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INTEREST CATEGORY: INTERORGANIZATIONAL
POSTING TYPE: Calls: Journals

Posted by: Jaana Tähtinen

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INDUSTRIAL MARKETING MANAGEMENT

Call for Papers
Regenerating Business in Networks for a Better World
Deadline for submission: March 1st, 2025

Overview and Purpose of the Special Issue

Sustainable development is an essential topic in business practice, requiring companies not only to reduce their negative impact but also to actively make a positive contribution (Bocken et al., 2014; Huang et al., 2022; Sharma, 2020). Inter-organizational collaboration within business networks and across sectors is necessary to advance innovations and enable more sustainable production and consumption processes (Keränen et al., 2021). However, making a social impact on society at large remains a challenging task for companies, even when collaborating with NGOs (Brzustewicz et al., 2022).

As companies strive for more proactive efforts in creating a positive impact, research plays an active role in challenging, investigating, and leading the way forward. Yet, we lack knowledge about the role of marketing in improving our world (Chandy et al., 2021) and how marketing research and researchers can contribute positively (Bolton, 2022). In business marketing, this knowledge gap is significant. Given that B2B markets constitute a large part of the world economy, it is time to address how we can regenerate business-to-business marketing and collectively work toward a better world.

In this special issue, we aim to encourage research in sustainability areas that are either radical or remain understudied. Further research is needed on B2B marketing and strong sustainability, proactive approaches to sustainability, the societal goals outlined in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and a network perspective on advancing sustainability.

Sustainability research has predominantly focused on weak sustainability rather than strong sustainability. Weak sustainability refers to the explicit or implicitly accepted trade-off between the loss of natural resources and diversity, on one hand and increased human capabilities and skills on the other (Kuhlman & Farrington, 2010). To promote a better world, we must explore avenues that go beyond this trade-off. The strong sustainability framework suggests that ecological integrity cannot be harmed because without nature there is no human life, and without human life there is no economy (De Oliveira Neto et al., 2018). Advancing from weak to strong sustainability necessitates systemic changes that requires a network perspective, where nature should be an actor, not a resource (Harrison et al., 2023).

Of the three pillars of sustainability – economic, environmental and social – social sustainability remains the least explored in business studies (Ajmal et al., 2018). For example, the economic performance of sustainability innovations has been extensively studied, but their social performance has been ignored (Vasileiou et al., 2022). Yet, social sustainability is integral to sustainability and centrally related to achieving both environmental and economic sustainability. Core factors of social sustainability include fairness and equality, diminishing poverty, promoting health, education, delinquencies, demography, culture, and employee engagement (Ajmal et al., 2018). So far, we have largely neglected to study ways that B2B companies and networks could alleviate hunger or enhance gender equality and education (Voola et al., 2022). In addition, we know little about the relationship of business marketing with peace efforts.

Moreover, we need to know more about how to proactively work with various partners in networks, for example NGOs, governments, trade unions, and industry associations and how to use relationships as mediators to achieve positive environmental, but also social, and economic impact (Huang et al., 2022). In addition, we lack knowledge on how collaborative sustainable agency can deal with passive actors, those that resist proactive actions (Onkila et al., 2023), and those that have been silenced (D’Cruz et al., 2024). We know that even SMEs can enhance the sustainability of their networks (Jämsä et al., 2011) but we also need answers on how to expand sustainable transition to most networks, to prevent their diminishing and dissolution as sustainability becomes the new normal (Harrison et al., 2023).

Sample Topics

The special issue theme, “Regenerating business in networks for a better world”, thus calls for courageous research that, through the lenses of IMP research tradition and Interaction and Network Approach, examines business networks in the light of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The IMP research tradition stands for two main features: (1) a dynamic approach to economic exchange, and (2) empirically driven research on inter-organizational interactions, relationships, and networks. The regular IMP themes relate to marketing, purchasing, innovation, technological development, and management from an interactive perspective. However, we want to encourage research that goes beyond typical business marketing phenomena and contexts and examines topics relevant to developing a better world by employing IMP-related theories in new contexts or through new perspectives and multiple levels (micro, meso, macro).

This special issue aims to address the roles of all business market actors in promoting a better world. The submissions could focus on, for example,

• Business market actors’ proactive role(s) related to under-studied aspects of social sustainability; human rights, poverty, diversity, gender, social equality, and inclusion
• The various uses of business networks in promoting social sustainability
• The interdependence of the SDG goals in business practice
• Business market actors’ role(s) in promoting biodiversity
• Interorganizational strategic actions to enforce strong sustainability demands
• B2B companies’ role in promoting animal ethics
• The un-anticipated network consequences of B2B companies’ good deeds
• Hybrid B2B companies aiming to advance sustainability in relationships and networks
• Critical views on CSR research and practice in B2B markets
• The role of public policy in organizing collaboration and business networks for a better world
• The role of micro and small B2B companies in advancing sustainability.

Manuscript submission information:

Preparation and submission of paper and review process

Papers submitted must not have been published, accepted for publication, or presently be under consideration for publication elsewhere. Submissions should be about 6,000-8,000 words in length. Copies should be uploaded on Industrial Marketing Management’s by using the dropdown box for the special issue on VSI: IMP2024 Networks for a better world. All papers will be handled according to the guidelines (Kadic-Maglajlic et al., 2023) for guest editing of special issues of Industrial Marketing Management.

Authors are advised to refer to the prior to submission. Papers that do not comply with the Guide for Authors or are poorly written will be desk rejected. Manuscripts within the scope of the special issue (as described above) and for which there is a reasonable chance of conditional acceptance after no more than two rounds of revisions will enter the double-blind review process.

Important dates

• Submission opens: January 1, 2025
• Deadline for submission: March 1, 2025

Guest editors

• Pauliina Ulkuniemi (pauliina.ulkuniemi@oulu.fi), Professor, Oulu Business School, University of Oulu, Finland.
• Tuula Lehtimäki (tuula.lehtimaki@oulu.fi), Senior Research Fellow, Oulu Business School, University of Oulu, Finland.
• Morten H. Abrahamsen (morten.h.abrahamsen@bi.no), Associate Professor, BI Norwegian Business School, Norway.
• Jaana Tähtinen (jaana.tahtinen@utu.fi), Professor, Turku School of Economics, University of Turku, Finland.

References

Ajmal, M. M., Khan, M., Hussain, M., & Helo, P. (2018). Conceptualizing and incorporating social sustainability in the business world. International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology, 25(4), 327-339.

Bocken, N. M., Short, S. W., Rana, P., & Evans, S. (2014). A literature and practice review to develop sustainable business model archetypes. Journal of Cleaner Production, 65, 42-56.

Bolton, R. N. (2022). The convergence of sustainability and marketing: Transforming marketing to respond to a new world. Australasian Marketing Journal, 30(2), 107-112.

Brzustewicz, P., Escher, I., Hatami, A., Hermes, J., Keränen, A., & Ulkuniemi, P. (2022). Emergence of social impact in company–NGO relationships in corporate volunteering. Journal of Business Research, 140, 62-75. Chandy, R. K., Johar, G. V., Moorman, C., & Roberts, J. H. (2021). Better marketing for a better world. Journal of Marketing, 85(3), 1-9.

D’Cruz, P., Delannon, N., Kourula, A., McCarthy, L., Moon, J. & Spence, L. J. (2024). Contesting Social Responsibilities of Business: Centering Context, Experience and Relationality. Human Relations, in press. De Oliveira Neto, G. C., Pinto, L. F. R., Amorim, M. P. C., Giannetti, B. F., & de Almeida, C. M. V. B. (2018). A framework of actions for strong sustainability. Journal of Cleaner Production, 196, 1629-1643.

Harrison, D., Prenkert, F., Hasche, N., & Carlborg, P. (2023). Business networks and sustainability: Past, present and future. Industrial Marketing Management. 111, A10-A17.

Huang, Y., Surface, D. L., & Zhang, C. (2022). Corporate social responsibility and sustainability practices in B2B markets: A review and research agenda. Industrial Marketing Management, 106, 219-239. Jämsä, P., Tähtinen, J., Ryan, A., & Pallari, M. (2011). Sustainable SMEs network utilization: the case of food enterprises. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 18(1), 141-156. Keränen, O., Komulainen, H., Lehtimäki, T., & Ulkuniemi, P. (2021). Restructuring existing value networks to diffuse sustainable innovations in food packaging. Industrial Marketing Management, 93, 509-519. Kuhlman, T., & Farrington, J. (2010). What is sustainability?. Sustainability, 2(11), 3436-3448.

Onkila, T., Teerikangas, S., Koistinen, K., & Mäkelä, M. (2023). Sustainability agency in business: an interdisciplinary review and research agenda. In S. Russell, & R. Padfield (Eds.), A Research Agenda for Sustainability and Business (pp. 19-35). Edward Elgar Publishing.

Sharma, A. (2020). Sustainability research in business-to-business markets: An agenda for inquiry. Industrial Marketing Management, 88, 323-329.

Vasileiou, E., Georgantzis, N., Attanasi, G., & Llerena, P. (2022). Green innovation and financial performance: A study on Italian firms. Research Policy, 51(6), 104530.

Voola, R., Bandyopadhyay, C., Voola, A., Ray, S., & Carlson, J. (2022). B2B marketing scholarship and the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs): A systematic literature review. Industrial Marketing Management, 101, 12-32.