An interactive perspective on business in practice and business in theory

For nearly a quarter of a century researchers engaged in business exchange have met on the annual IMP Conferences to share their experiences, with the phenomenon of interaction and business relationships; its sources, content and effect for the larger business landscape. This special issue’s selection of papers from the 2008 IMP Conference gives a nice illustration of the width and depth in this research. The issue includes considerations of interdependencies in dyadic business relationships, in connected business relationships and among business and non-business organizations. Finally, it includes a discussion of the emergences of research communities like IMP, and stresses the importance of the organically emerging interaction among researchers representing both similar and dissimilar theoretical and empirical interpretations of the dynamics of the business landscape.     

Charting the reach and contribution of IMP literature in other disciplines: A bibliometric analysis

The acknowledgement of a research tradition by other disciplines shows its contribution to the development of the broader body of scientific knowledge. This paper investigates the contribution of IMP (Industrial Marketing and Purchasing) research to broader research disciplines by analyzing how researchers within and beyond IMP have cited core IMP articles. First, through quantitative bibliometric analysis, the paper identifies the diffusion to other research disciplines. Thereafter, through qualitative analysis, the impact of the IMP perspective is captured to understand how strong these imprints are. The analyses show that IMP research has been noticed among a range of adjacent research disciplines. However, the use of IMP references has generally been rudimentary, and without a deeper understanding of the IMP ontology, meaning that IMP still has some “weak ties” to the other disciplines. Establishing IMP's contribution through enduring imprints would need further engagement with researchers from other research disciplines and publications in top journals. The paper contributes empirically with how the IMP perspective has spread beyond the IMP Group and theoretically by adding insight into how research ideas travel and transform to other disciplines.     

Academic brands and their impact on scientific endeavour: The case of business market research and researchers

This paper examines the significance of the rapid development of so-called “academic brands” in Marketing for the process of academic research and for the work and the careers of researchers: It focuses on the specific case of business market research and researchers. The paper starts by exploring the ideas behind the development of Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) and its impact on the academic community: CCT appears as an emblematic case of branding of an academic community. The paper then discusses the rapid emergence of the Service-Dominant Logic (SDL) as a case of branding which has a direct impact on business market research. The paper then relates the emergence of these two “brands” to developments in business market research and more specifically to the development of IMP as a brand. Finally, the paper draws some conclusions about the role of academic branding and its impact on scientific endeavour with emphasis on the future of business marketing research and researchers.     

Competition in business networks

Most of those who write about marketing or strategy appear to view competition as the overarching logic of business. Commentators have usually associated competition with improved economic efficiency and customer well-being: they have regarded it as “a good thing”, at least in the abstract or when it only affects others. In contrast to the widespread interest of other researchers and the preoccupations of managers with competition, researchers within the IMP tradition have devoted hardly any attention to the issue in over thirty years of research and the term occurs only infrequently in the IMP literature.     

Opening the network: Bridging the IMP tradition and other research perspectives

This paper introduces the theme of this Special Issue, that brings together some of the most significant papers presented at the 2006 Industrial Marketing & Purchasing (IMP) Group Conference. By proposing “opening the network” as the conference theme, our ambition was to provide a forum for new perspectives, alternative research methods and new empirical contexts, and so help IMP scholarship to continue evolving. After some preliminary remarks, we briefly introduce the papers and their contribution to the theme of this Special Issue. A first group of studies stimulates reflection in the field by contrasting IMP scholarship with ideas and points of view developed in related fields of inquiry. The second group, on the other hand, may be seen as an endogenous development of IMP scholarship, while the third group represents a response to a critique often addressed at the markets-as-networks approach: its dearth of managerial relevance.     

IMP and service-dominant logic: Divergence, convergence and development

This article arose directly from discussions at the 2nd Otago Forum on Service-Dominant (S-D) logic held at the University of Otago in December 2008. It builds on the papers presented and discussions at the forum, on previous papers within the S-D logic field and relates these to the research of the IMP (Industrial Marketing and Purchasing) Group. The article focuses on two important conceptual issues that appear to need further development by both S-D logic and IMP researchers: Firstly, the identity and characteristics of the business actor in an interacted business landscape and second, the nature of value and its creation and delivery. The article also seeks to use some IMP ideas on business interaction in an attempt to refine and clarify the central S-D logic concept of ‘service’ between companies. Finally, the article attempts throughout to draw tentative conclusions about the implications of this conceptual analysis for practitioners.     

Change and transformation of networks and relationships — Fundamental aspects of business reality

The phenomenon of the international Industrial Marketing and Purchasing Group (IMP Group) is, that despite the fact that it is informal in character, it has been possible to build close and lasting relationships between many researchers from all continents who have been developing their research over the last 40 years.The research carried out in the beginning by the IMP Group was very phenomenon-driven in character. Researchers associated with the IMP Group were linked because they viewed companies as being a network of interdependent entities and this view was commonly described in literature as the IMP network approach. Change is a fundamental assumption embedded in the network approach. Changes occurring in networks are caused by interdependency, interactions and mutual adaptation.The issue of change and transformation is important not only due to the aforementioned nature of the IMP network approach, but also due to the need to take into consideration new phenomena appearing and/or gaining strength in the context of company networks, technological changes facilitating the development of direct relationships on the business to consumer market, the change in the behaviour of a range of market leaders, based upon vertical integration, a change in the position of entities, which to-date have been peripheral within the network (e.g. subcontractors), the development of technology and global communication networks influencing a firm's ties within the internationalisation process, ever-growing competition drives the need to look for the actual impact of the overall relationships of a company on its economic performance. Referring to these issues this article serves to announce the 32nd Annual IMP Conference that will be held in Poznań, Poland, this year where discussion will focus on change and transformation of networks and relationships.     

IMP thinking and IMM: Co-creating value for business marketing

We have extensive knowledge about the thematic development of the business-to-business marketing research. Much less is known, however, how major research contributions are created and disseminated, in brief, how the academic value is constructed between human and institutional actors. We address this issue by examining the relationship between IMM (Industrial Marketing Management journal) and the IMP (Industrial Marketing and Purchasing) research community in the creation of B2B marketing theory from the early 1990s to present. We argue that the relationship between the IMP community and IMM, led by Peter LaPlaca over the past 23 years, offers an exceptional living laboratory for studying academic value creation in the B2B domain. Based on documents and citation data from the late 1980s to 2016 we will show how the parties created new academic knowledge and value for each other through intensive interaction and collaborative activities. In conclusion, we discuss the forms of coordination between IMM and IMP and provide an outlook for the future of this unique relationship.     

How to build great research groups

Business school leaders would like to attract and keep the top research talent in order to stay competitive, attract high-potential students, and recruit the most promising young faculty. To accomplish these objectives, a successful research environment for its business academic researchers needs to be established, so that they can produce a sustainable research stream. We examine important antecedents including business school research strategy, leadership, governance, and policy, and from these we develop a set of conditions that are related to long-term success of research programs in academic business institution. As detailed illustrations, we elaborate the experiences of two active research institutions—the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) Group and the Contemporary Marketing Practices (CMP) Group — and discuss how each of these groups has implemented the conditions for success. We conclude with general observations on the environmental conditions most conducive to sustainable business school research, and present implications regarding the role of the journal editor as a gatekeeper.     

Critically evaluating the IMP research contribution

The IMP Group established itself as a loose, informal and eclectic and research group spread across Europe initially that wished to be independent and had little respect for professors. They wanted funding but not to be pursued for progress reports. They wished to challenge all basic assumptions long taken for granted and sought to test them empirically. In this respect, they were eccentric but also effective. Yet some of the priorities with which they started, have, over time, fallen somewhat by the wayside such as the work on internationalisation. Interaction, networks and adaptation continue to receive attention but less is paid to internationalisation and yet this together with the notion of repeated transactions to be viewed now as relationships and the practice of investing in customers formed part of the ground breaking five country study which made the IMP brand first known. The explanatory power of this IMP interaction model and its use of case studies was new and exciting and led to academic and practitioner reflection on what was actually taking place within end use sectors, which constituted yet another IMP contribution to knowledge. Overall, IMP has been concerned with the longer term perspective not the issues that needed quick solutions but the strategic issues in this real dynamic world in which we live, where change is ever present. IMP has established a tradition of challenging, investigating, sharing and discussing findings and it places a priority on its doctoral consortium as a means of ensuring that these streams of consciousness will remain before us all for years to come.     

Normal vs spectacular science: The IMP Group and BtoB marketing

This paper endeavours to track the underlying scientific process driving research activities and output. It takes research in the business-to-business field as the empirical setting and puts the works of the IMP Group into focus, using bibliometric analyses and historical vistas as background evidence. We argue that what may appear at first sight as a limited development should rather, in fact, be interpreted as “normal science,” i.e. based on the robustness of the core models and conceptual framework, with fine adjustments of these taking place over time. Indeed, the BtoB realm—and in particular the activities and production of the IMP Group and associated researchers—would seem to contrast rather radically with the broader area of marketing in that it benefits from a resistant conceptual framework which seems to have weathered the test of time, and which can be used as a building block for research development and is less sensitive to managerial trends and fashion.     

An exploration of the ‘dark side’ associations of conflict,power and dependence in customer–supplier relationships

The purpose of this paper is to present the findings from a critical literature review of the ‘dark side’ issues related to three constructs, namely conflict, power and dependence, in customer–supplier relationships. Previous research has focused on discrete characteristics that influence relationships, but there is a paucity of research that considers the intertwining of a set of characteristics that may create darker associations or consequences for relationships. The paper contributes to IMP literature through this investigation of darker associations of relationships as much of the previous literature on customer–supplier relationship development has been concerned with building trust, developing commitment or managing long-term goals and mutuality (IMP Group, 1982).The paper considers the research on conflict, power and dependence in relationships, tracing its development from January 1980 to the end of 2014, and assessing the dark side issues raised in previous research, placing particular emphasis on ‘asymmetric’ customer–supplier relationships.The contribution of the paper lies in its critique of this focused body of literature and in the development of a better understanding for future IMP researchers on the derivations, foundations and findings concomitant to the ‘dark side’ of conflict, power and dependence in customer–supplier relationships. The paper proposes themes and future avenues of research related to the dark side of conflict, power and dependence, placing emphasis on the ‘bi-polarity’ of each relationship characteristic, the dynamics of relational benefits, the consequences of their evolution on inter-organizational trust and its impact on the dark side of relationships. Hence, the paper contributes through the identification of potential research areas and propositions to guide future conceptual developments in the field.     

Paradoxes and guanxi dilemmas in emerging Chinese-Western intercultural relationships

Three paradoxes have been revealed in the study of business networks by Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) researchers. These are: seeking opportunities and then facing limitations, influencing others and yet being influenced in turn, and controlling and yet being out of control in network situations. These paradoxes have previously received little critical evaluation. This article investigates these paradoxes through in depth interviews with twenty-two business managers in Chinese-Western intercultural relationships. Three specific dilemmas relating to the fundamental Chinese cultural principle of guanxi are revealed. These dilemmas are: dilemmas between strong personal ties (guanxi) and weak personal ties, dilemmas between previous understandings and new learning of guanxi ties, and conflicting obligations between inner and outer circles of guanxi networks. These guanxi dilemmas occur in emerging Chinese-Western intercultural networks, irrespective of the specific cultural variations, contractual constraints, or corporate policies applying. This paper identifies a need for more acute study of guanxi cultural norms and their behavioral consequences in emerging Chinese-Western intercultural relationships, given the rise of China in the global economy.     

Competition in a pure world of Internet telephony

From the angle of competition policy, voice-over IP looks like a panacea. It not only brings better service, but it also increases competitive pressure on former telecommunications monopolists. This paper points to the largely overlooked downside. In a pure world of Internet telephony, there would be no charge for individual calls, nor for telephony, as distinct from other services running over the uniform network. Specifically, establishing property rights for either of these would be costly, whereas these property rights were automatic and free of charge in switched telephony. Giving voice-over IP providers classic telephone numbers would enhance systems competition with switched telephony. But this would make it more difficult for clients to swap providers. The anti-competitive caller-pays principle would extend to IP telephony.     

装备制造业集群耦合结构:一个产业集群研究的新视角

我国老工业基地的装备制造业集群一直游离于产业集群理论与实证研究之外，本文在国内外研究人员产业集群研究成果基础上，结合装备制造产业特点，提出耦合的研究视角。文章借鉴系统耦合的思想，把装备制造业集群要素间的经济联系和内在产业关联抽象为制造企业耦合、集群产业耦合以及区域社会网络耦合三层结构，构建装备制造业集群耦合结构；结合集群耦合度模型，研究装备制造业集群的耦合机理和影响集群要素耦合度的因素。并以沈阳装备制造业集群为例，分析沈阳装备制造业集群发展中存在的问题，相应提出促进集群要素耦合的对策。     

A systematic literature review of sustainable purchasing and supply research: Theoretical perspectives and opportunities for IMP-based research

This paper evaluates and compares the theoretical lenses that underpin sustainable purchasing and supply management research. In particular, our interest is on evaluating the extent to which the IMP Interaction Approach is used to underpin or influence the focus of existing research and exploring the opportunities for further research into sustainable purchasing and supply guided by an IMP perspective. The methodology employed is a systematic literature review (Tranfield et al., 2003). A systematic search process is used to identify 1899 papers that are gradually reduced through a filtering process to 276 papers. The theoretical perspective of each paper is identified and recorded in a database along with methodology, unit of analysis and reported findings. We find that a significant proportion of sustainable purchasing and supply management papers adopt stakeholder theory, institutional theory and resource-based perspectives, however, relatively few papers rely on an IMP Interaction Approach. We evaluate the rationale for the typical theoretical perspectives adopted and discuss the potential for the IMP Interaction Approach to underpin studies of sustainable purchasing and supply management. The paper concludes by outlining future avenues of research that specify how the IMP Interaction Approach can underpin and further advance sustainable purchasing and supply research.     

Mapping alternatives: A commentary on Cova,B. et al. (2010). ‘Navigating between dyads and networks’

In this paper, we explore the mapping metaphor in its various guises within B2B marketing and, particularly, IMP research. We explore these multiple mapping techniques in terms of different mapping styles that point to different types of research journey, different sights along the way and different destinations. We critically appraise ‘dead mapping’ approaches, which we see as a persistent cause of getting lost and advocate ‘second order’ mapping as a more suitable alternative. We focus our critique upon Cova, Prévot, and Spencer (2010)'s paper ‘Navigating between dyads and networks’.     

Managing in conflict: How actors distribute conflict in an industrial network

IMP researchers have examined conflict as a threat to established business relationships and commercial exchanges, drawing on theories and concepts developed in organization studies. We examine cases of conflict in relationships from the oil and gas industry's service sector, focusing on conflicts of interest and resources, and conflict as experienced by actors. Through a comparative case study design, we propose an explanation of how actors manage conflict and manage in conflict given that they tend to value and maintain relationships beyond episodes of exchange. We consider conflicts in relationships from a network perspective, showing that actors experienced these while adapting to changes in their business setting, modifying their roles in that network. By identifying conflict with the organizing forms of relationship and network, we show how actors formulate conflict through pursuing and combining a number of strategies, distributing the conflict across an enlarged network.     

Continuing the evolution of the selling process: A multi-level perspective

This paper considers the selling process from a relational perspective, thereby developing a more comprehensive understanding of the process. Emerging from this is a multi-level framework, which delineates the multiplicity and connectedness of relationships which exist in B2B interactions. The paper provides a relationship management tool for theorists as well as practitioners. The model visualizes strategic advantage for selling firms in seeking to optimize their position in an evolving network context. The combining of IMP, sales and relationship marketing theories that underpin this approach calls for further extension and/or reconceptualization of the selling process. Our reconceptualization asserts that identifying, measuring and managing selling-related relationships at the monadic, dyadic and network levels will facilitate the strengthening of a firm's network position and thus their performance. Our framework provides an analytical tool to assist in this.