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This study examines how subsidiaries can manage dual embeddedness with both local partners and a multinational enterprise. Specifically, we examine the role of absorptive capacity and appropriability mechanisms on subsidiary performance. We analyse how absorptive capacity and appropriability enable subsidiaries to successfully address knowledge challenges related to internal and external networks. We conducted an empirical analysis on a sample of 165 subsidiaries. Our results suggest that absorptive capacity has a direct, positive effect on subsidiary performance, which is greater in emerging countries. The study also found an indirect effect of absorptive capacity on subsidiary performance, which is mediated through appropriability mechanisms. These findings extend the literature on international networks, dual embeddedness and absorptive capacity.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been widely diffused and it getsmanifested through the stakeholder relationships a firm. We do in this pa-per investigate CSR certificates and their impact on the adopting firm. Weexplore real estate firms – a conservative industry that traditionally havehad a very strong financial focus where their market strategy has followeda strict goods-dominant (G-D) logic but where some firms changes theirmindshift towards service-dominant (S-D) logic thinking. Thus, we build onmultiple sources of data to explore Swedish real estate firms and studytheir approaches to CSR. Our results offer some insights in the character-istics of firms with green environmental certification systems and it has im-plications for how theories on value cocreation needs to be developed.

Research shows that CSR certification motives span from being symbolic to substantive. Prior studies have mainly focused on the differences between firms that hold and do not hold CSR certificates. This study explores if the extent of CSR certification is related to different business logic amongst firms who hold CSR certificates. The study utilizes full sample data from the Swedish commercial real estate industry to analyze the variance in motives and performance among firms with CSR certificates. The results indicate that firms that have a substantive CSR commitment have a business logic that entails a holistic and long-term perspective on both financial and CSR performance. However, substantive CSR commitment comes with greater staffing costs and lower financial returns as opposed to those of firms that obtain CSR certificates based on symbolic motives.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of absorptive capacity (ACAP) and co-creation on innovation performance (INN).Design/methodology/approach The authors use survey data from Swedish and Norwegian companies (n=1,102) and establish a cross-national equivalence between Sweden and Norway.Findings The subsequent structural model revealed interesting differences. For Sweden, co-creation fully mediates the effect of ACAP on INN, whereas for Norway, ACAP has a direct effect on INN with no mediation. Subsequent regressions including control variables showed that the structural model is reasonably robust. The authors conclude that, despite the many common national features conducive to innovation between these two countries, sufficient differences remain to create substantial variation in the innovation processes.Originality/value The study presents a second-order model of ACAP that permits a unique test of cross-country differences.

Large infrastructure investments are expected to create sustained values for society fora long time. Such investment projects include, for instance, hospitals, tunnels, sportarenas, power plants, roads, railways, and bridges. They involve a complexorganization of contracts and agreements. The client is expected to plan, procure, anddetermine the critical steps of a project while the contractor should solve issues raisedby the client. Many of these agreements are path-dependent and reflect past routines,experiences, and contacts. As such, many investments tend to return to similarsources instead of replacing routines and collaborations that did not work. This cancause change orders that furthermore reflect consequences such as cost and timeoverruns. While much is known about effects in construction projects, this paper shedslight on drivers of change orders. We build upon a sample of 234 observationsresponding to a survey on investment planning. The results show that projectassumptions are often wrong and inadequate in large investments. Such wrongassumptions are caused by interpersonal and leadership issues, poor planning, orsometimes even intentional profit-seeking. Our results show that clients andcontractors have different perceptions and enter contractual obligations differently. Theimplication is, therefore, that better routines of documentation, more frequent feedback,and more accurate or precise standards may close the gap between planning and whatis actually achieved. More precise contractual agreements may also create a betterprocess to procure, manage projects, and allocate resources.

Complex construction projects in the infrastructure sector are often beset with delays, which cause benefit shortfalls and increased costs. Prior project management literature and practice have mostly adopted a traditional control-focused approach, but recent research suggests that complex projects need more flexible practices to manage inevitable project change. Thus, the objectives of this study were to develop and empirically test a model for flexibility-focused project management practices to improve time performance in complex projects in the infrastructure sector. Based on empirical data from 138 construction projects procured and managed by the Swedish Transport Administration, the structural equation model shows that complexity and collaboration drive explorative learning, which improves adaptation and thereby improves time performance. Hence, the empirical test verifies that flexibility-focused project management practices based on collaboration, explorative learning, and adaptation enhance time performance in complex projects in the infrastructure sector.

Purpose - The purpose of the study is to propose and test a buyer-supplier integration model, based on clients’ collaborative purchasing practices, in a project-based industry.Design/methodology/approach - A two-stage survey study of client-contractor relationships in the Swedish construction industry was conducted. The survey rounds in 2006 and 2009 obtained 87 and 106 responses respectively. The proposed model was empirically tested using structural equation modeling techniques. Findings - The empirical results support our proposed model: incentive-based payment and partner selection based on multiple criteria enhance buyer-supplier integration, in terms of joint action. Furthermore, incentive-based payment increases the use of partner selection based on multiple criteria.Research limitations/implications - A useful theoretical contribution is that incentive-based payment is an important type of incentive structure that enhances buyer-supplier integration in project contexts.Practical implications - We also found that the occurrence of joint action has been increasing from 2006 to 2009. Especially, incentive-based payment plays a more important role for establishing joint action in 2009 than in 2006. The recent economic downturn and a recently completed training program targeting the survey population may explain some of the unexpected findings.Originality/value - The paper addresses an identified gap in the relationship marketing literature, that is, the lack of quantitative studies of relationship marketing aspects in project-based industries.

Cooperative arrangements, such as partnering, have received increased interest in recent years. Several studies show however that cooperative relationships are not easily achieved in construction. Implementation of cooperative relationships requires changes in several elements of the traditional procurement procedures. The purpose of this paper is therefore to propose and test a sequential model regarding clients' cooperative procurement procedures. We especially ask: what elements in clients' procurement procedures facilitate the establishment of cooperation and trust in their relationships with contractors? The model was tested through structural equation modelling. The empirical data required for the test were collected through a survey responded to by 87 Swedish professional construction clients. The empirical results show that cooperative procurement procedures are triggered by clients' wish to involve contractors early in specification, which has a simultaneous effect on procedures regarding bid invitation and compensation. Furthermore, these simultaneous effects breed a certain kind of partner selection based on task-related attributes, which also has a direct positive effect on trust and above all on cooperation in client-contractor relationships. Besides these implications from the model, the improvement of measurements for future modelling is discussed.

Purpose

Hard project management practices, based on strict planning and control, are traditionally applied in construction projects, although research frequently promotes the importance of teams for various project outcomes. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine the importance of hard project management and team motivation for process performance in construction projects. A hypothesis tested is that hard project management can impair process performance if team motivation is not promoted.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper presents and empirically tests a structural equation model, with and without a mediating link between hard project management and process performance, based on data from a survey of 2,175 respondents, representing contractors and clients involved in 109 Swedish construction projects.

Findings

The results confirm that hard project management is best conveyed through teams to enhance process performance. “Path analysis,” using the model with the mediating link, confirms that neglecting team motivation can significantly impair process performance.

Research limitations/implications

The data set provides unusually high representation of views of contractors and clients involved in diverse Swedish construction projects. Thus, the results have likely relevance in other project-based industries and/or national settings, but this possibility requires further investigation.

Originality/value

The findings show that team motivation is a key process performance factor; hard project management may indeed be important, but its effects will be enhanced by (and partially mediated through) team motivation. Thus, the findings have important theoretical and practical implications for the development of project management practices.

It is said an adventure is an experience and experience is a part of expectations. Yet as adventure tourists expect unique experiences, certain ingredients of services (degree of satisfaction) affect their deeper needs to become attached to a place. Are such needs developed over time at a new destination? This paper suggests tourist behaviours and preferences towards destination choice change over time. The proposed model suggests that tourists’ expectations and motivation at early stages of planning affect satisfaction and level of perceived constraints, and these further predict place identity and dependence at the end of travel. As much as satisfaction arises from concrete services such as food and transportation services, constrained activities are expected to have a negativeconsequence on expectations and motivations. Since this paper is based on international adventure tourists, typically willing to take on calculated risks during their visits to Tanzania, we expect many of these hypothesised gaps to diminish as tourists become mature and aware of services offered at the destination. To test awareness and familiarity, we add different proxies for maturity (i.e. late stage of stay, repeat visitors and loyalty intentions) and awareness (i.e. tourists with escape motives) of services provided at the specific destination.

Over time, national park knowledge has come to constitute the gap between the full social freedom and individual consciousness of the ecological conditions inside a park. While other visitors have a rigorous knowledge of transportation, nature, and culture, some visitors naively enter the area in order to enjoy their tourism rights. Theoretically, our model proposes that national park knowledge can change as a result of knowing about eco-tourist attractions; also, knowledge of public infrastructure and accessibility is strongly correlated to knowledge of what you can and cannot do in the protected area. Eco-tourist attractions include natural resources, cultural attractions, and recreational facilities. The argument is that all the infrastructure is developed around these, as that these are the sources of attraction. Based on the literature, we link these variables with the ecotourism concept, thus positioning our paper as an ecotourism study. A total of 103 questionnaires were returned on the basis of convenience sampling. A satisfying underlying factor structure was confirmed by CFA and EFA, in which four hypotheses were tested. With 103 observations, the model sufficiently met the minimum sample size for SEM. This paper provides some evidence for its cross validity and may inspire more studies in future.

This article is based on a unique sample of 111 tourism investors in Tanzania. Investors have a significant role in establishing services and supporting continuance in local tourism networks. As important as investors are, many of them overlook relationships they may find abundant but not meaningful. Many investors shift relationships when meaningful ideas or other outcomes no longer feed into the relationship. Relationships could thus be seen as gradual processes in which meaningful exchanges cement the relationships together. At the entry stage, investors select partners they trust or focus on identifying a specific style characterized by partner-related criteria. These expectations typically depend on the motives or reasons investors enter relationships. We suggest that investors’ relationships develop from motives toward defined selection criteria as the basis for a continued exchange defined by their reciprocal orientation. Thus, a theoretical model is presented with constructs such as hard and soft motives, trust and network awareness, partner selection criteria, and reciprocal orientations. We hope these findings may illustrate how policymakers in Tanzania can support investor relationships and nurture them toward a long-term exchange.

Generally, investors tend to invest when likelihood of success is high. Many investors consider Africa as one market and neglect individual differences among African countries. Africa is mostly considered a high-risk market and conceptually innovativeness involves uncertainty, which precedes risk. However, it is known that when uncertainty is high there is a stronger correspondence between innovativeness and performance. As uncertainty is high in Africa, this paper claims that it is plausible to find correspondence between innovativeness and performance. This argument is developed since investors typically cope with uncertainty by networking on a reciprocal basis and preferring munificent markets. This link leads us to ask if innovativeness mediates the effect of relatively rich/poor environmental munificence and reciprocal exchange on performance in South Sudan (S. Sudan) and Tanzania. A tested model reveals that four components and an underlying 12 different observations are equivalent across both countries. Furthermore, a tested structural model confirms that the business logic of investors is quite different in S. Sudan and Tanzania. Innovativeness completely mediates effects of reciprocity and munificence on performance in Tanzania but not in S. Sudan. We found some support for the relationship between reciprocity and innovativeness but no support for munificence on innovativeness and performance.

This article explores the institutional roles of industryassociations, employing institutional theory to identify and characterizethe roles of leading associations in the newspaper industry. Using fourleading newspaper associations as cases, the authors explore associationfunctions evidenced through interviews with their key executives. Thepaper finds that the association leaders tended to emphasize normativefunctions, while associations’ operational executives tended to focus onmimetic and coercive functions.

Small- and start-up firms in the high-tech industry usually engage in networking to overcome resource, knowledge, and competence constraints in creative, innovation-based competition. Quite often, however, network relationships fail due to lack of network capability (NC), defined as the ability to manage and gain benefits from external relationships. In the present study, we propose and examine an updated five-dimension NC construct and test its effect on innovativeness and performance. Two independent high-tech samples of small firms and start-ups support measurement properties of the proposed NC construct and suggest that the often-overlooked dimension in NC research of network relationship building is important to include in a complete NC construct. Doing so can help explain organizational innovativeness and effects on the customer, sales, and innovation performance more effectively. As a result, we find support for the proposed NC scale and the importance of network capabilities for small companies and start-ups to remain competitive.

Företag kan återfinnas i interorganisatoriska nätverk och vanligtvis kan interorganisatoriska nätverk ses som ett resultat av att individer i olika företag strävar efter samverkan. Via individerna etableras sociala och formella relationer som kan resultera i långsiktiga relationer, eftersom de delar tid, intresse, mål, bransch, geografisk eller annan typ av tillhörighet. Mål och intressen i dessa relationer utgör observerbara enheter i den föreliggande avhandlingen och utgör därmed grunden för olika relationsbaserade "constructs". Interorganisatoriska nätverk innehåller vanligtvis en eller flera typer av relationsbaserade "construct". Den övergripande forskningsfrågan är: hur utvecklas relationer i interorganisatoriska nätverk? Samtliga relationer studeras på företagsnivå genom att göra ledare i företaget till informanter. Avhandlingen baseras på en syntes av 10 olika artiklar som på olika sätt beskriver reciprocitet, förtroende, samverkan, interorganisatoriska förbund och lojalitet. Artiklarna är presenterade på följande sätt: Först presenteras två konceptuella studier följt av åtta empiriska bidrag. En större del av de empiriska bidragen är exempel från turism och besöksnäring. I syfte att ge ett bredare perspektiv finns två artiklar med från bygg- och anläggningsbranschen. Resultaten pekar på att relationer är baserade på långsiktighet, dessutom utvecklas relationer med hänsyn till motiv till att ingå samverkan samt val av partners. De initiala stegen, motiv och val av partners, följs av en process som syftar till att bygga varaktiga relationer. Detta är en process som innebär att vänskap, interpersonliga förbund, reciprocitet och förtroenden utvecklas. För att relationerna skall förbli varaktiga måste de dessutom nå stabilitet och mognad, som betyder att relationerna förblir varaktiga genom beroenden, dess konstituerande mål och viljan att skydda. Beroenden är speglade genom interorganisatoriska förbund, som betyder att företagen stärker relationer genom intentioner och löften. Konstituerande mål, motiverar samverkande företag att utveckla relationer som baseras på strategier så att delade mål och beslut kanaliseras effektivt. Slutligen, skyddar företaget dess relationer genom att skapa lojaliteter. Resultaten är i överensstämmelse med tidigare forskning men utvidgar tidigare forskning och är viktiga för framtida studier inom företagsekonomi generellt och speciellt viktiga för turism och besöksnäring samt för bygg- och anläggningsbranschen. En praktisk implikation av studien är att när företag värderar nya möjligheter, så bör de ta hänsyn till karaktären av partners såväl som hur partnerskapet kommer att påverka relationens innehåll. En annan praktisk implikation är att förtroende och reciprocitet bör belysas olika när framgångsrika nätverk av partners byggs upp.

This paper conceptualizes different grounds for collaborative decisions in order to forecast how different behaviors behave in a game-theoretical prisoner's dilemma (PD). Forecasting is facilitated by a simulated scenario between two actors. The paper views consequences of different behavioral strategies and underpins an evaluation through analyses of the game, and also presents a unique aggregated analysis modeling strategic behavior on the basis of game-theory. The paper suggests that game-theory could be a potential and powerful tool for researchers and practitioners struggling with the strategic dilemmas, i.e. trust-building versus opportunistic behavior in inter-firm cooperation. The paper outlines some strategic principles that may unsettle the dilemma situation through either social or formal contracts.

Hur kan företag som ingår i framgångsrika samverkansnätverk bygga interorganisatoriska förbund i perifera regioner under krävande omständigheter? Den här uppsatsen utvecklar en modell och testar empiriskt en enkät till 254 företag i två olika samverkansnätverk i Norra Minnesota (N. Mn.). Uppsatsen har två huvudsakliga bidrag. Först, genom att definiera sex återkommande problem för den här typen av "krävande" perifera regioner stimulerar uppsatsen till mer forskning på det här området. I det andra bidraget demonstreras en unik strukturell ekvationsmodell, vilken är indelad i fyra olika sekvenser. Sekvenserna baseras på sex olika konstrukt (begrepp konstruerade av flera element av engelskans construct), som är värderade genom att använda data från en enkät med krossektioner. Den första sekvensen innehåller två begrepp och mäter hårda samt mjuka motiv till samverkan. Den andra sekvensen innehåller grunder på vilka potentiella partners väljs. Den är baserad på hur viktigt förtroende är vid val av partner. I tredje sekvensen används två begrepp - förtroende i nuvarande relationer och reciprocitet. Den fjärde sekvensen utvärderar den slutgiltiga beroendevariabeln - interorganisatoriska förbund. Genom att föreslå sex propositioner ger uppsatsen nya utgångar för teoriutveckling inom den inbäddade litteraturen. Samtliga propositioner är genererade från teori, tidigare resultat eller en logisk argumentation färdig att testas. Efter det slutgiltiga testet visades att två av propositionerna kunde bekräftas och att två misspecificerade relationer kunde identifieras, vilket möjligen kan bidra till att lösa några av de utmaningar som ligger bakom personliga relationer i samverkansnätverk av företag. Förutom detta kan uppsatsen även bidra till utveckling av måtten. Samtliga mått baserades på tidigare teori men när interaktioner mellan begreppen studerades kan denna uppsats visa på mått som stöds av innehålls-, konvergent, diskriminant och nomologisk validitet. De teoretiska och praktiska implikationerna går till strategisk management av små och medelstora turismföretag verksamma under krävande omständigheter i perifera regioner. En sådan proper implikation, som även stimulera till mer forskning, är att etablering av varaktiga samverkansnätverk kräver några noggranna överväganden, där företag bör överväga motiv, val av partner och dess konsekvenser. När samverkansnätverk är implementerade omsorgsfullt, med hänsyn till personliga relationer, kommer företag att ha mer kunskap om vad de kan förvänta sig av relationen, vilket minskar risken eller i alla fall kunskapen om den, som i sin tur även har effekten att samverkan med större sannolikhet även blir varaktig.

This paper explores and describes some directions within the field of interfirm networks. The directions correspond to an aggregation of 210 different papers in order to achieve a content trajectory. Papers analyzed are based on a collection from 1961 until July 2002 from a number of databases. The papers where categorized into different categories. The categories used in this paper are as follows: author; year; name of journal; theoretical base; approach in the paper; methods used; unit of analysis in the paper and focus of content. Further the categories are quantified in a number of histograms. The paper also includes an appendix which consists, except from the categories, also a column with some concluding remarks from the paper; proposals for further research and also a quotation in order to enable some kind of validation process for the reader. The findings are mostly descriptive but will reveal some interesting data about common research techniques and approaches used. The main contribution is to reveal and offer a platform for upcoming research within the area of network related research.

Behavioral accounting theory questions the role of accounting and how accounting constructs can support other organizational activities. This paper examines whether personnel and action controls and the perception of current growth mediate meaningful support of innovative ideas (i.e., innovativeness) on future growth. While some literature has supported innovativeness as a spontaneous process, this paper examines whether innovative ideas are supported by formal behavioral controls on current and future growth. The paper further develops and finds support for the notion that future growth builds on the relative confidence of current growth. This paper uses exploratory factor analysis (EFA) for construct validation and further tests mediation using structural equation modeling and the bootstrapping technique of indirect effects. The model testing is based on a survey conducted in Sweden with key informants from high-growth (i.e., gazelle) companies. A total of 150 usable responses were returned.  The results may stimulate further research as they show that the predefined hypothesis has different direct and indirect roles in the building of future growth.