Teea Palo

A network perspective on business models for emerging technology‐based services

Purpose – This study seeks to identify the generic elements of a business model in the field of technology‐based services and uses those elements to build a networked business model. A networked business model reflects a situation when it is impossible for a single company to govern all the relevant resources and activities needed in developing, producing, and marketing technology‐based services.Design/methodology/approach – The empirical part of the paper presents a qualitative futures study that employs the Delphi method and scenario planning.Findings – The paper presents a framework describing the core elements of a networked business model, and shows how it can be applied in developing business model scenarios for technology‐based services.Originality/value – By examining the business model from a network perspective, the study creates conceptual tools for both researchers and managers to describe, plan and develop future business models.

Key account management in business-to-business expert organisations: an exploratory study on the implementation process

Building long-term and close customer relationships is an ever-salient function in business-to-business organisations and, especially, in expert organisations where high levels of trust and close customer interaction are needed in the production of the services. A key account management (KAM) system, an organised way for managing key customers, can be a useful tool for this purpose. However, there are many factors to consider when implementing such a system in this context. The aim of this article is to describe the specific and challenging characteristics of KAM implementation in expert organisations. In particular, this article aims to describe the kinds of organisational capabilities required for KAM system implementation and what kind of KAM organisation is appropriate to dovetail with particular organisational characteristics. This study is based on a qualitative single-case study in an expert organisation constructing its KAM practices for the first time.

Performing a Myth to Make a Market: The construction of the ‘magical world’ of Santa:

If you believe in Santa, do not read this paper. Through an in-depth, qualitative, empirical study, we follow the Santa myth to a remote northern location in Lapland, Finland where, for one month a year, multiple actors come together to create a tourist market offering: the chance to visit Santa in his ‘magical world’. We explore how the myth is transformed into reality through performative, organisational speech acts, whereby felicitous conditions for the performance of visits to Santa are embedded in a complex socio-material network. We develop the performative turn (Gond et al., 2016) in organisational studies by introducing a new category of speech act, ‘translocution’, a compendium of imagining, discussing, proposing, negotiating and contracting that transforms the myth into a model of an imaginary-real world. Through translocutionary acts, actors calculate, organise the socio-material networks of the market, and manage the considerable uncertainty inherent in its operation. Details of the myth become market facts, while commercial constructs fade into the imaginary. The result, when felicitous conditions are achieved, is a ‘Merry Christmas’ of magical, performative power.

Kitchen concerns at the boundary between markets and consumption: agencing practice change in times of scarcity (Husmodern, Sweden 1938–1958)

ABSTRACT This paper investigates practice dynamics in kitchens situated at the boundary between markets and consumption. The kitchen is conceptualized as a market-consumption junction, a space where multiple concerned actors in markets and consumption come to shape, and get shaped by, the practices in the kitchen. Drawing upon archival research of the Swedish household magazine Husmodern (1938–1958), this study traces two matters of concern in and around the kitchen: the scarcity of resources in food markets and the scarcity of time to prepare food for consumption. Findings reveal how thrifty and convenient practices became enacted, and their transformative implications for consumption, demand, and market action. The mechanisms involved in disrupting and reconnecting the dynamic elements of practices (meaning, competence, and objects) are explained through the notions of concerning, agencing, and overflows, which recursively work to redraw the boundaries between markets and consumption to establish novel practices.