Shaping Business
CDIT’s research focus within the area of Shaping Business is centered around the following topics:
- The Construction of Markets
- Temporality and Markets Practice
- Timing of Strategic Actions
- Merger Processes
You can access many of the publications directly by klicking on the link of respective title.
The Construction of Markets
The Configuration Of Actors In Market Practice
Abstract: This paper addresses three conceptual challenges concerning actors and agency that arise when taking interest in market practice: i) how agency is awarded in practical situations, ii) how actors are preconfigured, and iii) how actors are represented. These issues are explored in three empirical scenes taken from a case study of the introduction of an e-procurement system at an international transport and logistics company. First, we suggest that practical interaction can be fruitfully regarded as a process of interdefinition involving prescriptions and subscriptions between acting entities, or actants . Second, we employ the term inscription to address efforts to affect in advance the configuration of such actants. Third, we suggest that actors are entities to which actions are ascribed, ex post. Through this secondary process a number of actants may be subsumed under a common actor label, thus offering a way of accounting for agency as part of a practice perspective. We conclude by discussing implications of the proposed vocabulary for multiplicity, reflexivity and market agency.
Andersson,P., Aspenberg, K. och Kjellberg, H. (2008), Marketing Theory, March, vol. 8 no. 167-9
Perspectives on market networks – boundaries and new connections
The book sheds light on some fundamental issues and concepts in marketing and market research: What is a market? What do we mean by economic organisation? Strategic action? What is a firm and what are the boundaries of firms?
These and other fundamental questions of economic and business administration research in general, and of marketing and market research in particular, are discussed in this book. The book draws on texts in the market-as-network tradition, but also includes links to other fields of research.
One researcher in the market-as-networks tradition stands in focus: Lars-Gunnar Mattsson. He has been in the forefront of discussions on all of the fundamental issues discussed in the book. The book is introduced by presenting a condensation of some of Mattsson’s major contributions. The chapters in the book relates to his research, different aspects of market networks and connected fields.
Andersson, P., Hertz, S. and Sweet, S., (eds.) (2005), Perspectives on market networks – boundaries and new connections, Stockholm: EFI
In retrospective foresight
Andersson, P., Hertz, S. and Sweet, S., (2005), (chapter 1) in: Andersson et al (eds) Perspectives on market networks – boundaries and new connections, Stockholm: EFI (book chapter)
Stability and change in market networks
Kjellberg, H. and Andersson, P., (2005), (chapter 5) in: Andersson et al (eds.) Perspectives on market networks – boundaries and new connections, Stockholm: EFI
Temporality and Markets Practice
Temporality of resource adjustments in business networks during severe economic recession
Abstract: Business cycles are not a new phenomenon. Firms have in the past found ways to, more or less successfully, adjust their resources to such cyclical changes. However, the combination of a global crisis in financial markets and a severe down turn in demand on globally interdependent markets in the “real” economy is unprecedented which suggests that established business practices to handle cyclical variations are challenged. In this article we focus on temporal aspects of resource adjustments, taking into account also network interdependencies in contemporary markets. We develop a conceptual framework towards understanding how business actors construct temporality of resource adjustment activities. We relate temporal orientation of actors to temporal profiles of activities, seeing them as both influenced by actors’ network orientation.
Andersson, P. and Mattsson, L-G. (2010), Industrial Marketing Management, Volume 39, Issue 6, August–September, Pages 917-924
Temporal orientation and temporal profiles of network adjustments in times of economic recession
Abstract: Business cycles is not a new phenomenon. Firms have found ways to, more or less successfully, adjust their internal and externally supplied resources to changes in the level of economic activities. Such adjustments are part of market practices and affect individual actors and business networks. However, the present combination of a global crisis in financial markets and a severe down turn in demand on globally interdependent markets in the “real economy is unprecedented. In this paper we focus on temporal aspects of resource adjustment to economic recession in usiness networks. Our purpose is to discuss temporality of strategic actions in networks including the influence on this by financial and political actors. The contributions are theoretical/conceptual and represent an effort to explicitly consider the social construction aspects. The paper contributes to on-going discussions within IMP on how managerial action relates to ”network pictures/network theories” and to the dynamics of the shaping of markets. The main theoretical ideas, also with implications for further research are illustrated by some concluding propositions.
Andersson, P. and Mattsson, L-G. (2009), paper submitted for 2009 IMP Conference, Marseille, France, Sep 2009
The Configuration Of Actors In Market Practice
Abstract: This paper addresses three conceptual challenges concerning actors and agency that arise when taking interest in market practice: i) how agency is awarded in practical situations, ii) how actors are preconfigured, and iii) how actors are represented. These issues are explored in three empirical scenes taken from a case study of the introduction of an e-procurement system at an international transport and logistics company. First, we suggest that practical interaction can be fruitfully regarded as a process of interdefinition involving prescriptions and subscriptions between acting entities, or actants . Second, we employ the term inscription to address efforts to affect in advance the configuration of such actants. Third, we suggest that actors are entities to which actions are ascribed, ex post. Through this secondary process a number of actants may be subsumed under a common actor label, thus offering a way of accounting for agency as part of a practice perspective. We conclude by discussing implications of the proposed vocabulary for multiplicity, reflexivity and market agency.
Andersson,P., Aspenberg, K. och Kjellberg, H. (2008), Marketing Theory, March, vol. 8 no. 167-9
Making Management Mobile: A Study of The Use of Wireless Applications in Top Management Of A Global Enterprise
Andersson, P and Edenius, M. (2007), paper submitted to the Global Mobility Roundtable, Los Angeles. June 2007
Construction of temporal profiles and shaping of markets
Andersson, P. and Mattsson, L-G. (2006), paper submitted to the IMP Conference, Milan
Timing of Strategic Actions in Networks
Timing of Strategic Actions in Markets
Andersson, P. and Mattsson, L-G. (2007), paper submitted for 2007 EMAC Conference, Iceland, May 2007
Temporal Perspectives on Strategic Action in Business Markets
Andersson, P. and Mattsson, L-G. (2007), invited presentation at the 2007 Nordic Workshop on Inter-organizational Research, Turku, 16-18 August
Timing and Sequencing of Strategic Actions in Internationalization Processes Involving Intermediaries: A Network Perspective
Abstract: This article examines timing in a firm’s internationalization process, specifically with processes involving intermediaries between exporters and end-users. The purpose is to discuss and analyze the timing and sequencing concepts and their role for understanding strategic actions driving internationalization processes of firms and markets. It also aims to generate a set of propositions and issues for research on timing and internationalization.
Andersson, P. and Mattsson, L-G, (2006), Advances in International Marketing, Volume 16, pp. 297-326
Wireless Enterprise Innovations: Raising Issues of Temporality and Activities
Abstract: The overall research question guiding the papers’ studies of mobility-in-use in organizations is: How are different activities of temporality affected when organizations implement and use new wireless solutions in their intra- and inter-organizational work and how might these temporality dimensions be linked to each other and its further meaning in an organizational context? The focus on “How”-questions signals an explorative, focus, where the aim is to develop knowledge on how different types of organizations adopt, integrate and use new wireless solutions. Empirically, the entire project that this paper is based on puts focus on 21 different enterprise industries and settings, grouped into eight identified “user environments” in the enterprise market for wireless services. The analyses of the enterprise markets studied have resulted in a set of models and conceptual frameworks, drawing on insights from in-depth case studies of wireless customer organizations, their users and their service providers. The paper discusses the widely and differentially used “mobility” concept. It puts aspects of temporality into the context of wireless enterprise applications and the connected mobility concept. It also elaborates on various conventional/general dimensions of temporality, followed by a discussion of potential effects on these temporal dimensions of wireless enterprise applications. The paper draws on, in a quite pragmatic way, empirical insights from the above described research project on enterprise customers of wireless solutions and the discussion is quite tentative. The paper is concluded with some implications for research and for management.
Per Andersson, Mats Edenius, Christopher Rosenqvist, and Pablo Valiente (2006), paper accepted and presented at Helsinki Mobility Roundtable, June 2006
Merger Processes
Managing A Merger Process – Market Practice and Construction of Temporality
Andersson, P. and Mattsson, L-G. (2007), paper submitted to the 2007 IMP Conference, Manchester
Construction of Temporality in Merger Process
Andersson, P. and Mattsson, L-G. (2007), Abstract for 3rd IMP Journal Seminar, Trondheim, May 10-12 2007