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Introduction
Today's society faces a number of complex challenges, ranging from sustainability transitions to digitalization, as actors adopt new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) (Huang & Rust, 2021; Saura et al., 2021), engage with new collaboration partners, and explore new ways of working (Melander & Arvidsson, 2022; Ferreira et al., 2025; Vellesalu et al., 2025). Moreover, building resilience and reducing inequalities has become an urgent objective in today’s turbulent and conflict-ridden global context. The substantial challenges posed by ecological and digital transitions have recently been further compounded by major disruptions (Gereffi et al., 2025), including health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, wars such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and strategic and commercial barriers such as trade tariffs.
The current geopolitical context is highly turbulent and marked by rapid and, in some respects, unexpected developments. This results in changes to key players (Lechner et al., 2020) and to the skills that are both necessary and available (Guercini & Lechner, 2023) within an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment (Baran & Woznyj, 2020; Millar et al., 2018), especially at the international level (Buckley, 2020; Petricevic & Teece, 2019). In this context, interaction with partners and relationships within networks — when not undermined — can become even more important (Harrison, Prenkert, Hasche & Carlborg, 2023), providing reference points for forming judgments, making decisions (Guercini et al., 2022) and developing adaptive behaviors (Mouzas, 2022).
Interaction with other actors in the network therefore becomes an adaptive response to uncertainty. In an increasingly interconnected world, firms’ relationships and networks are more critical than ever. Emerging topics — such as how firms can address sustainability transitions while ensuring resilience, or how industrial networks can contribute to addressing grand challenges (Ciabuschi, Baraldi & Lindahl, 2020) — require further investigation. The Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) perspective (Gadde & Håkansson, 2001; Håkansson et al., 2009) offers a valuable lens for analyzing many contemporary business and public policy challenges.
This broadening of the themes to which the IMP approach can be applied presents an opportunity for the IMP community to experiment with new research methodologies. Indeed, some of today’s challenges likely require innovative and creative approaches — at the very least, as complements to existing tools and methodologies. Therefore, this Special Issue (SI) encourages the use of, or discussion about, novel methodological approaches, including applications of large language models (LLMs), machine learning, other AI tools (Grimes et al., 2023; Chodhury et al., 2020), computer-based simulations (Forkmann et al., 2012; Prenkert & Folgesvold, 2014), and action research (Perry & Gummeson, 2004; Shani & Coghlan, 2021), provided these analytical tools are applied to interorganizational issues.
Similarly, new themes and topics from the IMP perspective may require the adoption of non-conventional levels of analysis that go beyond the firm, business relationship, and network levels typical of the ARA model (Håkansson & Snehota, 1995) — for example, moving toward institutional or individual levels of analysis.
This Special Issue invites papers that provide one or both of the following contributions from an IMP perspective:
- Insights into emerging high-impact topics, such as applying IMP to analyze complex societal challenges or the use of AI in management;
- Methodological advancements for investigating these or similar challenges.
Submissions to this Special Issue may address the first contribution through empirical or conceptual studies, or the second by extending our understanding of the methodologies applicable to IMP-related research.
List of topic areas
While we welcome submissions on any of the above-mentioned issues or topics, we particularly encourage submissions in the following areas:
- How can the IMP perspective be applied to understand and investigate complex societal challenges and major transformations such as sustainability transitions, supply chain resilience, or emergency and disaster relief?
- How can the IMP approach help make sense of the role of public policies in these areas?
- The role of AI-based agents in business relationships and networks
- Network perspectives on modern and emerging B2B business models, such as circular or sharing business models
- How can the IMP view be applied at the individual level in emerging areas such as entrepreneurship research?
- Applying IMP at the macro- and institutional levels, including policy analysis, or using IMP for multi-level analysis of complex, multi-sectoral networks involving heterogeneous organizations and actors
- What can new methodological approaches — such as AI and LLMs, computer-based simulations, and action research — contribute to IMP-related studies?
- How can these methodologies, which are relatively new to the IMP tradition, be practically applied?
Submissions Information
Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available here.
Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see here.
Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to ““Please select the issue you are submitting to”.
Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.
Key deadlines
Opening date for manuscripts submissions: 30/09/2025
Closing date for manuscripts submission: 30/04/2026
Guest Editors
Lisa Govik, Chalmers University, Sweden, lisa.govik@chalmers.se
Enrico Baraldi, Uppsala University, Sweden, enrico.baraldi@fek.uu.se
Frans Prenkert, Örebro University School of Business, Sweden, frans.prenkert@oru.se
Andrea Perna, Polytechnic University of Marche, Italy and Uppsala University, Sweden, a.perna@univpm.it
Simone Guercini, University of Florence, Italy, simone.guercini@unifi.it
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