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This paper aims to develop a process model of business-to-business (B2B) relationship recovery after a transgression has placed the future of the relationship in doubt. The research questions ask, How are relationships recovered? and How does the relationship strength pre-transgression influence the recovery process?

The process model is empirically grounded with first-hand narratives of owner managers (OMs) and key personnel of Irish small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Using the critical incident technique, 25 owner and manager interviews in 23 SMEs resulted in 48 recovery narratives.

The findings identify four types of outcomes flowing from two potential recovery process paths. The strength of the relationship pre-transgression and the desire to maintain the relationship influence the parties’ actions during the recovery process and the status of the relationship subsequently.

The authors acknowledge that each narrative in the data are the informants’ construction of the phenomenon. The B2B relationship recovery process model offers OMs and SMEs a blueprint of what to expect, and how they might reach for recovery instead of the relationship ending.

Prior studies either treat recovery as a minor part of an ending process or focus on a single sub-process, leaving the overall process under-researched. This study contributes to the B2B relationship dynamics discussion with a processual view of the overall recovery process, including recovery sub-processes, paths and temporal outcomes in different types of relationships and takes into account the pre-transgression relationship.

Research regarding the quality of e-tailers’ service during product returns is sparse and the little that has been performed treats returns as recovery from failure. However, that view is outdated. E-tailers' product return practices have substantially evolved and customers' return behavior has considerably increased, in turn, influencing expectations of customers. Thus, a need arises to revise the understanding of how customers evaluate the quality of e-tailers' service during product returns. This study conceptualizes customer-perceived e-return service quality, identifies e-return's current dimensions, and offers directions for measurement.

This study is conducted in two stages. The first stage follows an abductive approach, with a continuous back-and-forth movement between existing theory and two qualitative data sets to identify the dimensions of e-return service quality. Scale development process is started in the second stage to offer directions for measurement based on the empirically grounded dimensions.

The conceptualization of e-return service quality identifies six dimensions: (1) owning of responsibility, (2) return convenience, (3) return remedies, (4) service team support, (5) site's return friendliness, and (6) returns diligence. The factor analysis supports the six-factor solution that can be employed for developing a valid scale in future.

The study suggests that e-tailers who are looking to differentiate themselves through superior e-return service quality should focus on customizing their service through excellent performance on these dimensions.

The paper updates and refines the understanding of service quality in the context of product returns service provided by e-tailers and thus offers a novel contribution.

This paper aims to discuss business relationships drawing to an end, and the reasons why company managers should attempt to restore the relationship instead of terminating it.

The study applies a qualitative method and in‐depth interviews with companies in the North Sea oil industry.

The paper offers two contributions. First, it suggests an empirically grounded categorization of attenuating factors, i.e. the reasons to restore a relationship. Second, the categorization is extended to attenuating analysis, through which the value of the troubled relationship can be clarified. Thereafter, if the relationship is considered worth restoring, the managers may actively engage in restoring actions.

Because this study is limited to one business setting, future research applying the attenuating analysis to other industries by using action research is suggested.

The study improves the awareness of inter‐organizational risk, enhances the manager's ability to assess the risk of losing a core relationship, and implements a method to reduce this risk. Troubled but valuable business relationships can be saved by applying the suggested attenuating analysis.

To one's knowledge, this is the first study that both systematically identifies the reasons for not leaving a business partner, and provides a practical framework for restoring a relationship based on the attenuating factors.

The purpose of this paper is to describe an episodic detoxification treatment relationship as a complex dyadic interaction.

The paper is inspired by a grounded theory approach. The first author worked in the field at a Finnish detoxification center in the autumn of 2007, 2008, and 2009. The resultant data have been analyzed thematically to form a process model.

An empirically grounded process model consisting of four states; an initiation state, a fading state, a development state, and an ending state. Each state may include events enabling the process to progress and others that hinder it.

By focussing on an under-studied view of relationships, as dyadic, mental and behavioral, and successful and failing, the model highlights the complexity of the treatment. Furthermore, the model can be used to allocate resources (time, work) to the process states in which they are most needed to aid the success of the relationship.

Interorganisational buyer‐seller relationships have been primarily studied from the perspective of relationship development and the benefits accrued from relationships. There is a lack of research concerning problems with relationships and relationship dissolution. The dissolution of a business relationship can be either desirable, freeing badly deployed resources, as indicated by the customer portfolio approach, or harmful, involving costly legal disputes and the loss of company reputation. By employing a theory‐driven case study approach we examine the exit strategies available for the disengager in dissolving interorganisational buyer‐seller relationships. We show that the quality of dissolution is affected by the disengager’s choice of exit strategy. Managerial suggestions are provided for achieving “beautiful exits”, i.e. such communication strategies which minimise damages of the dissolution to the disengager, the other party, and the connected business network.

This research is about the ending of business relationships: what that is, why it happens, and how an extant relationship dissolves. Ending of buyer‐seller relationships has very recently attracted increased research attention. This article adds to the existing knowledge by developing a process model to understand, in particular, how dissolution advances in a professional service context. The model aims to attend the major shortcomings of existing research and distinguishes three conceptual categories: the type of relationship and its ending, the factors that influence the process, and the ending process per se. It is concluded that the ending process is always both temporally and contextually embedded and to a significant degree actor‐driven; a picture of idiosyncrasy rather than deterministic development. The article ends by discussing managerial implications and making suggestions for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the competences needed for managing competitive bidding in the Finnish healthcare and to understand the management of competitive bidding holistically, considering the challenges the management faces from being embedded in focal nets and the wider network.

The phenomenon is examined from the perspective of networks. This focus acknowledges the fact that competitive bidding changes the dynamics of the network and therefore requires new competences from the actors. The study applies qualitative methods.

Competitive bidding connects effects, interests, resources and actors together. It changes the dynamics of the net and the network. Thus, new competences are required. Three major competence areas were detected: relationship management competences, net management competences and purchasing competences.

The conclusions shed light on the combination of competences needed in managing competitive bidding in healthcare networks.

The purpose of this paper is to examine why retailers' perceptions of the value of a novel technology‐intensive mobile advertising service differ.

The research design follows an abductive approach. The empirical data were gathered through a field experiment by interviewing retailers who used a mobile advertising service for the first time.

This study suggests a categorisation of customer‐perceived value sub‐elements in a novel technology‐intensive business‐to‐business (b‐to‐b) service consisting of two outcome‐level benefits, three process‐level benefits, and two types of sacrifices, i.e. monetary and non‐monetary. Furthermore, the study suggests that the value elements are not of equal importance. Different retailers value different threshold benefits that influence their willingness to use the service. Moreover, the retailers' participation in value co‐creation with a service provider influences the value perceived from the service.

This experimental empirical setting involves two limitations. The trial period was relatively short and, due to the development stage of the service, the use of the service was offered free of charge. Therefore, future research should be conducted with commercialised novel technology services.

Retailers differ according to their willingness and ability to use novel technology‐intensive services, which also reflects how they perceive value and what kind of value they perceive. Thus, mobile service providers need to consider offering different service packages to different types of customers. Service providers also need to ensure that retailers are aware of all the commercial and non‐commercial benefits of the novel service. Retailers should realise that the commercial potential of mobile advertising is different from the traditional means of advertising.

For a research audience, the study extends the existing research on value creation by focusing on retailers' different value perceptions of a novel technology‐intensive b‐to‐b service. For developers of an innovative technology‐intensive service, the study shows the different customer types and how they influence buying decisions.

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.

The empirical part of the paper presents a qualitative futures study that employs the Delphi method and scenario planning.

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.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the internal and external corporate branding activities of micro-sized industrial business services companies.

An abductive research approach and a case study method were used. Data were gathered with thematic interviews from three sources, a case company, its distributors, and its end customers.

A model for building a corporate brand identity and image in a micro-sized industrial business services company was devised. Key activities, including defining company values and the business idea, designing, managing and stabilizing the service process, utilizing holistic corporate communications, networking as well as activating and retaining stakeholders and utilizing feedback, to build a corporate brand were identified.

As the importance of the internal branding can be presumed to rise with headcount, the repeatability of this study is weakened by the case organization being a micro company. Several suggestions for future research can be made based on this study: the causality of the presented model ' s connections with quantitative methods, the network branding and service company brand hierarchies.

This paper shows how a micro company can build its brand, without deploying extra resources. Moreover, it suggests ways of utilizing external resources, by exploring how the company ' s stakeholders can participate in the branding process.

This study expands the service branding literature to industrial services micro companies by identifying activities that they can undertake.