“INTERACTIONS, RELATIONSHIPS AND NETWORKS IN A CHANGING BUSINESS LANDSCAPE”

Special issue call for papers from Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
Submission deadline for papers: January 31st, 2020

Guest Editors

Dr. Fawaz Baddar ALHussan, IESEG School of Management, Lille, France

Dr. Faten Baddar ALHusan, Newcastle University, London, UK

Dr. Antonella La Rocca, Rennes School of Business, Rennes, France

The current worldwide business environment compels marketing scholars and practitioners to re-examine many historical and contemporary views of the marketplace, and how it functions. The fast political changes, technological advancement and the rapid growth in international business operations impose new issues and challenges for global marketing. Alongside the challenges businesses face, firms are exposed to opportunities. The theme of the special issue explores how firms can sustain their development and manage their network relationships within such changing environment. Furthermore, how policy and politicians aiming to create systemic change can utilize the dynamics of the business world.

IMP and related research examined some aspects of the business world and contributed to a better understanding of its characteristics, such as the interactions, interdependencies, connectedness, relationships and networks (e.g. Alhussan, Fletcher-Chen, & Batt, 2017; Håkansson & Snehota eds., 2017; Håkansson et al., 2009). The current research drew attention to how managers address these issues and how contextual aspects (organizational, institutional, social and political) interfere with the business world and its dynamics. After 40 years of research, there are still plenty of reasons to continue investigating the interactive business network from an IMP perspective (Waluszewski et al., 2019). The business world is anything but stable, and there is a need for further examination of the processes underlying the development of business relationships (e.g. initiation, evolution, maintenance, repair, dissolution, re-starting) and the transformation of networks (including its boundaries) or parts of those. All industries are facing challenges related to climate change. There are also industries (e.g. agri-food and related industries like packaging, transportation and logistics, textile) where sustainable development is becoming an imperative with notable impact on the configuration of business organizations, actor’s roles, recombination (including increasing/reduction) of activities and different ways of conceiving and combining resources. There are industries where artificial intelligence is catching on rapidly opening for a re-examination of actors’ interaction in b2b context, which opens new avenues for research. The need for more sustainable production and the availability of new technologies/tools, among others, are putting pressure on companies to change to remain competitive.

This special issue welcomes papers that look at interaction, relationships and networks in a context in transformation. Some questions of interest include but are not limited to:

• How do companies/organizations seek to change their interaction, relationships (with customer/suppliers/partners) and networks to embrace new ways of operating/new norms /new technologies (e.g. driven by sustainable development, circular economy, digitalization, artificial intelligence)?
• How do companies mobilize others to enact new ways of operating/new principles/new technologies (e.g. driven by sustainable development, circular economy, digitalization, artificial intelligence)?
• How are co-creation practices changing in an increasingly connected business context? Also, how are roles at the interface with customer/supplier/partners affected?
• How do companies strengthen/modify their network relationships to strengthen their position/competitiveness?

Conceptual and methodological papers addressing questions about change, process and temporality from an IMP perspective (e.g. Halinen, Medlin, & Törnroos, 2012; Waluszewski, Håkansson & Snehota, 2017) are also welcome.

References:

Baddar-Alhussan, F., Fletcher-Chen, C. C.Y., Batt, P.J. (2017). Editorial: Networks: relationships and innovation. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing 32(6), 773-775.

Halinen, A., Medlin, C., & Törnroos, J.-A. (2012). Time and process in business network research. Industrial Marketing Management, 41(2), 215-223.

Håkansson, H., Snehota, I. (eds) (2017). No Business is an Island: Making Sense of the Interactive Business World. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Håkansson, H., Ford, D., Gadde, L-E., Snehota, I., & Waluszewski, A. (2009) Business in Networks, Chichester: Wiley.

Waluszewski, A., Snehota, I., & La Rocca, A. (2019). What remains to be discovered? Manifesto for researching the interactive business world. Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, 34(1), 232-39.

Waluszewski, A., Håkansson, H., Snehota, I. (2017). Researching the interactive business world; interplay of research object, methodology and theory. In H. Håkansson and I. Snehota, No Business is an Island: Making Sense of the Interactive Business World (pp.195-213). Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Submission

All papers should be submitted through the Journal’s submission process, i.e., ScholarOne Manuscript Central online submission system. Please make sure you select the special issue “Interactions, relationships and networks in a changing business landscape” when submitting your manuscript. For details on how to submit using Manuscript Central, please, see the (JBIM) author guidelines.

Details of paper content, length, and due date

The deadline for full paper submissions is January 31, 2020. The submissions must conform to JBIM’s author guidelines (see address below). These guidelines will also steer authors through the submission process. Articles submitted should not have been published before in their current (or substantially similar) form and should not be under consideration for publication elsewhere. Please see Emerald’s originality guidelines for further details.

Further information

For questions regarding the content of this special issue, please contact the guest editors:

Dr. Fawaz Baddar ALHussan
IESEG School of Management, Lille, France
f.baddar@ieseg.fr

Dr. Faten Baddar ALHusan
Newcastle University, London, UK
faten.baddar-alhusan@ncl.ac.uk

Dr. Antonella La Rocca
Rennes School of Business, Rennes, France antonella.la-rocca@rennes-sb.com

Links

Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing: Information and author guidelines

http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/journals/journals.htm?id=JBIM

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