Business service networks and their process of emergence: The case of the Health Cluster Portugal

Abstract

Business services have been receiving increasing attention from academics, practitioners and policy-makers. Despite the growing interest, this field of research suffers from several limitations: it draws mostly on services marketing theory, and it is grounded mostly in monadic and dyadic studies. This paper contributes to the advance of business services research by addressing these limitations with regard to a specific service-related issue. We carry out an interdisciplinary study by integrating among others an industrial network approach (INA) into the services area, and we thus develop the research at a network level by adopting a services network perspective; furthermore, the study is carried out in a business-to-business context by looking into a health cluster: the Health Cluster Portugal. The article addresses one particular aspect of business services networks: their emergence. We propose a conceptual framework that draws on process-based research and integrates theories from other bodies of research, allowing a rich understanding of how a business service network is created. Our findings point to discontinuities along the emergence of such networks, showing that there is an iterative process underlying their formation, with different theories playing a predominant explanatory role at different stages. This paper contributes to the wider body of literature on services research by promoting the integration of the INA and other process-related approaches in the area of business services networks, and also provides practitioners and policy-makers with a structured framework to understand how an intentional 'bottom-up' business service network may be created or orchestrated.

Capturing the benefits of industry 4.0: a business network perspective

“…Despite the substantial body of literature relating to the topic, business network research represents a research perspective rather than a theory in its own right (M€ oller 2013; Jagdev and Thoben 2001). Adopting a business network perspective commonly implies that a study seeks to analyze and understand a phenomenon across three closely interconnected levels of analysis (Ramos et al 2013;Snehota and Hakansson 1995): the firm level, the relational level, and the network level. All three levels of analysis are understood to influence one another through interaction and interdependent coevolution (Welch and Wilkinson 2002).…”

“…A business network describes a group of interdependent organizations which are linked to each other through non-hierarchical 'weakly manageable' relationships (Anderson, Håkansson, and Johanson 1994, 2;M€ oller and Rajala 2007). We will use a business network perspective in the present study as an investigative framework to characterize the industry 4.0 context and examine its firm-, relationaland network-level implications (Ramos et al 2013;Snehota and Hakansson 1995). By drawing on the network resource notion, the study conceptualizes product-use data as resource which, although embedded in its network, can alter a firm's opportunity sets and strategic behaviours (Lavie 2006;Gulati and Sytch 2007).…”

Stakeholder Analysis in Community Based Mangrove Management: Case of Forest Management Unit in Region 3 of Aceh Province

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Capturing the Benefits of Digitalization and Service Innovation: A Business Network Perspective

“…Despite the substantial body of literature relating to the topic, 'business network research' represents a research perspective rather than a theory in its own right (Möller, 2013). Adopting a 'business network perspective' commonly implies that a study seeks to analyze and understand a phenomenon across three closely interconnected levels of analysis (Ramos, Roseira, Brito, Henneberg, & Naudé, 2013;Snehota & Hakansson, 1995): the firm level, the relationship level and the network level. All three are understood to influence one another through interaction and interdependent coevolution (Welch & Wilkinson, 2002) and…”