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This paper aims to contribute by providing a more comprehensive understanding of the inter-relatedness of business goals among firms in strategic networks by exploring the following research question: How do different business goals coexist in networks? When joining a strategic network, firms are likely to pursue goals of self–interest, as well as those of collective interests. Goal formulation and joint network activities provide vital information toward investigating how firms utilize their network for the purpose of accessing, capturing and integrating the efforts of others to achieve their own goals.

The empirical basis is a case study of a strategic network of food producers in Denmark. Twenty qualitative face-to-face interviews with strategic network member firms constitute the empirical data that are analyzed using the software Leximancer.

This research combines the goal formulation and business of a single firm with the collective and joint effort of a strategic network to help broaden our knowledge of how different goals and strategies coexist in networks. A typology of business goals in networks is developed. Appellations of “Achievers”, “Wishers” and “Harvesters” help to characterize the different types of goal formulation strategies in these networks.

It is not appropriate to make statistical generalizations based upon this study.

This research aims to contribute by providing a more comprehensive understanding of the inter-relatedness of formulated goals, choices and interactions among firms in a strategic network context.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for understanding how problem formulation, information search and division of work in new product development (NPD) activities is shaped by mind sets vested in organizations with diverging positions in the value chain and correspondingly situated knowledge contexts. The authors aim to focus on how this influences the marketability of new product ideas.

The empirical data are derived from exploratory observation studies of NPD meetings and interviews of involved managers and specialists in three business dyads. The cases involve ingredient and meat suppliers, retail chains and marketing agencies located in Denmark.

The authors show that the scope and organization of NPD activities indeed are shaped by the combinations of situated knowledge contexts involved. An important intervening variable however concerns the atmosphere of the relationship, involving emotions and attitudes of the actors involved from foregone exchange situations.

For managers of NPD activities, the relationship between the knowledge contexts involved, the concept development outcomes and the marketability of new product ideas are important factors to take into consideration in organizing supplier or buyer involvement in NPD.

The value of the paper is primarily related to its empirical contexts and the findings.

The need for innovations to achieve economically viable and green supply chains has been illuminated in recent literature. Closed‐loop supply chains are part of green supply chain management and include traditional forward supply‐chain activities as well as additional activities of the reverse supply chain. Extant supply chain literature calls for a chain perspective in order to avoid sub‐optimization in the chain since changes at one stage can affect the performance at other stages. The purpose of the paper is to analyze how implementation of green supply chain innovations can enhance value offerings along the supply chain.

This research is based on an explorative, single‐embedded case study of a food supply chain. The case is concerned with implementation of green supply chain innovation in terms of biogas technology. The single case comprises four actors in the food supply chain: a retailer, an industrial bakery, a mill, and a farmer. Data collection is based on semi‐structured interviews with persons responsible for sustainability in the respective companies.

The case demonstrates that in order to reach the full potential of a green supply chain innovation, the different supply chain actors must be included. What in isolation of one company's perspective is perceived as a waste can be transformed to a value when the problem area is analysed from a chain perspective.

The paper is based on a single case study that does not provide static generalizations, and it represents the first step on a road to building new theory about green supply chain innovations. Future research can expand the findings by elaborating upon cases of other types of supply chains and supply chain innovations.

The perception of waste in a supply chain can be changed through green supply chain innovations. This case illustrates how obsolete food products at the retail level, which traditionally have been perceived as a waste product with related discarding costs, can be regarded as a valued input by implementation of biogas technology at the industrial bakery company. As a result, other food supply chains can investigate similar solutions.

The paper provides a case that visualizes how value offerings along a food supply chain can be chased through green supply chain innovations. Furthermore, the paper applies a supply chain perspective not only conceptually but also empirically. By focusing on the interfaces between each main actor in the supply chain, this paper contributes to existing research with valuable knowledge of inter‐organizational issues related to challenges of supply chain innovation.