This paper deals with business creation in networks by setting the focus on how technology- based start-up companies collaborate with customers in product development. The aim is to analyze the pattern of customer collaboration by using the industrial network approach as theoretical point of departure. The method consists of a process-based single case study. The focal case is Oxeon, a Swedish rapidly growing university spin-off company commercializing a new technology for making carbon fiber composites. The development of products and applications has taken place in close collaboration with their customers. The paper addresses three research issues, which are related to the timing, mutuality and organizing of the collaboration. The analysis of the Oxeon case results in identification of five crucial aspects on the management of customer collaboration: (i) the need for involving customers early, (ii) the choice of application areas, (iii) the mutual process of choosing and getting chosen as collaboration partner, (iv) the external networking role of the start-up, and (v) the internal organizing of the start-up in relation to its ambitions for external interaction with customers. The results are summarized by formulating a set of propositions that can be taken as starting point for further research.

This paper focuses on how newly established technology-based start-up companies become part of the business landscape. In more detail, the aim of the paper is to analyse how a start-up becomes embedded through its networking behaviours in a business network. To approach this phenomenon, the theoretical frame of reference is based on the industrial network approach to industrial markets separating developing, producing and using settings. The business network settings are combined with networking behaviours consisting of both strong and weak ties. Importantly, for a start-up to become embedded through networking, resources of the start-up need to be combined with resources in the three business network settings. The paper relies on a case study methodology focusing on a start-up, founded at a technical university in Sweden, and its networking behaviours. The paper concludes that networking behaviours relying on strong ties are crucial to resource combining. However, the analysis also shows the importance of networking behaviours of weak ties, acquiring information and interaction to sensing new opportunities. The paper ends with managerial implications for start-up managers, pinpointing the need to work with both strong and weak ties as a platform to eventually become embedded in business networks.

Purpose: Taking the perspective of a start-up company, the purpose of this paper is to analyse resource renewal in heavy business networks. Design/methodology/approach: The theoretical framework is based on the Industrial Network Approach and, especially, the resource interaction framework, business network settings and studies of starting up in business networks. The basis for the paper is a case study of a start-up in the Swedish wind energy context. Findings: Resource renewal in this case means replacing one resource, having implications for the resource interfaces in the three business network settings. Research limitations/implications: The paper contributes to the area of studies of starting up in business networks by identifying a distinct form of resource renewal in heavy business networks enabled by development of resource interfaces in three business network settings. Practical implications: Managers in start-ups as well as established firms need to interact to create and develop the resource interfaces that are needed to achieve resource renewal. Resource renewal not only is in the hands of start-ups but also requires interactive resource development with various collaboration partners. Originality/value: This study takes a start-up’s perspective to resource renewal of heavy business networks and analyses heaviness based on resource interfaces in three business network settings. 

Value co-creation is a core focus area in both B2B marketing and strategy research, necessitating resource utilization within and across organizational boundaries. In the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) group, scholars have focused on the interactions among resources as one important way to analyze central questions about resources in business relationships and networks. This has produced a breadth of investigations and concepts that are locally defined and utilized. This may hamper further theoretical development and inhibit analytical precision. The purpose of this paper is to develop a more general shared understanding of resource interaction by identifying and explicating the key concepts used, and to assess its status as an approach. The paper synthesizes 20 years of research to identify key concepts and the relationships across concepts. This provides both a platform for further conceptual and empirical research within IMP and potential for cross-fertilization with parallel B2B areas.