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Over recent years, few industries have seen such dramatic changes as the healthcare industry. The potential connectivity of digital technologies is completely transforming the healthcare ecosystem. This has resulted in companies increasingly investing in digital transformations to exploit data across channels, operations and patient outreach, by building on a practice approach and actor-network theory and being informed by service-dominant logic, this study aims to contribute by advancing the agential role of third-party actors to prompt innovation and shape service ecosystems.

This research is grounded in an epistemological contextualism. To gain situated knowledge and address the role of context in knowledge, understanding and meaning the authors adopted a qualitative methodology to study actors in their different contexts. The empirical research was based on case theory. The authors also took guidance from practice scholars about how to investigate actors’ practices. The unit of analysis moves from dyadic relationships to focus on practices across different networks of actors.

This study expands on the conceptualization of triad as proposed by Siltaloppi and Vargo (2017) by moving from the form of triadic relationships – brokerage, mediation and coalition – to the agency of e-health third-parties; and their practices to innovate in the healthcare ecosystem. This study focuses on the actors and the performativity of actions and grounding the conceptual view on an empirical base.

Third-party actors bring about innovative ways of doing business in the healthcare ecosystem. Their actions challenge the status quo and run counter to long-time practices. Third-parties support the complex set of interconnections between different healthcare actors for the provision of new service co-creation opportunities. Considering how these e-health third-parties performs has implications for health managers, patients and other actors.

This study focuses on the actors and the performativity of actions and grounding the conceptual view on an empirical base. The agency of third-party actors is their ability to act among others and to connect multiple social and material structures to boost innovation. They prompt innovation and shape service ecosystems by brokering, mediating and coalescing among a great variety of resources, practices and institutions.

This study aims to explore the conditions that lead to the occurrence of third-party interveners’ coordination in conflict resolution efforts.

The studied theme is elaborated by means of an analysis of two case studies: the Maoist armed conflict of Nepal and the Moro conflict of the Philippines. Importantly, this study solicits the views of third-party practitioners and other relevant stakeholders in the field and attempts to demonstrate how they perceive key issues in third-party coordination.

Third-party coordination is a contingent process, with varying needs and relevance in different phases and types of conflict. The escalation of violence, issues of international concern such as human rights and the homogeneity of interveners are other core elements that have often played a key role in third-party coordination.

In the existing literature, there are no such indicator-based explanations regarding the occurrence of third-party coordination; thus, the findings of this research on this particular theme are well-developed and better conceptualized than what has been discussed in the literature to date.

The analysis undertaken in this study can contribute to the design of better policies and strategies for third-party coordination.

This study is based on in-depth interviews and interactions with a diverse range of third-party practitioners and other stakeholders working in real-world conflicts, who have perhaps the best understanding of various dimensions of third-party coordination. No previous research has been conducted on this particular theme by incorporating direct interaction with a wide range of interveners from two distinct conflict contexts.

By analyzing organizations as social actors and business relationships as social relationships, sociology can improve business relationship management. This paper aims to explore the issues involved.

A business relationship is an interactive exchange between two organizations embedded in a network of business connections. The paper reviews theories of social actions and social actors and the concepts of economic field and embeddedness to illustrate some social dimensions of business relationships.

Social action and social actor theories emphasize that co‐operation is always encumbered with conflicts, that consciousness about the relationship is fundamental for both strongly and weakly structured actors, and that actors (people involved in a business relationship) always have some freedom of manoeuvre. The concept of economic field underscores the specificity of each business relationship and the critical need for concrete analysis. The concept of embeddedness highlights that no business relationship is possible without personal bonds.

These are the first results of a deeper and broader research directed towards a conceptual model of business relationship management.

The paper can help managers to analyze more deeply the social dimensions of business relations with both suppliers and buyers. Consciousness, the ongoing presence of conflicts, the unavoidable role of personal bonds, and interactivity are always relevant in business relationship management.

The paper integrates sociological and business marketing approaches. It applies essential sociological theories and concepts to business relationship management.

The purpose of this study is to increase understanding of gaps in buyer‐seller relationships. Increasingly complex, rapidly changing, and dynamic business environments provide a rich research environment for analysing gaps in business relationships. Traditionally, gaps have been examined from the static and single party perspective. However, dyadic buyer‐seller relationships can be revealed, described, and analysed in new ways by viewing intraorganisational and interorganisational gaps longitudinally as chains of interactions in relationships and from the perspectives of several parties. In this study the gaps are understood as consisting of concepts such as inconsistency, critical incident, conflict, gap, and perceived differences.

This chapter explores the concept of market infrastructure, which is tentatively defined as a materially heterogeneous arrangement that silently supports and structures the consummation of market exchanges. Specifically, the authors investigate the enactment of market infrastructure in the US grocery retail sector by exploring how barcodes and related devices contributed to modify its market infrastructure during the period 1967–2010. Combining this empirical case with insights from previous research, the authors propose that market infrastructures are relational, available for use, modular, actively maintained, interdependent, commercial, emergent and political. The authors argue that this conception of market infrastructure provides a powerful tool for unveiling the complex agencements and engineering efforts that underpin seemingly superficial, individual and isolated market exchanges.

This paper aims to draw on the network perspective of firm internationalisation to study how an intermediary network actor, such as an export promotion organisation (EPO), can influence the internationalisation of new ventures located in peripheral regions.

The paper employs case analysis and the critical incident technique to study the influence of the Irish Government's support agency for the seafood industry, Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM), on the internationalisation of three new ventures in the seafood sector in the West of Ireland.

The EPO played an important role in information mediation: identifying foreign opportunities and customers; facilitating introductions to international customers; and by providing foreign market knowledge; and as a resource provider developing the firm's export capacity.

The choice of sector and method may impact on the ability to generalise the findings to firms in other contexts.

This study identifies a number of important implications for managers. It identifies a dilemma for policy‐makers: do efforts to develop strong support agencies come at the expense of developing strong firms?

This study advances the understanding of the role of an intermediary network actor in influencing new‐firm internationalisation. It identifies a set of conditions that, it is argued, are necessary if an EPO is to facilitate firm internationalisation.

This paper aims to examine experiences of low customer power in service interactions and the impact of those experiences on customers’ engagement and disengagement towards a firm. It subsequently identifies how such experiences may affect customers’ wellbeing.

The authors conducted visual elicitation interviews with 30 customers of a range of services. Data were analysed thematically using abductive reasoning.

Low customer power is influenced by several factors perceived by customers as associated with the firm and/or the context of the customer–firm relationship. Results show that low power drives negative customer engagement and may result in behavioural disengagement. Low customer power, negative engagement and disengagement can have negative implications for customers’ eudaimonic (physical and financial) and hedonic wellbeing.

Future studies might explore specific service contexts and power dynamics across service ecosystems and should further analyse the implications of these relationships on firms’ strategic organisational responses.

Firms should monitor customer power and explore means of enhancing the wellbeing of their customers through strategies designed to increase customer power, thus, reducing negative customer engagement and avoiding detrimental impact on customer wellbeing.

This study reframes discussions on low customer power in relation to firms and its impact on firms and customers. It identifies low customer power as a key variable in the study of customer engagement, disengagement and wellbeing.

The venture capital syndication brings in various resources for the portfolio firms, which positively affects those firms’ performance, while conflicts within syndicates also have negative impact on the portfolio firms’ performance. This study aims to explore the two opposite effects of the venture capital syndication on the portfolio firms’ operations. Drawing on Ma et al.’s (2013) power source match perspective, the authors examine the effect of (mis)match of power source between ownership and status on the portfolio firms’ performance.

The study uses panel data from two professional databases containing information about the venture capital-backed firms in China. The fixed effect model is applied to analyze the data.

This study found that power source match in the venture capital syndicates works positively on the portfolio firms’ performance. This positive relationship is weakened when there is ownership-dominated power source mismatch present.

This study suggests that when new ventures search for venture capital, it is better to allocate greater ownership to the venture capital providers with high-status power, so that ownership power and status power can have a proper match to increase the coordination among venture capital providers, thereby helping portfolio firms perform better.

This study looks into the performance of a portfolio firm when there is power a (mis)match in a venture capital syndication, extending the current literature in this area where only the performance of the venture syndications is examined.

Interorganizational power dependence has become an increasingly important factor for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to improve product innovation. This paper examines the role of power dependence in SMEs' product innovation trade-offs between exploration and exploitation. The article further studies the mediating effect of supply chain adaptability and the moderating effect of knowledge acquisition on the relationship between power dependence and product innovation.

The study proposes a model to verify the impact of power dependence on SMEs' product innovation trade-offs based on social network theory. Two conceptually independent constructs, “availability of alternatives (ALTRN)” and “restraint in the use of power (RSPTW),” are used to evaluate the power dependence. The model also analyzed how these effects are mediated by supply chain adaptability and moderated by knowledge acquisition. The authors test these relationships using data collected from 224 SMEs in China.

The empirical analysis shows that ALTRN has a more substantial effect on exploration for product innovation, while RSTPW has a more significant impact on exploitation for product innovation. Moreover, empirical data indicate a partial mediating effect by supply chain adaptability between power dependence and product innovation of SMEs. The results also show that knowledge acquisition positively moderates the relationship between ALTRN/RSTPW, supply chain adaptability and product innovation.

Overall, the findings of the study advance the understanding of the roles of power dependence in product innovation for SMEs. In addition, the research also uncovers the impact mechanisms of existing theoretical frameworks and extends the boundaries of the theory.

This paper aims to fill the gaps by conducting the first large n study examining the role of third parties in the emergence of river agreements in Asia and Africa during the time period 1948-2007. There is a growing literature on what explains agreements in river disputes. However, beyond individual case analysis, little systematic study has been done on the role of third parties in settling river disputes through agreement, in particular on the regions that are mostly affected by the global climate change.

Through utilising new data on the role of third parties in river disputes, this study shows that third party involvement in the conflict management of river disputes increases the likelihood of reaching river agreements.

The findings suggest that third parties use both diplomatic and economic means to increase the likelihood of emergence of river agreements, and both strategies are equally important to induce formalised cooperation.

Yet the present study covers only two regions, and it does not delve into a discussion of the conditions under which third party interventions are successful. Rather, these are aspects that need to be explored in the future.

Given the current uncertainty around security challenges resulting from climate change, and with predictions of future water wars, this research contributes to the understanding how to peacefully manage current and potential conflicts around transboundary waters.

This study is the first large n study examining the role of third parties in the emergence of river agreements in Asia and Africa.