-------- Forwarded Message --------
Dear colleagues,
we announce the call for papers for a special issue on “Interfirm
Networks and Innovation”
in INDUSTRIAL MARKETING MANAGEMENT.
Deadline for submission: March 31st 2019
Guest editors
Gerard Cliquet (
gerard.cliquet@univ-rennes1.fr), Université de
Rennes, France
George Hendrikse (
ghendrikse@rsm.nl), Erasmus University
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Marijana Sreckovic (
marijana.sreckovic@tuwien.ac.at), TU Wien,
Austria
Josef Windsperger (
josef.windsperger@univie.ac.at), University of
Vienna, Austria
Muhammad Zafar Yaqub, (
zafar.yaqub@yahoo.com), Department of
Business Administration, King Abulaziz University, Jeddah, Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia.
Overview and Purpose of the special issue
In today’s dynamic, complex and interconnected environments,
business networks in its various forms (e.g. franchising, retail
and service chains, cooperatives, financial networks, joint
ventures, strategic alliances, licensing, clusters, public-private
partnerships) are becoming increasingly important in helping firms
improve their competitive position through an enhanced access to
innovation, knowledge, complementary resources and capabilities
otherwise not available to them (Koch and Windsperger, 2017). In
addition, driven by increased performance pressures in
unpredictable environments, firms embedded in networks are
increasingly moving from co-operators to collaborators and value
co-creators in innovative ways (Lusch, Vargo, & Gustafsson,
2016). This special issue aims to address the need for a broader
understanding of how does innovation and creativity augment the
(re) structuring and functioning of these interfirm networks while
they strive for a sustained performance under the premise of a
complex, dynamic, knowledge-intensive, digital and sharing
economy.
Today firms are vigorously transforming their strategies with the
aim of actively shaping and changing their highly uncertain market
environments. These effectuation processes (Sarasvathy, 2001),
where firms are (creatively) reconfiguring their value chains and
actively disrupting existing business models for innovation and
sustained competitive advantage, influence business network
structures and create new network forms, such as the
network-centric organization, which identifies the
interorganizational network as the primary source of value
creation (Aarikka-Stenroos and Rittala, 2017; Forkmann, Henneberg,
& Mitrega, 2018; Pagani and Pardo, 2017). The development of
organizational capabilities, such as network capabilities, to
create value leads to an improved performance (Kohtamäki,
Partanen, Parida and Wincent, 2013). In addition to new network
forms, firms are creating new markets for their innovations,
formed through alliances and collaborative strategies, as a mode
of reducing or eliminating uncertainty or entry barriers. In that
context, the globalized digital economy is reinforcing this
network effect, by increasingly shaping interconnected and
borderless markets and business, where the need for adaptive and
innovative business models as well as new and flexible network
forms is becoming more important than ever.
The potential for innovation has been increased since digital
capabilities of products and services enable firms to combine
resources in unique ways across the traditional industry
boundaries. Supported by technological advancements, big data
availability, social media and other digital platforms, companies
though could benefit from increased market opportunities but do as
well have to face surmounting market uncertainties. This
environment requires companies to have fast, efficient, innovative
and very well-integrated (collaborative) routines and processes,
providing a platform of flexibility to respond to market changes
swiftly, accurately and above all profitably. Digital technologies
offer broad opportunities for re-organizing the interaction among
firms especially when they seek a continuous creative (re)
configuration of their collaboration in order to acquire the much
needed flexibility and quick reaction and response capacities to
better adapt to business challenges stemming from uncertainty.
This special issue calls for papers that would help us better
understand the interrelationship between business networks and
innovation & creativity. We welcome theoretical, conceptual,
empirical and case study papers from all areas in economics and
management of networks (franchising, retail and service chains,
cooperatives, financial networks, joint ventures, strategic
alliances, licensing, clusters, public-private partnerships and
new network forms in digital economy), that develop and apply
different theoretical perspectives and shed new empirical insights
on the interrelationship and/or reciprocal interaction between
business networks and innovation & creativity. More precisely,
1) how collaborations drives innovations? 2) How does the
innovative/creative (re) configuration of collaborative structural
arrangements leads to the emergence of new organizational forms,
for enhanced sustainability?
Appropriate topics for the special issue may include, but are not
limited to the following:
Technological innovation and network forms
Technological innovations have an incremental or disruptive
nature, where incremental innovations include small improvements
to existing products, services, processes, whereas disruptive
innovations (specifically through digital technologies) destruct
existing value chains and business models. What are the effects of
disruptive technological innovations on interfirm networks? Does
technological innovation create new network forms? What kind of
interfirm networks are being created in new digital environments?
Business networks and the creation of innovation
Network relationships are moving from cooperation to collaboration
and value co-creation entities. Therefore, the locus of value
creation and the organizational form is shifting from individual
firms towards interfirm networks, which encompass a firm’s
relationships to suppliers, customers, competitors, or other
stakeholders across boundaries of industries or countries. In that
context firms are becoming co-creators of innovation in the
network. How do inter-organisational network structures influence
the creation of innovation? What kind of strategies, capabilities,
business models are necessary in interfirm networks for the
generation of innovation? How do firms in the networks maintain
the creation of innovation? What kind of new network forms are
generating innovation?
Theoretical perspectives on interfirm networks and innovation
New theoretical perspectives will enhance our understanding of the
interrelationship between networks and innovation. Which insights
can be provided from the different fields, such as organization
theory, strategic management perspectives (resource-based theory,
organizational capability theory, knowledge-based theory, real
option theory, stakeholder theory), evolutionary theory and
organizational economics (transaction cost theory, principal-agent
theory, property rights theory), and industrial marketing
management perspectives (Industrial Network Approach,
markets-as-networks approach, service-dominant logic perspective)?
We will give preference to empirical papers—both qualitative and
quantitative—although theoretical papers that examine fundamental
issues in, or offer comprehensive frameworks of, ‘interfirm
networks and innovation’ also are welcomed. As Industrial
Marketing Management is widely read by an academic and business
audience, all submissions should include implications for
practitioners.
Preparation and submission of paper and review process
Papers submitted must not have been published, accepted for
publication, or presently be under consideration for publication
elsewhere. Submissions should be about 6,000-8,000 words in
length. Copies should be uploaded on Industrial Marketing
Management’s homepage through the EVISE system. You need to upload
your paper using the dropdown box for the special issue on
“Interfirm Networks and Innovation”. For guidelines, visit
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/505720/authorinstructions.
Papers not complying with the notes for contributors (cf.
homepage) or poorly written will be desk rejected. Suitable papers
will be subjected to a double-blind review; hence, authors must
not identify themselves in the body of their paper. (Please do not
submit a Word file with “track changes” active or a PDF file.)
References
Aarikka-Stenroos, L., & Rittala P. (2017). Network management
in the era of ecosystems: Systematic review and management
framework. Industrial Marketing Management, 67, 23 – 36.
Forkmann, S., Henneberg, S.C., & Mitrega, M. (2018).
Capabilities in business relationships and networks: Research
recommendations and directions. Industrial Marketing Management
(
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indermarman.2018.07.07).
Koch, T., & Windsperger, J. (2017). Seeing through the
network: Competitive advantage in the digital economy. Journal of
Organization Design, 6(1), 6 (doi:10.1186/s41469-017-0016-z).
Kohtamäki , M., Partanen , J., Parida , V., & Wincent , J.
2013 . Non-linear relationship between industrial service offering
and sales growth: The moderating role of network capabilities.
Industrial Marketing Management, 42 (8), 1374 - 1385.
Lusch, R. F., Vargo, S.I, & Gustafsson, A. (2016). Fostering a
trans-disciplinary perspective of service ecosystems. Journal of
Business Research, 69(8), 2957-2963.
Pagani, M., & Pardo, C. (2017). The impact of digital
technology on relationships in a business network. Industrial
Marketing Management, 67, 185 – 192.
Sarasvathy, S. D. (2001). Causation and effectuation: Toward a
theoretical shift from economic inevitability to entrepreneurial
contingency. The Academy of Management Review, 26(2), 243-263.
Please address all questions regarding the special issue to the
guest editors.
Best regards, Josef
--
Dr. Josef Windsperger
Associate Professor of Organization and Management
Faculty of Business, Economics and Statistics
University of Vienna
Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1
A-1090 Vienna, Austria
Tel: +43 1 4277 38180, Fax: +43 1 4277 38174
http://im.univie.ac.at
http://emnet.univie.ac.at/
josef.windsperger@univie.ac.at
_______________________________________________
EMNet mailing list
EMNet@lists.univie.ac.at
https://lists.univie.ac.at/mailman/listinfo/emnet