Firms are confronted with the challenge of learning how to develop and manage supply networks, which reduce their operating costs and maximize their effectiveness in the marketplace. In pursuit of such goals they are increasingly turning to the use of dynamic business models. Dynamic business...

Purpose: Firms face the challenge of developing learning capabilities that enable them to work as part of an effective business network. While an extensive literature examines learning capabilities within the firm little research examine the shared learning that occurs between networked firms....

The growing academic attention given to outsourcing and offshoring reflects a trend to develop offshore business models that capitalises on both the effectiveness and efficiencies that might be offered by the business network. Recent innovations in information communications technologies have...

Network pictures have been perceived as providing a picture of a company's position within a network ([Ford, D., Gadde, L.E., Håkansson, H., and Snehota, I. (2002), “Managing Networks,” IMP Group in Asia, 11th–13th December.]; [Ramos, C., Ford, D. and Naudé, P., (2005), “Developing...

Companies face difficult decisions regarding their management of business relationships; how much resource should they commit, when and with whom? The decisions managers make about these issues provide a ‘frame’ for their business relationships and thus a structure for their surrounding...

Critical incidents, such as horizontal mergers and acquisitions (M&A), force companies to re-think their business models and ‘reframe’ the way they develop and manage their business relationships. Through M&A companies enter into a set of new business relationships with other firms; thus...

A technical basis for the definition of services, using the so-called IHIP characteristics, is rejected in favour of one based on institutional arrangements. Mundane Transaction Costs and the notion of qualification are discussed in relation to making services tradable. The evolution of the...

Enterprise systems (ES) are industry-specific, customizable software packages that integrate information and business process in organizations. Despite the advantages associated with implementing ES, their success has been mixed. This has attracted the interest of researchers and resulted in a...