Rediscovering strategic content in ‘strong process’ research on business network innovation

• Published in: Industrial marketing management 2020-11, Vol.91, p.639-656
• Main Authors: van Fenema, Paul C., Keers, Bianca B.M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Business networks; Innovation; Pragmatism; Process research; Research philosophy; Value creation
• ISSN: 0019-8501; 1873-2062
• DOI: 10.1016/j.indmarman.2019.01.005

A strong process view on business networks takes ‘becoming’ as a starting point for understanding business networks and innovation. This view tends to leave the role of strategic content implicit and underdeveloped. Yet, embracing content from a process angle is important to obtain insight in the role of strategic intent and value transformation. A philosophical architecture for addressing this gap is currently lacking. In the context of business network innovation, this paper seeks to explore how content can remain theoretically relevant and how it can be inserted in a strong process view underpinning industrial marketing research. This conceptual paper makes a distinction between content-centric, process-content co-evolution, and process-centric philosophies. These are mutually exclusive and fail to cater to the gap introduced. A fourth strategy is introduced that adopts the process-centric view as a foundation but uses pragmatism and encapsulation to reach out to content research. The paper offers methodological considerations for empirical research and applies the resulting approach to industrial marketing. It concludes with implications for research in industrial marketing. •This paper problematizes and explores ‘content’ within a strong process research tradition•Current research includes content-centric, process-content co-evolution, and process-centric philosophies•A fourth strategy based on pragmatism and encapsulation is proposed to support research on business network innovation.