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Abstract Although research into the digitalization of business has grown in recent years, the focus has predominantly been on the impacts of digitalization on business in general, and not on the business relationship digitalization process. In this dissertation, the author addresses how digitalization affects business relationships and provides an illustration of the process of business relationships digitalization in the steel processing industry context. Drawing from the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing based business relationship literature and evolving digitalization literature the author develops a framework that includes six factors and their characteristics that describe the digitalization of business relationships. This dissertation also provides pertinent managerial insights into select business relationships to be digitalized as well as offers guidelines to digitalize chosen business relationships. The dissertation is divided into three parts. The theoretical elaboration presented in part one of the dissertation identifies and illustrates two important theoretical discussions underlying business relationship digitalization. These are the business relationships perspective and digitalization literature composed of information systems and information technology literature, electronic commerce, and electronic business discussions. Based on these, a preliminary framework is developed. In part two, the preliminary framework is applied to the selected industry, i.e. the steel processing industry. The two case studies from the steel processing industry provide the empirical material according to which the preliminary framework is compared and modified. In part three, the empirically grounded framework is depicted and the theoretical results reveal that business relationship digitalization is a complex process and that there are six factors: antecedents, accelerants, inhibitors, decision, digitalization, the outcome of event and their characteristics that influence the degree of business relationship digitalization and digitalization process. It is also noteworthy that digitalization success is dependent on many inter-organizational contingencies, such as interpersonal trust and the digitalizability of the exchange process. Additionally, the managerial results highlight the importance of systematically managing important business relationships and their digitalization. Furthermore, it is pinpointed that digitalization usually enhances existing business relationships by enabling faster and more accurate communication as well as more efficient transactions. To conclude, the dissertation provides several conceptual and managerial insights into business relationship digitalization. The author also suggests future studies around this emerging phenomenon.

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In this research we are evaluating how internet affects interpersonal business relationships. We have noticed t at t xisting it ratur t at t u s up n int rn t’s effects are mainly concerned with “that” and “what” internet affects. What we want to study is ”how” internet affects and in this study, how employees use internet as a medium and how internet affects interpersonal business relationship creation and building. This study is driven by our own curiosity as we want to learn more about this field as we will most probably come across it later in our careers. The study was conducted through a comparative case study design where the data was gathered through interviews with seven individuals who uses internet in their working life to communicate with customers. The interviews allowed us to see that internet was used in different ways and that the communication had different aims. We adopted the thematic analysis method when analyzing our data and found that int rn t’s ff t n busin ss r ati ns ips diff r d b tw n diff r nt bran s. It a s became evident that different individuals used it to different degrees when it came to actually creating and building relationships with the medium. From our finding we can conclude that: Internet does affect interpersonal business relationship creation and building but the effect might be both positive and negative depending on the user of the medium. The change inflicted on the business relationships by internet was also dependent on the line of business.

This research project explores how service experience impacts on business-to-business relationships. It investigates the role of service encounters in a business-to-business context through examining the characteristics of service encounters in business-to-business markets and how service encounters impact on business-to-business relationships. Service failure and recovery in business-to-business markets are also explored. The theoretical background stems from both services marketing and business-to-business marketing. The literature review encompasses investigations of service encounters and service failure and recovery in both consumer and business-to-business markets. The project attempts to merge these areas of knowledge, by extending the domain of service research from consumer markets to business-to-business markets. The researcher notes that different characteristics may exist between consumer and business-to-business markets, and so studies of service issues developed in consumer markets are used as guidance rather than simply being transferred to a business-to-business context. As the nature of this project was exploratory, case studies were selected as a suitable research strategy, and two case studies were carried out. The first case study was in the metal finishing industry in the North of England and included 20 interviews. The second case study was in the paint and coatings industry in the North West of England and included 20 interviews. In both case studies, suppliers' and customers' perspectives were investigated to allow a dyadic understanding of the role of service in supplier-customer relationships. Other data such as direct observation, shop floor visits, company brochures, a research diary and notes were also used. Computer-assisted NVivo software was employed to assist data analysis. A thematic approach was applied to analyse the data. The findings revealed similarities and differences in service encounters, and service failure and recovery, between consumer markets and business-to-business markets. Communication, adaptation, help and people were identified as key factors in business-to-business service encounters, impacting on business-business relationships. The influences of domino effects on business-to-business customers' service experience were found to be significant and illustrate the complexity of the business-to-business service experience. The results suggest that service recovery strategies that are employed in consumer markets may also be effective in business-to-business markets, but because of the active role that business-to-business customers were observed to play, the strategies may need to be extended. This project has both theoretical and managerial contributions. Theoretically, it extends the domain of service experience research from consumer markets to business-to-business markets, by filling in a gap in the services marketing literature by investigating business-to-business service failure and recovery. It contributes to the business-to-business marketing literature by discussing the role of service explicitly in interactions and, thus, extends the understanding of supplier-customer relationship processes. Managerially, the research provides companies with an additional approach to managing their business-to-business relationships through improving service performance and explicitly considering service recovery processes.

No / Key areas of focus at the Conference. Supply and Value Chain Management Global Operations and Supply Chains Operations Strategy and Innovation Logistics and Physical Distribution Inventory and Operations Planning Environment and Sustainability Performance Management Purchasing and Supply Service Operations Collaboration / ORACLE

Every firm in the world in one way or another is touched by the prevailing globalization trend. In order to survive in the 21st century businesses in every industry are taking steps to expand through trade outside their home markets.  Thus this global expansion evokes stimulus by firms to internationalize. The internationalization process of firms has been studied extensively among various business scholars with the main focus on the growth or positive development of firms. However, an area which has received fairly limited attention is the de-internationalization process. In this field the role of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) under non-crisis conditions, where this phenomenon is seen as a strategic decision of firms or subsequence of internationalization process rather than a market failure, has been underestimated. This paper aims to contribute to the theoretical understanding of cross-border activities of small firms by looking into business relationships as a new perspective on analyzing de-internationalization motives. This was studied through a qualitative case study of Swedish SMEs operating globally. Interviews with sales and marketing directors of the companies together with secondary data compose the gathered empirical data for analyzing de-internationalization process. The study sheds light on business relationship constructs - dependence, bond, investment, and atmosphere - and their influence on the key factors for internationalization - trust, knowledge and commitment - which in turn determine the strategic decision by firms to reduce their market involvement in foreign markets. It has been found out that these key factors of internationalization were affected by the relationship constructs mostly negatively: the market knowledge in majority of cases was lacking due to the weak bond, the commitment determined by unbalanced dependence and reduced investment has gradually decreased along the time and the level of trust influenced by a negative atmosphere was not sufficient enough which played a decisive role on the reduced level of market involvement by firms. Thus the results of the study indicate that unfortunate business relationships influenced the decision of three case companies to de-internationalize through the key factors of internationalization.

Manufacturing leaders seek strategies to improve cross-cultural business relationships because of the increasing demand for outsourcing, which requires strong partnerships among manufacturing supply chain members. The purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore successful strategies that manufacturing business leaders use to improve cross-cultural business relationships within their manufacturing supply chain. The targeted population included business leaders, fluent in English, within 1 company located at 2 different manufacturing sites in the Midwest region of the United States and the Northeast region of Mexico. The capability-based view theory was used to support knowledge sharing, trust, and strategic management. Methodological triangulation of the data from interviews, direct observations during site visits, and production documentation led to 4 themes. The 4 themes that emerged from thematic analysis were: information sharing, which was key to form a strong partnerships between the 2 manufacturing sites; the development of common business tools, which facilitates the development of common technical language that both sites understood and could translate into common expectations; training of business tools and processes, which expands knowledge sharing and best practices among the 2 sites; and understanding differences of people rather than culture. The implication for positive social change includes the potential to provide strategies to business leaders within various manufacturing industries on how to overcome the challenges of trust, information sharing, and resource management and provide successful cross-cultural business relationships and profitability.

This research addresses the question of whether there are personal characteristics of purchasing managers that lead them to make decisions regarding buyer-seller partnerships, and supplier sourcing in particular, that may be suboptimal, therefore affecting the performance of the firm. This question warrants study due to the current business environment, in which business firms have been entering into both formal and informal buyer-seller partnerships as a means of surviving in a highly competitive environment.

This thesis focuses on the process of initiating relationships in destination marketing and includes an in-depth case study of the Wallander film series. Destination marketing is unique due to its dependency on relationship creation – typically, dynamic contacts have to be established between the film company, its financial sponsors and the stakeholders in the designated destination. In order to understand how these relationships are created and their dynamics, this thesis explores the factors that impact the process of initiating relationships, called converters and inhibitors. The results reveal that views differ between the film production company and the regional authorities tied to the destination as to which factors that act as converters and inhibitors. While both parties agree that striving for mutual understanding & social chemistry are important converters, the production company further adds a receptive attitude & motivated approach and creatively driven visionaries as vital converters. The regional authorities on the other hand highlight mutual respect, passion/courage-driven visionaries and structure, transparency & communication as key converters. As for the inhibitors, the production company points to lack of motivation, lack of resources and lack of open-mindedness, while the regional authorities highlight lack of mutual understanding & respect, bureaucratic layers and industry-related cultural differences.