Business interaction and institutional work: When intermediaries make efforts to change their position

Sophie Michel (), Florent Saucede (), Catherine Pardo and Hervé Fenneteau
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Sophie Michel: UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg
Florent Saucede: UMR MOISA - Marchés, Organisations, Institutions et Stratégies d'Acteurs - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - Montpellier SupAgro - Centre international d'études supérieures en sciences agronomiques - CIHEAM-IAMM - Centre International de Hautes Etudes Agronomiques Méditerranéennes - Institut Agronomique Méditerranéen de Montpellier - CIHEAM - Centre International de Hautes Études Agronomiques Méditerranéennes - Montpellier SupAgro - Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier, Montpellier SupAgro - Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier
Catherine Pardo: EM Strasbourg - École de Management de Strasbourg = EM Strasbourg Business School
Hervé Fenneteau: UM - Université de Montpellier

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Abstract: A company's ability to change its position (its relationships with others) depends on a shared interpretation among business network actors of what the company wants to do. The purpose of this study is to examine change in the position of actors in a business network setting. We use the institutional work approach to understand positioning in a business network as an institutional arrangement and explore actors' purposive efforts to maintain or disrupt the rules of the game. We use a multiple case-study approach to explore the fruit and vegetable distribution channel. We discuss what happens when the institutional work carried out by retailers to disrupt the position of wholesalers meets the institutional work carried out by wholesalers to maintain their position. The findings show how interacting institutional efforts result in new positions for wholesalers: the "troubleshooter" position and the "quality enhancer" role. Our study contributes to the field of business-to-business marketing in that it sheds light on the co-creation process of the rules of the game that drive business-to-business interactions. With reference to institutional theory, our study draws on the idea that institutional arrangements are unanticipated consequences of interactions between actors.

Keywords: interaction; institutional work; business network; intermediation; position (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-02624331v1
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published in Industrial Marketing Management, 2019, 80, pp.266-279. ⟨10.1016/j.indmarman.2018.06.005⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02624331

DOI: 10.1016/j.indmarman.2018.06.005

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