This JBR Special Issue is to provide a forum for the further

development and application of a resource interaction approach

to the study of inter-organizational relationships and networks.

While this approach has emerged from within the Industrial

Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) Group, the resource interaction

approach has an interdisciplinary discourse involving

innovation and new product development, strategic management,

and Science and Technology Studies (STS).

Instead of focusing on the allocation of internal resources,

the resource interaction approach emphasizes the interactions

and combinations of resources at the inter-organizational level.

Resources can be technical, organizational and knowledge

based. The key point is that the value of resources depends on

their combinations with other resources, located both inside and

outside firm boundaries. The Special Issue should provide

answers to the following questions. How does the value of a

certain product emerge from its interactions with other

resources? What possibilities and barriers to developing a

focal resource (e.g., a facility or a business unit) derive from the

resource interfaces that embed it? How do actors influence

resource combinations and what management controls do they

apply to affect resources in the network? The Editors of this

JBR Special Issue welcome submissions building from the

following potential (but not restricted) themes:



• The possibilities and challenges in managing networks of

resources

• New insights on logistics and supply networks that analyzing

resource interactions can provide

• The role of users in the creation, development and combination

of resources

• The process of gaining and using knowledge in resource

combining and its relation to value creation

• The management control and accounting of resource

combinations at the inter-organizational level

• Internationalization processes and MNC headquarter–

subsidiaries relations from a resource interaction perspective

• The role of resource interactions in the development and

practice of routines and strategic capabilities across firm

boundaries

• The process of new product development and technology

innovation from a resource interaction perspective.



Deadline for submission: 15th July 2009



All manuscripts should follow the general guidelines for

authors of Journal of Business Research. Manuscripts should not

have been published or be under consideration at other journals.

Please submit your paper electronically to each of the JBR Special

Issue Editors: Enrico Baraldi, Uppsala University, Sweden

(Enrico.Baraldi@fek.uu.se); Espen Gressetvold, Trondheim

Business School, Norway (Espen.Gressetvold@hist.no); Debbie

Harrison, BI Norwegian School of Management, Norway

(Debbie.Harrison@bi.no).