Paper info

Markets and Business Relationships in Supply Networks:Paradoxical or Complementary?- The Case of Supplying Fish from Norway to Japan

Erik Nesset and Per Engelseth

The paper was published at the 25th IMP-conference in Marseille, France in 2009.

The terms "markets" and "business relationships" are interrelated in both academic literature and when regarding business practice. However, the precise nature of this interrelationship of terms became unclear when empirical evidence from a global seafood network was analysed revealing phenomena that may be termed "business relationships" in contexts called "markets", and features of "markets" were detected in what commonly was regarded as "business relationships". Based on four narrative excerpts from case studies on seafood supply networks, a view of markets as an economic environment and business relationships as the immediate context of transactions is proposed. This represents a complementary relationship between "markets" and "business relationships".