Purpose: This article present a review of articles on business negotiation published between 1995 and 2015.

Design/methodology/approach: This literature review is based on 490 article on business negotiation.

Findings: When analyzing the conceptual underpinnings of this field, two paradigms emerge as dominant. The most prominent paradigm is a cognitive, psychological approach, typically relying on experiments and statistical testing of findings. The second dominating paradigm is a behavioral one, largely concerned with mathematical modelling and game-theoretical models.

Practical implications: Besides offering a description of the characteristics adhered to the business negotiation field, this paper will also suggest recommendations for further research and specify areas in which the research field needs further conceptual and empirical development.

Originality/value: This literature review serves to be the first representation of the characteristics adhered to the budding research field of business negotiation.

Investing in cluster formation or encouraging companies to network in regional strategic networks is a common strategy used by municipalities to promote regional growth in peripheral regions. Previous research has investigated the significance of creating regional advantages by building clusters and regional networks, but researchers have not provided much insight into the problems facing the project management trying to implement such collaboration. In my thesis I describe and analyze a network project in order to shed light upon some of the complications that such a collaboration project might entail. My theoretical framework of analysis rests upon the concept of social capital, a concept that investigates the value that social contacts might incur.

I have studied a designed network situated in the Swedish municipality of Söderhamn called Firsam. After the closure of the telecommunications factory of Ericsson/Emerson and the military airbase F15 Söderhamn lost 10 % of its local employment in 2004.The need for regional growth programmes therefore became dire. The companies that prior to the closure worked in close collaboration with the Ericsson/Emerson factory were also looking for new revenue streams to compensate for their loss of business. Collaboration with the local manufacturing companies to create innovative projects and to take on joint tenders seemed to be a perfect solution to the problems facing them and the municipality. In this spirit a regional strategic network called Firsam (Företag i regional samverkan) was initiated.

I analyze the Firsam project using two different aspects of the concept social capital:”bonding” and”bridging”. The bonding form of social capital is associated with small and homogeneous groups that build prerequisites for long-term collaboration by forming close contacts and building trust. The bridging form of social capital creates an open stance towards social relations that enables new contacts to be formed outside one’s own socially established context.

The bonding form of social capital provides prerequisites for close collaboration but can also result in close-mindedness and over-embeddedness in one’s own social context. Building bridging connections outside one’s own social context might encourage innovative thinking and spur entrepreneurship. The somewhat fleeting connections that are associated with the bridging form of social capital might on the other hand make it difficult to cultivate a common sense of trust within an existing group.

These different manifestations of social capital create a paradox that might be hard to handle in the design of a regional strategic network. Is it best to support already existing network structures and impose the risk of creating a less innovative environment, or should members from outside the established social context be included in the network design to encourage innovative thinking? There are both positive and negative effects associated with either strategy. I shed light upon this paradox by analyzing the regional strategic network of Firsam.

Purpose: The European Union has an ambition to become the worlds most competitive and knowledge-based economy, which entails investments in cluster initiatives. Most researchers however find that such investments have had limited impact. The notion of creating industrial clusters is influenced by the discourse within new economic geography in which research interests are geared towards facilitating knowledge exchange between industry, university and government. In order to understand how knowledge is created and enacted within a cluster initiative this paper investigates the interactions between actors participating in a specific innovation process.

Design/methodology/approach: The studied cluster initiative is one of the 55 clusters designated as demonstrating highly sophisticated cluster management by European Union officials, making it an interesting case study for knowledge creation in such environments. The case study entails semi-structured in depth interviews of 24 respondents.

Findings: The cluster approach encourages a “disentangled” view of knowledge where knowledge is seen as universal and cognitive and therefore possible to disentangle from the context in which it was initially produced. However, my findings suggest that in practice knowledge is “entangled” in the specific context in which it is enacted and produced. Thus, in practice knowledge is a contextually limited and practical activity that is being enacted when heterogeneous resources interact in producer-user interfaces. This mismatch between strategy and outcome may subsequently help to explain the limited impact of policy on regional growth.

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 GIS 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 private and 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 focus 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 regional strategic networks and how his can facilitate innovation processes.

In order to promote regional innovation and stronger social coherence the European Union has set goals to become the world’s most competitive, dynamic, and knowledge-based economy. These ambitious goals are supported by funds allocated to regional strategic networks (also called cluster initiatives). Usually, the management of regional strategic networks is left to the discretion of the project leaders. However, the industry agglomeration model which constitutes the foundation for regional development policies fails to consider the social context. It also overemphasizes the relevance of a linear approach towards innovation which is problematic, as this fails to consider the conditions for implementation in different contexts.

This thesis builds upon data from two case studies of regional strategic networks (Firsam at Söderhamn and FPX at Gävle) and serves to describe (1) how the management group of an RSN creates the prerequisite for an innovative milieu by analyzing the effects that social capital imposes on social interaction, and (2) how a policy initiated innovation process is supported by an RSN management group by analyzing resource interaction between the developing, producing and using settings.

As a conclusion it is stated that a manager of a regional strategic network should balance the bridging and bonding forces that social capital produces. Under some circumstances it might be advantageous to form tightly knit groups that can foster trust and cultural proximity. In other cases loosely knit groups might be preferable where novel information is exchanged between previously unconnected actors. Also, the innovation construct is applied in the thesis to denote the process where resources are combined in new ways within existing structures to offer new solutions in the market. The manager of a regional strategic network must consider not only the setting in which an invention is developed but also the settings where new solutions are converted into products and those where they are brought to use.

The performance of the investigated development initiatives indicates that merely funding regional strategic networks is insufficient to spur regional growth. It is not as easy as merely sowing seed for innovation; it must also fall on good soil. 

Understanding the role of social capital is vital for implementing cluster policies as regional strategic networks and cluster initiatives are in fluenced by the local socio-economic context and its social capital. Socialbcapital can create value for companies by closure of the network structure (bonding), which maintains internal mutual trust but bonding can also over-embed companies in their social context, whereas sparse networks that provide links to other parts of relevant business networks (bridging) often provide greater innovation benefits. We provide a conceptual framework applied to a case study of a Swedish regional strategic network, and examples mostly of positive effects of bridging social capital and negative effects of the bonding form are identified. This is interpreted against the background of the regional dependenceoriented culture.

Innovation does not only demand new ideas, financial resources and knowledge of supplier and user systems, but is also influenced by social capital which has an impact on the innovativeness in business networks. However, social capital is often vague, at times described as a “catch-all notion”. In this paper definitions of social capital are suggested to support the management of innovation in networks. Three dimensions of social capital are ap- plied in a case study of a regional strategic network – the socio-economic, the structural and the actor-oriented dimensions – while focusing on the last one. Data were collected at two points in time, at the start of the regional strategic network in 2004 and at the end of the project in 2010. The application of the concepts and the compar- ison between these two points in time highlight the influence of social capital and how it can hinder or be used to promote innovation processes. 

Innovation does not only demand new ideas, financial resources, and knowledge of supplier and user systems, but also social capital. Social capital facilitates interaction in business networks. However, social capital is often vague, at times described as a “catch-all notion”.  In this paper an operational definition of social capital is suggested to enable network management of business innovations. Three underpinning dimensions of social capital are empirically tested in a regional strategic network – the socio-economic, the network and the actor-oriented dimensions with a focus on the latter one. Empirical case data were collected in 2004 and 2010. The application of the concepts and the comparisons between these two points in time enhance understanding of how social capital can be used to promote innovation processes.

Purpose of the paper and literature addressed

Understanding the local socio-economic context is considered by Koschatzky and Kroll (2007) as a precondition for a well designed regional strategic network (RSN). Social capital is often used in research when analyzing such socio-economic contexts (Adler and Kwon 2002, Westlund 2009), and understanding the function and creation of social capital is therefore vital for implementation of policies on cluster initiatives and RSN.

Adler and Kwon (2002) claim that there are two different ways of creating valuethrough social capital. These approaches are attributed to James Coleman and Ronald Burt, two key contributors within the field. Coleman (1988) claims that closure of the network structure (bonding) facilitates the emergence of effective norms maintainingthe trustworthiness of others. In contrast to Coleman, Burt (1992) does not stress the utility of consistent norms as the main usage of social capital. He argues that a sparse network including few redundant ties (bridging) often provides greater benefits. Social capital may involve norms and trust, but can also serve as a lock-in that isolates from the outside world by over-embedding a network in its own social context (Uzzi 1997, Gargiulo and Benassi 2000, Parra-Requena et al 2009, Molina-Morales and Martínez-Fernández 2009).

Social capital might therefore not only bring positive effects to regional development, as its drawbacks under some circumstances might outweigh the benefits. Slotte-Kock (2009) argues that all network researchers agree that networks of social or business contacts provide both opportunities and constraints.

Main contribution

Molina-Morales and Martínez-Fernández (2009) and Adler and Kwon (2002) claim that there is a lack of empirical research particularly on the negative effects of social capital. The paper adds to the discourse through a case study focusing on the negative influence of social capital on the RSN process.

Research method

Representatives of the 15 companies included in an regional strategic network (RSN) project were all interviewed prior to the formation of the project in 2004 and interviewed again six years later (2010) when the formal network project was about to end. The longitudinal aspect of the RSN process is portrayed.

Research findings

The organizational lock-ins and network over-embeddedness that the bonding form of social capital might impose upon a network is exemplified in the studied RSN. It is also evident that existing social norms dominate the decision process within the studied RSN more than economic rationality. The creation of bridging linkages imposed by the management group resulting in low relevance of shared information.

Innovation does not only demand new ideas, financial resources, and knowledge of supplier and user systems, but also social capital. Social capital facilitates interaction in business networks. However, social capital is often vague, at times described as a “catch-all notion”.  In this paper an operational definition of social capital is suggested to enable network management of business innovations. Three underpinning dimensions of social capital are empirically tested in a regional strategic network – the socio-economic, the network and the actor-oriented dimensions with a focus on the latter one. Empirical case data were collected at in 2004 and 2010. The application of the concepts and the comparisons between these two points in time enhance understanding of how social capital can be used to promote innovation processes.

Research on networks emphasizes the importance of bonds between actors. Social reciprocity strengthens network bonds, which is assumed to have positive effects on business relationships between firms. However,the importance of weak ties is also stressed in network research. An important policy issue is therefore if more attention should be devoted to the creation of bridges to other social groups and loosening bonds between network actors. The difficulty in doing so is described and analyzed in this article focusing on a regional strategic network, which is viewed in three network perspectives. Interview data were collected from all participating managers in a regional strategic network in 2004 and 2010. The findings shed light upon the paradox of using a regional strategic network to counteract over-embeddedness and freeing the involved actors from existing network lock-ins instead of further strengthening such social institutions.

After a small municipality in Sweden was hit not only by the closure of the major industry in the town but also by the dismantling of the air force base which was another major source of local employment, a strategic network (cluster initiative) was set up involving 15 local companies in order to market their skills and know-how. The purpose was counterbalance the loss of the big employers by strengthening cooperation between local small and middle-sized companies. Based on interviews in 2004 and 2010 the relationships between the member companies are mapped out prior to the formation of the strategic network and five years later. The findings illustrate the difficulty to support cluster building for short term commercial success through a top-down approach, but also that such an initiative may create positive effects on social capital and in the end bring about long-term gains for the community.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the benefits and drawbacks that strategically imposed liminality inflicts upon inter-organizational digitalization efforts within the different phases of its utilization. Design/methodology/approach: This study empirically examines digitalization in a large multinational manufacturing company, Sandvik Machining Solutions, using data that were collected through interviews and a qualitative research design. Findings: This study shows that a liminal space separated from the structures in which one is supposed to inflict changes increases the risk of developing an incompatible system that will be rejected in the incorporation phase. An inter-organizational perspective on liminality thus contributes to our understanding of the benefits and drawbacks that liminal space can pose for the organizations involved. Practical implications: The study suggests that, in the separation phase, driving change processes by creating liminal spaces could be a way to loosen up rigid resource structures and circumvent network over-embeddedness. Finding the right amount of freedom, ambiguity and community within the liminal space is, however, essential for the transition of information as well as the incorporation of the imposed changes. Originality/value: Introducing an inter-organizational perspective on liminality contributes to our understanding of the stress that liminal space can place on individuals as well as the individual organization. © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited.

In this chapter, the authors discuss how the features of the business landscape affect policies aiming to promote regional development. Regional development policies have been central in the European Union and at the single-country level. Measures taken to promote development in a geographical area, based on the concept of clusters and (national or regional) innovation systems, often fall short of their objectives. That is discussed against the findings on features of the business landscape that emphasise its heterogeneity and the importance of specific couplings within and across geographical areas. Prior Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) research emphasised the importance of firm-specific linkages to places and across places. One consequence is the relatedness of one place with other places, which implies that crossing the (imaginary) boundaries of a place appears to be the essence of business activity. The chapter concludes by highlighting how regional policies can benefit from acknowledging and taking into account firm-specific interdependences.

Purpose

The aim of this paper is to outline what the intended benefits the smart specialization strategy (S3) is meant to create, and through what policy measures; that is, to shed light over what underpinnings S3 is based on, and if the measures based on these can affect the relations between “academia, businesses, and local authorities” – where the public and the private actors might have partly overlapping interests, but with different needs and rationales.

Design/methodology/approach

The research design of this paper is based on the industrial marketing and purchasing network approach, that is, the empirical observation that business exchange has a content, which affects and gives imprints on the actors engaged in the exchange. To determine whether the S3 strategy in general, and in the two investigated regions in particular, can affect the embedding of innovations in using, producing and developing settings, and if so how, this study applied the actors–resources–activities model. In addition to investigation of the S3 strategy in general, two case studies were conducted, one each in two European Union regions with rather different business and academic research characteristics: the Marche region in Italy and the Uppsala region in Sweden.

Findings

The S3 measures rest on the judgement of which “domains” to support can be made by policy actors without deeper analysis of how the assumed firms representing these domains are related in terms of how resources are combined and activated. Instead, the S3 policy analysis is based on local policy organizations desk table investigations of what appears as innovative. Hence, in practice, the key S3 measure is still to transfer knowledge from the public to the private sector. This entails that support in terms of how to create change in established resources interfaces, which is a main source of innovation to which both established and emerging localized firms are related, remains out of policy sight.

Originality/value

The ambition with this paper is to discuss what changes S3 – with the ambition to develop and match academic research to business needs – implies and what underpinnings it is resting on. Hence, the focus is directed to what new types of policy arrangements are supposed to result in what types of benefits – and last but not least, the ability for these to interfere with businesses which are interconnected across spatial borders.

The Research background - describes the business negotiation literature as historically dominated by a transactional perspective, which has affected the conceptual discourse as well as the scope of interest for empirical studies. Assumptions that arise from this transactional perspective includes the notion that (1) business negotiations are a linear process that follows episodic or stage models. (2) That business negotiations are geared towards an outcome in the form of a one-time exchange. (3) That the value of the negotiation outcome is often expressed in economic or mathematical terms. (4) That negotiation research focuses on the single negotiator or negotiation in a dyad. (5) That the research historically has viewed negotiation as a “zero-sum” game. Viewed from an interactional perspective, influenced by IMP theory, there is good reason to challenge these five assumptions within the business negotiation literature. The interactional perspective goes beyond the dyadic perspective and views value creation as emanating from the mutual adaptation of resources that takes place between several interacting actors within a network context: a view that is incompatible with the five assumptions posed above. Methods – This is a theoretical paper. The purpose of this paper - is to analyse and discuss the differences in the way that central aspects of negotiations such as the process, outcome, value, actors and resources are conceptualized in both the business negotiation and in the IMP literature. Also, we will discuss and analyze managerial implications that come from the inclusion of IMP perspective into the business negotiation research. The main contribution of this paper – is to divide the business negotiation literature into the transactional and interactional perspectives and then discusses the concept of “win-win” and the way it is used in negotiation research. An alternative concept is suggested to describe that negotiations is non-linear and focusing on mutual interdependence, emphasizes value creation, networks and mutual adaptations. This concept is thus more interactional and is dubbed “happy-happy” negotiation outcome.

The European Union has the aim of becoming the world's most competitive and knowledge-based economy, which entails investments in industry agglomeration. However, these investments have had limited impact. This conceptual paper problematizes the new economic geography terminology used in policy and, more specifically, the way that the key concepts of "industry agglomeration," "social capital," "knowledge," and "innovation" are conceptualized. By adding the perspective of the industrial network or industrial marketing and purchasing (IMP) approach, this paper contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how to facilitate innovation within regional policy. Since the IMP approach offers an organizational-level perspective, including such a perspective will help make the EU's policies more practically applicable. We propose that regional policy should pay more attention to the socio-material resource interaction between the actors involved in the cluster initiatives. This would shift the focus away from creating spillover effects of knowledge towards viewing knowledge as a performative construct that is inseparable from the specific resource interaction in which it is embedded. Also, the definition of innovation within policy could benefit from being reconceptualized as the processual use within producer-user relationships. 

Purpose: Historically, a transactional perspective has dominated the business negotiation literature. This perspective includes the notions that business negotiations are a linear process that follows episodic or stage models, business negotiations are geared toward an outcome in the form of a one-time transaction, business negotiations focus on a single negotiator or negotiation in a dyad and the research has historically viewed negotiation as a “zero-sum” game. Inspired by a long tradition of empirical studies of business relationships, there is good reason to apply a conceptual analysis to challenge these four assumptions and propose an alternative view on the negotiation process. The purpose of this paper is to contrast how aspects of business negotiations are commonly conceptualized with the industrial marketing and purchasing (IMP) perspective and develop propositions that will contribute to future research by offering guidelines for the development of business negotiation literature.

Design/methodology/approach: To contribute to a discussion on the relation between conceptualization and research results, definitions within the existing literature regarding business negotiation are contrasted with similar definitions of concepts from the IMP perspective.

Findings: Four propositions have been formulated that further the conceptual understanding of business negotiation. Moreover, a need for future methodological deliberations is demonstrated, and suggestions for future research in the field are offered. Originality/value: Introducing a relational perspective into the conceptually rather underdeveloped stream of research would help to develop the existing critique within the business negotiation literature of its transactional, linear and dyadic focus.

A transactional perspective has historically dominated the business negotiation literature. Assumptions which arise from this transactional perspective include the notion that: (i) business negotiations are a linear process that follow episodic or stage models; (ii) business negotiations are geared towards an outcome in the form of a one-time transaction; (iii) the value of the negotiation outcome is often expressed in economic or mathematical terms; (iv) negotiation research focuses on the single negotiator or negotiation in a dyad; and (v) research historically has viewed negotiation as a "zero-sum" game. Viewed from the interaction approach within the IMP perspective, there is good reason to challenge these five assumptions within the business negotiation literature. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to analyse and discuss the differences in the way that central aspects of business negotiations such as the process, outcome, value creation, involved actors and resource allocation are conceptualized in both the business negotiation and the IMP literature. The conceptual deliberation concludes that business negotiation research has thus far tended to focus on individual skills and the examination of isolated dyadic interactions. Business negotiation research largely ignores the fact that the nature of industrial business is predominantly relationship-based rather than transactional. Introducing the relational perspective of the IMP tradition into business negotiation research would help in furthering the critique already posed within this stream of research towards its transactional, linear and dyadic focus. Viewing business negotiation through an interactional perspective will further managers understanding of the negotiation process.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyze friction and controversies with interaction processes and their effects on forming new resource interfaces, through the lens of boundary objects.

Design/methodology/approach

The empirical setting consists of two organizations that are trying to enhance their competitive advantage through digitalization. During the process of data collection four different boundary objects were identified. The study illustrates how these boundary objects were characterized in terms of their modularity, standardization, abstractness and tangibility. This paper provides an analysis of how respondents perceived that the development of these boundary objects affected the creation of novel resource interfaces, and the resulting friction and controversy between new and old structures.

Findings

The study concludes that within a producer?user setting a focal boundary object will take on tangible and standardized properties, and the interaction process will expose friction in terms of both power struggles and resource incompatibilities. On the other hand, a boundary object?s modularity gives the actors central to the interaction room to maneuver and avoid resource incompatibilities and the development setting will hence be characterized by controversies.

Originality/value

The analysis indicates that the way individuals perceive boundary objects is central to interaction processes, answering calls for studies that investigate the role of objects within subject-to-object interaction.

This study focus on analyzing interaction processes and their effects on activity coordination through the lens of boundary objects. The empirical setting is organizations that are trying to enhance their competitive advantage by technological innovation and the use of big data.This study also contributes by addressing the cognitive dimensions of interactions by analyzing how activity links are being viewed by the involved actors based on their perceptions of the boundary objects.

Purpose This paper aims to suggest a dynamic model incorporating the important dimensions that exist in negotiation processes. Design/methodology/approach To produce a general and conceptual theory of negotiation, the grounded theory methodology is deployed. Findings The core process in this model is dubbed ?goal-oriented balancing? and describes how he negotiator is continuously balancing opposing, and seemingly contrasting, forces in a situation specific and dynamic manner to reach agreements. Based on these findings, this study also suggests a concept to describe negotiations that is focused on collaboration and that is not an oxymoron as is the concept of ?win?win?. Practical implications This conceptual model can be used by managers and practitioners to navigate in a negotiation process. Originality/value This is the first grounded theory study in negotiation research and attempt to describe negotiation processes as dynamic events in which different dimensions are managed simultaneously.