Purpose Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing entire business models and markets, and we are arguably witnessing only the beginning of its impact on business-to-business (B2B) firms and markets. While new technologies and transformations have been core areas in the B2B marketing literature and, thus, theories, models and frameworks for managing digital innovation already exist, the managerial realities AI imposes on organizations are manyfold and potential impacts have arguably been listed in an unstructured, random and eclectic way. The purpose of this paper is to offer a framework structuring advantages and disadvantages of AI. Design/methodology/approach Against this backdrop, the authors conceptualize a framework entailing 10 specific features creating a consolidated overview and reflecting the potentially paradoxical tensions between the advantages and disadvantages inherent in AI projects. The framework makes these tensions explicit and managerially addressable. The authors field tested the framework with 145 executives to judge its relevance and viability. Findings The paper presents a field-tested framework which enables managerial practice and guides further research. Originality/value The paper presents an inclusive framework that summarizes a wide area of arguments into a unique framework.

Increasing digitalization and interorganizational data exchange may not only contribute to value creation, but also create situations in which those who generate data feel threatened by those who utilize it. This paper conceptualizes and introduces the so-called friction-failure-fix framework of data conflicts, where conflict over data is seen as an intolerable dark-side friction that over time materializes in a control-trust collapse. To address this emerging state within a given business-to-business relationship, relationship strategies will typically require adjustment by the data generators. This study contributes by: (i) conceptualizing how data may affect relationship strategies, (ii) introducing the concept of control-trust collapse in light of data-related conflicts, (iii) conceptualizing the friction-failure-fix framework as a mechanism for linking intolerable friction, control-trust collapse and relationship strategies, and (iv) formulating a research agenda to guide future work.

In recent years, business-to-business firms have experienced increasing uncertainty, disruptive events, and major crises that have challenged their businesses. While these developments have triggered a focus on firms' preparedness to handle uncertainty, surprisingly little has been said about preparedness in an interorganizational context. This oversight is noteworthy, as interorganizational contexts are not only the dominant settings within business markets but also key drivers of the development of resilience and responsiveness. This conceptual paper outlines the concept of preparedness in business-to-business relationships and suggests a research agenda for interorganizational preparedness-an important concept in a fast-changing and uncertain business environment.

The ability to organize is our most valuable social technology. Organizing affects an enterprise’s efficiency, effectiveness, and ability to adapt. Modern organizations operate in increasingly complex, dynamic environments, which puts a premium on adaptation. Compared to traditional organizations, modern organizations are flatter and more open to their environment. Their processes are more generative and interactive – actors themselves generate and coordinate solutions rather than follow hierarchically devised plans and directives. Modern organizations search outside their boundaries for resources wherever they may exist. They coproduce products and services with suppliers, customers, and partners. They collaborate, both internally and externally, to learn and become more capable. In this book, leading voices in the field of organization design articulate and exemplify how a combination of agile processes, artificial intelligence, and digital platforms powers adaptive, sustainable, and healthy organizations.

In recent years, we have witnessed a massive proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) in all parts of society and business. Advances in AI are rapidly changing business-to-business marketing as well, with substantial implications for business-to-business theory and practice. In an extension of Ritter and Pedersen's (2020) phases of digitalization in business-to-business firms and through conceptual integration and development, this paper argues that digitalization has entered a new phase based on the generative capabilities of AI, which produce seemingly authentic artefacts, interactions, and datasets that cannot be consistently recognized as artificial, i.e. machine created with no or limited connection to real entities such as persons and places but which can be mistaken for having such connections. The paper outlines the characteristics of this evolution of digitalization and develops a research agenda for this fifth phase of digitalization, including the need for digital authorization to moderate the development of digital authenticity into value creation.

The buying center is a signature theoretical concept in B2B marketing and in general marketing research on organizational buying. It unveils interactions across organizations that enable value creation, and it highlights the contributions of interactions across people, roles, and organizations. Fundamental shifts in business and society are not only changing buying centers internally but also resulting in their transformation into buying ecosystems. Information technology has moved from a mere object for purchase in initial buying-center research towards a potentially artificial-intelligence-infused agent in the buying process. Moreover, servitization is transforming buying-center roles and their importance, especially in relation to users. In addition, in the wake of economic uncertainty, public actors are taking on additional roles ranging from passive buyers to innovators or entrepreneurs. The quest to enhance the sustainability of businesses is also changing the composition of buying centers and their responsibilities. These developments call for updating our understanding of buying centers and broadening our perspective from buying centers to buying ecosystems. This special issue presents seven papers that advance buying-center research. In this editorial, we provide an overview and propose promising avenues for B2B buying-center research.

Research shows that early internationalization is more likely when founders have international and business-related experience. But what if experience was obtained in other ways? We study the scientist-founders of 149 academic spin-offs (ASOs), using cognition theory to argue for a curvilinear relationship between breadth of pre-founding R&D collaboration and internationalization timing. Our longitudinal study combines survey and patent data to show that increased breadth of collaboration with international scientists increases and then decreases the likelihood of early internationalization. The results are similar but less robust for collaboration with industry partners. Our findings suggest that studies on experience in new venture internationalization underestimate the role of R&D collaboration and the research-based heritage of many new firms.

Despite segmentation's importance for marketing in general and the extensive research published on the topic over several decades, business-to-business segmentation is still not fully developed as a general theory—a status that may decrease academic interest in the field. Based on a recent contribution on the definition and typology of theory, this paper explores the degree to which segmentation can be considered a theory and, more specifically, which elements and perspectives are currently underdeveloped. We highlight some fundamental challenges that must be addressed to establish a better theoretical foundation for segmentation's evolution into a more developed theory. We also present questions for future research to guide the advancement of business-to-business segmentation, which is necessary for a concept so central to business-to-business marketing.

This paper adopts a project-based perspective to analyze how strategic renewal evolves in organizations over time. Projects are temporary resource-committing activities that deliberately impose changes on existing business operations and, thereby, generate strategic renewal. Projects can be empirically identified and are, therefore, suited for analyzing manifestations of deliberate and emergent strategies driven by employee behaviors that either comply with or deviate from the official strategy. In the paper, we present ten theoretically derived project categories that can be used to analyze strategic renewal through the enactment of different projects. We also discuss the implications and limitations of the project-based perspective for strategy research and management

While industrial marketing often comprises a process that, at least in principle, mirrors Bayesian reasoning, the notion of Bayesian inference has predominantly been utilized in the marketing field as a methodological tool. This article suggests that the practice of industrial marketing itself should be (re)conceptualized as a Bayesian process of belief-updating that entails a continuous cognitive cycle of formulation of hypotheses (i.e., beliefs about the market) and the subsequent updating of those hypotheses through exposure to market evidence (e.g., data from the market). A Bayesian perspective on industrial marketing enables a synthesis of a broad body of extant research as well as a focus on the interconnection between executives' market beliefs (theories-in-use) and belief-updating (assessing the validity of those beliefs in view of market evidence). A view of industrial marketing as a Bayesian process not only enhances our understanding in general but also fosters insights into market learning in uncertain and volatile situations. A Bayesian conceptualization suggests a new understanding of industrial marketing that also informs a typology of marketing approaches. We outline opportunities for developing a better understanding of the Bayesian foundation of industrial marketing.

A crisis, like the COVID-19 pandemic or a cyber attack, not only creates the necessity for crisis management in business-to-business firms aimed at addressing the immediate challenges, but also offers opportunities to shape business markets by changing exchanges, collaborations, and institutions. In order to develop a conceptual framework to capture the market-shaping potential of a crisis, we integrate insights from risk management and strategic management, and discuss their implications for market shaping. As such, this paper builds a bridge between the reactive nature of crisis management during a crisis and proactive market shaping, and offers new insights into market shaping based on an underutilized source of inspiration, namely crisis management. Based on resilience (from risk management) and responsiveness (from strategic management), we propose four market shaping opportunities. Beyond the theoretical novelty of contributing to our understanding of market shaping based on crisis management, our framework has managerial implications for market shaping and highlights a set of interesting research questions that can guide future studies.

Suppliers typically serve a variety of customers, and sales to those customers differ due to variations in suppliers' abilities to sell their market offerings vis-a-vis customers' needs, sizes, and procurement policies. In this chapter, we describe how a supplier can realize its often significant revenue growth potential by leveraging on its own best implemented practice in its interactions with customers. The approach builds upon the calculation and verification of revenue blueprints that are based on a supplier's own best implemented practice and achieved revenues. The advantage of revenue blueprints lies in its reliance on the firm's established best implemented practice, its current market offerings, and its existing customers. As such, initiatives for realizing the revenue growth potential can be implemented without major investments and resource demanding training.

In this chapter, we combine two important perspectives on data-driven growth in SMEs: capabilities and projects. We outline the three dimensions of a digitization capability (data, analytics, and permission) as well as the seven scenarios of data-driven projects. We highlight the different steps in firms' data-utilization journeys and we suggest ways of using our framework in workshops aimed at developing a digitization capability.

Value-chain processes must be understood and managed from a network, or ecosystem, perspective and linked to customer value creation. Based on an overview of the customer-value literature and internal value-chain processes, this paper argues that network capability needs to be added to the firm’s value-chain processes as an additional layer. This paper outlines different views on network capability, positions network capability in the wider portfolio of firms’ value-creation processes, and outlines potential research opportunities that may deepen our understanding of network capability.

This is a book about big data in small businesses. How do small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with limited resources, thrive in a context abundant with data? To address this central question from multiple viewpoints, we introduce a collection of experiences, insights, and guidelines from a variety of researchers, each of whom provides a piece to solve this puzzle.