Purpose: The purpose is to identify and explore barriers to overcome for developing collaborative innovation between a global service supplier and two of its industrial customers in Sweden. Design/methodology/approach: The research had an action-based research approach in which the researchers were interacting and collaborating with the practitioners in the companies. The empirical part includes primary data from multiple interviews, and two workshops with dialogues with participants from the involved companies. The use of complementary data collection methods gave rich input to understanding the context for collaborative innovation, and to uncovering barriers, to develop solutions for collaborative innovation. The empirical barriers were analysed using theoretically derived barriers from a literature review. The analysis generated four broad themes of barriers which were discussed and led to conclusions and theoretical and practical implications on: the customer's safety culture, the business model, the parties' understanding of innovation and the management of collaborative innovation in supply chains. Findings: The thematic analysis generated four broad themes: the customer's safety culture, the business model, the parties' understanding of innovation and the management of collaborative innovation. These themes where analysed using theoretically derived barriers from a literature review. The industrial context, the understanding of innovation and its management created barriers. Originality/value: The unique access to the service supplier and its two independent industrial customers adds a rich contextual framing to the process of identifying and exploring the barriers to collaborative innovation. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of an industrial business context, the business logic in terms of business models and for the understanding and management of collaborative innovation.

Although previous studies have focused on companies that for some reason cease business operations, and on the ending of business relationships, less is known about once ceased business operations that are resumed at a later stage, embedded in the same or similar business network structures. Especially, there is little research on situ-ations where prior relationships reappear in the process of resuming business operations. To fill this gap, the purpose of this paper is to elaborate on resuming of business operations after a hiatus, a certain period of "business inactivity", and particularly on business network dynamics that can be influenced by reappearing prior relationships during the process of resuming business operations. Based on a single case study within the context of mining industry in Sweden, we add to the literature on business network dynamics by showing that resuming business operations implicates re-noding of a business network, involving both reappearing relationships as well as new relationships. Furthermore, our study operationalizes the concept of hiatus, showing that when resuming business operations, prior counterparts can act as gatekeepers, promoters, and facilitators that may hinder or support the resuming process.

Purpose

This study aims to contribute with an extended framework on synergy realisation in acquisitions. The study conceptualises synergy realisation after acquisitions, in interaction with other companies in a business network and that synergy can be the result of both intended and not intended actions.

Design/methodology/approach

The study is based on a company involved in acquisitions, being both the acquirer and the acquired. The data for analysis were collected through semi-structured interviews with managers involved in the described acquisition processes. The semi-structured interviews were guided by overarching themes to cover relevant areas of the described acquisitions.

Findings

This study develops a framework in which synergy is used as a concept in business networks. The framework offers a more dynamic perspective on acquisition processes and extends the view of acquisition performance beyond more financial and company internal aspects of acquisition processes. Further, the findings show that related companies such as customers and suppliers, play important roles in synergy realisation.

Practical implications

From a managerial perspective, the study shows the importance of understanding the underlying forces of integration processes.

Originality/value

The concept of synergy used in this study not only includes the companies integrated in an acquisition but also their business networks. Including the integrated companies and their business networks provides a more dynamic perspective from which to plan and realise synergy.

In this paper, the focus is on business activities that are reactivated after a break “of some sort”, such as B2B relationships that are first terminated, but later on reactivated. The purpose is to develop the understanding of such type of a phenomenon. We base our discussion on an integrative literature review of articles that explicitly or implicitly assume a break in their use of a re-term within different sub-fields of business studies. As our literature review shows, few of the articles explicitly focus on role of the break for the reactivation. 

No business day ends without news on a merger or an acquisition and most managers have experience of acquisitions and/or mergers. Mergers and acquisitions (M&A), that is, the acquisition of (the majority of) the shares in a target company or the legal unification of two organizations into one, are recurrent phenomena in business life (Cartwright and Schoenberg, 2006; Meglio and Risberg, 2010) appearing in waves (Martynova and Renneboog 2008; Shleifer and Vishny 1991). M&A not only result in changed shareholder value, but also in changed industry structures, reconsidered competitive landscapes, and form new key players in markets (Chandler, 1962; Cox, 2006; Finkelstein, 1997).

Stakeholder research (e.g., Parmar, Freeman, Harrison, Wicks, Prnell and de Colle, 2010; Rowley, 1997) emphasizes the multi-actor, multi-interest perspective to strategic decisions. A value chain perspective on firms suggests customers and suppliers as important stakeholders of firms (e. g., Normann and Ramirez, 1993) and indicates that customers and suppliers may actually act vis-à-vis an M&A. But the picture of customers and suppliers as tradable assets or potential beneficiaries from the acquirer’s point of view seems to dominate. In this paper we particularly address the stake at stake for customers and suppliers in M&A. The following questions are asked:

 To what extent are customers and suppliers acknowledged in the M&A literature?

 How are customer and supplier stakes in M&A described?

The objective is to get insights to secret temporary organization. We use project literature in our analysis of the case. We have a longitudinal case study method. Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolag (later on Saab) entered car manufacturing in 1949 with Saab 92. The company used the 2-stroke engine technology from a German DKW. In 1964 the Saab 96 was voted “Car of the Year” in Sweden. Exports rose from 9500 in 1960 to 16 860 by 1965. However, the domestic sales dropped from 29 000 in 1964 to 26 000 in 1965. No doubt, Saab was losing market. After Volkswagen's had acquired DKW in 1964 the 2-stroke engine was dropped. Saab was the last Western car to have it. The 4-stroke engine was essential for Saab. The motor lab realised that Ford Motor Co.’s (Ford) the new V4 engine was ideal. In 1964, Saab decided to install it in its models in 1966. A small secret organization, called operation Kajsa, tested the engine in Europe for a half a year, rebuilt a number of cars, wrote workshop manuals and purchased systems and parts. There were no major problems to install the new V4 engine. 600 cars were ready for launch in August 1966. In spring Saab had reduced the production. In June Ford informed its dealers in Sweden that the Saab 96 would have its V4 engine. The six-year contract with Ford had no export restrictions. Total sales increased from 37069 cars in 1966 to 45325 in 1967. The switch of the engine seemed to have been well-planned and the internal team worked well. The partners and suppliers were kept well informed. If the project had not been implemented in secrecy would the whole operation Kajsa have failed?