform them into innovation partners and, thus, outline the shift from outsourced innovation to co-managed innovation.Originality/value– The paper shows how knowledge intermediaries facilitate the intermediation between heterogeneous organizations who are located at different network positions and characterized by relational proximity that is the basis for reaching effective innovation. The research depicts how knowledge intermediaries reinforce the drivers of a co-membership network to co-create innovation to improve the strength of a relationship characterized by a shared vision.