This exploratory study investigates value co-destruction in the Business-to-Business (B2B) context and examines the impact of actors' opportunistic behaviour on value co-creation. The research undertakes an in-depth case study based approach. It uses data triangulation, where multiple sources of evidence (interviews, conference audio recordings and documents) are collected from the case organisation (a vendor) and its service ecosystem partners in the ICT sector. The partners included in the study are distributors, channel partners, competitors, and customers. B2B alliances are driven by the motivations to maximise strategic value and minimise transaction cost. Thus, using the ecosystem lens, we find that actors' capabilities (resources and perceived value), vendor's approach to achieving strategic benefit and the channel governance mechanism enable value co-creation. However, using the transaction cost theory lens, we report that actors' opportunistic behaviour, technological disruptions and new business model challenges lead to value co-destruction (in the form of termination of relationship, conflict and business liquidation). Alliance partners need to evaluate the strategic benefits of collaboration, knowledge sharing, learning, trust building, market expansion and technology sharing, considering partners' self-serving behaviour driven by transaction cost economies. All ecosystem actors are seeking to develop capabilities, exhibit knowledge differentiators, demonstrate technology leadership, reduce uncertainty and respond to new business model challenges thus causing value co-destruction. Thus, this research is more encompassing because it explores factors that lead to both value co-creation and co-destruction.

It is widely recognized that small businesses with less than 50 employees make significant contributions to the prosperity of local, regional, and national economies. They are a major source of job creation and a driving force of economic growth for developed countries like the USA (Headd, 2005; SBA, 2005), the UK (Dixon, Thompson, & McAllister, 2002; SBS, 2005), Europe (European Commission, 2003), and developing countries such as China (Bo, 2005). The economic potential is further strengthened when firms collaborate with each other; for example, formation of a supply chain, strategic alliances, or sharing of information and resources (Horvath, 2001; O’Donnell, Cilmore, Cummins, & Carson, 2001; MacGregor, 2004; Todeva & Knoke, 2005). Owing to heterogeneous aspects of small businesses, such as firm size and business sector, a single e-business solution is unlikely to be suitable for all firms (Dixon et al., 2002; Taylor & Murphy, 2004a); however, collaboration requires individual firms to adopt standardized, simplified solutions based on open architectures and data design (Horvath, 2001). The purpose of this article is to propose a conceptual e-business framework and a generic e-catalogue, which enables small businesses to collaborate through the creation of an e-marketplace. To assist with the task, analysis of data from 6,000 small businesses situated within a locality of Greater Manchester, England within the context of an e-business portal is incorporated within this study.

This study aims to bring a renewed focus on Value Co-Creation (VCC) between an organisation (service provider) and its customers in the business-to-business (B2B) context. From the literature review, a conceptual framework of factors affecting VCC was developed by adding Customer to the Technology-Organisation-Environment framework (T-O-E). The enhanced Customer-Organisation-Technology-Environment (C-O-T-E) framework was empirically investigated from the focal firms' perspectives using semistructured interviews with seventeen executives from knowledgeintensive service organisations. The research captured a total of sixteen factors affecting VCC and highlighted co-conception for competition as a new form of co-creation, where the customerservice provider's long-term relationship positively enables a competitive strategy. These findings have significant implications for how service providers achieve competitive advantage in a challenging B2B marketplace.

The aim of this paper is to present a case study of the adoption of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) among 6000 small businesses within a locality of Greater Manchester, England. The paper presents an analysis of factors affecting adoption and discusses the wider implications for achieving the European vision of regional 'digital ecosystems'.

This theme presents four cases of service innovation through variations of the organisational business model to deliver new ways to create and manage value. In all cases, the organisations responded to changes in their external environment by adapting or extending their business model. The four cases are: