Social Relationships: The Secret Ingredient of Synergistic Venture Cooperation

Abstract

Abstract Social relationships play an important role in organizational entrepreneurship. They are crucial to entrepreneurs’ decisions because, despite the bleeding-edge technological advancements observed nowadays, entrepreneurs as human beings will always strive to be social. During the COVID-19 pandemic many companies moved activities into the virtual world and as a result offline Social relationships became rarer, but as it turns out, even more valuable, likewise, the inter-organizational cooperation enabling many companies to survive.This chapter aims to develop knowledge about entrepreneurs’ SR and their links with inter-organizational cooperation. The results of an integrative systematic literature review show that the concept of Social relationships, although often investigated, lacks a clear definition, conceptualization, and operationalization. This chapter revealed a great diversity of definitions for Social relationships, including different scopes of meaning and levels of analysis. The authors identify 10 building blocks and nine sources of entrepreneurs’ Social relationships. The authors offer an original typology of Social relationships using 12 criteria. Interestingly, with regard to building blocks, besides those frequently considered such as trust, reciprocity and commitment, the authors also point to others more rarely and narrowly discussed, such as gratitude, satisfaction and affection. Similarly, the authors discuss the varied scope of sources, including workplace, family/friendship, past relationships, and ethnic or religious bonds. The findings of this study point to a variety of links between Social relationships and inter-organizational cooperation, including their positive and negative influences on one another. These links appear to be extremely dynamic, bi-directional and highly complex. Keywords Integrative review Systematic literature review Organizational entrepreneurship Social/interpersonal relationships Inter-organizational cooperation Trust Citation Czernek-Marszałek, K., Klimas, P., Juszczyk, P. and Wójcik, D. (2023), "Social Relationships: The Secret Ingredient of Synergistic Venture Cooperation", Ferreira, J.J. and Murphy, P.J. (Ed.) Bleeding-Edge Entrepreneurship: Digitalization, Blockchains, Space, the Ocean, and Artificial Intelligence (Contemporary Issues in Entrepreneurship Research, Vol. 16), Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 51-90. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2040-724620230000016005 Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited Copyright © 2023 Katarzyna Czernek-Marszałek, Patrycja Klimas, Patrycja Juszczyk and Dagmara Wójcik License This chapter is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this chapter (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode. 1. Introduction Social relationships (SR), that is,, interpersonal relationships based on emotional intensity (resulting, e.g., from trust, friendship, shared passions, etc.) analyzed from the perspective of various theories or concepts (e.g., the theory of social networks or social capital), have been a subject of interest among researchers in many scientific disciplines. Researchers in the field of economics or management more and more often use achievements of their own and other disciplines (e.g., sociology or psychology) to analyze the importance of SR for economic activities, including organizational entrepreneurship. This is confirmed by many studies, in which the importance of SR is examined in the context of various sectors, for example, the biotech sector (Pina-Stranger & Lazega, 2011; Rank, 2014), tourism (Czernek-Marszałek, 2020a, 2020b; Ghazali, 2005), wine production (Lewis, Byrom, & Grimmer, 2015), agriculture (Cush & Macken-Walsh, 2016), clothing sector (Uzzi, 1996), etc. Generally, business relationships are acknowledged as embedded in a wide range of SR (Casanueva & González, 2004; Ekanayake, Childerhouse, & Sun, 2017; Granovetter, 2005) and this concerns especially entrepreneurs’ SR (Shu, Ren, & Zheng, 2018). What is more, patterns of lasting SR between people constitute social networks (Jenssen, 2001), and SR are an important part of an entrepreneur’s social capital (Coleman, 1988). Literature shows that social networks have a positive effect on entrepreneurship, which covers the creation of new enterprises (including startups), the initial idea for the new business, innovation, employing people, accessing tacit knowledge and even the management of small enterprises (e.g., Hite, 2003; Jiang, Liu, Fey, & Jiang, 2018; Granovetter, 2005; Nielsen, 2020; Sorenson, 2018; Stuart & Sorenson, 2005; Ulhøi, 2005; Uzzi, 1997, 1999). SR give access to resources that an entrepreneur needs especially for the startup process (Stam, Arzlanian, & Elfring, 2014; Stuart & Sorenson, 2005). In this perspective, the importance of external, structural influences on the creation, selection and survival of new ventures is indicated (Sorenson, 2018; Stuart & Sorenson, 2005). Authors claim that individual configurations of SR contribute to greater opportunities for value creation within organizational entrepreneurship in particular, mainly by using external sources of knowledge and technology (Jiang et al., 2018; Li, Wang, Huang, & Bai, 2013; Nielsen, 2020; Shu et al., 2018; Stam et al., 2014). Thus, the entrepreneur must be explicit about own personal network in order to become recognized and able to acquire the resources needed (Littunen, 2000). The personal network also gives the entrepreneur flexibility (Jarillo, 1989). The entrepreneur does not have to buy the resources and keep them as an ordinary asset in the business. Connections with family or friends, who are not directly involved in the business, may assure information and other resources needed. When relationships are developed outside the firm’s boundaries, “two major constraints are cut: time and money” (Dubini & Aldrich, 1991, p. 306). In the social network literature is stressed that the initial network directly influences not only entrepreneurship understood as a readiness to build a new company, but also the later development of the entrepreneur’s network during the entrepreneurial process. SR are often developed long before the entrepreneurial process. Entrepreneurs without such relationships may have a hard time creating them (Jenssen, 2001; Sorenson, 2018). In everyday activity entrepreneurs do not make business decisions in a vacuum, but rather consult them before and are subtly influenced by their relationships with significant others in their environment: family, friends, co-workers, employers, casual acquaintances, etc. It is stressed that everyday support is provided at two levels – next to the formal one – at the informal one, that is, from friends and relatives of aspiring business owners (Aldrich & Zimmer, 1986). However, despite the call for an examination of the intricate relationship between organizational entrepreneurship (manifested in entrepreneurs’ different types of activity) and the social network context (Hoang & Yi, 2015), the links between using network resources to fulfill one’s entrepreneurial ambitions, unfortunately, remain largely unclear. One of the most important elements in an entrepreneur’s activity is establishing and developing inter-organizational cooperation (e.g., BarNir & Smith, 2002; Ekanayake et al., 2017; Hajderllari, 2015). Inter-organizational cooperation (COOP) has been the subject of researchers’ interest for many years (e.g., Anderson, 2008; Gulati, 1999; Hedvall, Jagstedt, & Dubois, 2019; Tsai & Ghoshal, 1998; Zaefarian, Forkmann, Mitręga, & Henneberg, 2017). Such inter-organizational cooperation is not, however, established and developed impersonally, but primarily through the use of interpersonal relationships of people representing cooperating organizations – that is, entrepreneurs – company owners/managers and employees at various levels (Bian & Ang, 1997; Cai & Du, 2017; Ghazali, 2005; Rank, 2014; Shu et al., 2018; Wang, Childerhouse, Kang, Huo, & Mathrani, 2016). As shown by BarNir and Smith (2002, p. 227), 11–22% of the variance in the degree to which firms engage in strategic alliances can be explained by the SR of senior executives. Additionally, as shown by Wang et al. (2016), inter-organizational cooperation is triggered and positively affected not only by the SR of senior managers but also by those of managers, engineers or even production workers. Although it seems that SR and their impact on entrepreneurship and inter-organizational cooperation have already been widely researched in the literature (e.g., Henneberg, Naudé, & Mouzas, 2010; Lewis et al., 2015; Sharafizad & Brown, 2020; Sorenson, 2018; Stuart & Sorenson, 2005; Uzzi, 1997; Wang et al., 2016), there are a few important reasons why SR should be continued to pay attention to. Despite the rapid technological progress and ubiquitous digitization, including replacing people with machines in many areas of life, decisions in enterprises are still made by entrepreneurs who, as human beings, will always strive to establish and develop SR. It should be emphasized that in the COVID-19 pandemic the digitization processes have intensified even more, and many entrepreneurs have decided to move their activities to the virtual world. As a result, there has been a loosening of many SR in business. While acting in the virtual world has enabled or helped many companies to survive on the market, it has also made it clear that offline SR may not always be replaced with online relationships (Green, Tappin, & Bentley, 2020). SR have become rarer and therefore even more valuable nowadays. Also inter-organizational cooperation, often based on previously established social relations, has become more important for many enterprises, as it has often made it easier for them to survive in a difficult time of a pandemic (Al-Omoush, Simón-Moya, & Sendra-García, 2020). It should be noted that as a result of the pandemic and rapid digitization, the specificity of SR and cooperation will most likely change, if only because of the importance of hybrid relations. All this makes it worth paying attention to SR and their links with cooperation, which can be the starting point for the future study of SR in completely new conditions of COVID-19 accelerated digitization. Finally, some cognitive and empirical gaps can still be identified in the literature, especially regarding SR themselves, as links between them and inter-organizational cooperation, are crucial in entrepreneurs’ activity. With the reference to these gaps, SR are not clearly defined in the literature. Since they are of interest in a variety of fields and scientific disciplines, various perspectives (e.g., community vs. individual) and terms (e.g., ties, bonds, links, relations, interactions, connections, etc.) are used in reference to them. Importantly, however, these do not necessarily refer to the same phenomenon. Moreover, authors often use the concept of SR, but do not define them nor explain what they actually mean by such relationships (probably as they assume that this is a commonly used and widely known term). Thus, the literature lacks coherence and unambiguity when it comes to a definition for and even an understanding of SR (Marsden, 1990; Poros, 2001). Therefore, consistent, clear conceptualization and transparent operationalization of SR is needed (Czernek-Marszałek, 2020a, 2020b; Jack, Dodd, & Anderson, 2008; Marsden, 1990). SR research uses various theories and concepts (e.g., social capital, social networking, social embeddedness, social exchange, etc. – Oliver & Ebers, 1998). Such practices further intensify the chaos in the literature (Marsden, 1990), but also determine the incomparability of research findings. In referring to the theories/concepts concerning SR, they often have a different genesis, assume a different view and thus also a different understanding of SR, which – in turn – quite often remains undiscussed. Furthermore, regarding the levels of analysis, the literature presents phenomena related to SR at the micro, meso and macro levels (Felin & Foss, 2009; Raub, Buskens, & Van Assen, 2011). This means that although authors declare that they are researching SR, in fact, they are often researching other phenomena, such as social capital at the macro-level between collectives or individuals who remain anonymous to one another. The literature lacks a SR typology. If there are typologies (e.g., Granovetter, 1973; Zhuang et al., 2012) they are neither exhaustive nor exclusive. As SR are varied and complex (i.e., consisting of different types of bonds, identified by using different and overlapping criteria), their categorization would contribute to greater transparency in research, thus to research comparability. It would also lead to a reduction in the obstacles to knowledge accumulation (Boon, Den Hartog, & Lepak, 2019) and knowledge development (Durach, Kembro, & Wieland, 2017; Fisch & Block, 2018). The focus of research is often toward individually considered features (e.g., informality, emotionality, etc.) and/or components (e.g., trust, engagement, etc.) of SR and their influence on entrepreneurs’ decisions (Granovetter, 2005; Jack et al., 2008; Uzzi, 1996). A review of the literature shows that SR components are relatively numerous and varied (e.g., Czernek-Marszałek, 2020a, 2020b; Granovetter, 2005; Jack et al., 2008; Uzzi, 1997). Quite often, these components are not exclusive and their understanding is either overlapping or partially substitutive. The components include trust, respect, friendship, reciprocity, engagement, knowledge about a partner, etc. (Czernek-Marszałek, 2021; Kale, Singh, & Perlmutter, 2000; Luo, 2001; Shu et al., 2018). However, there is a lack of works identifying and organizing the most important components and features of SR, as well as of papers analyzing not only individual components or features of SR, but the entire set. Our research reveals and describes such a pool of components and features of SR in the form of SR building blocks. The literature focuses on the importance of SR for entrepreneurs’ business activity, that is, SR implications, while the sources of establishing SR (places, family/friendship ties, experiences, and other conditions, etc., that create an individual and specific context in which the entities could establish a given relationship) are analyzed in a limited and selective manner. At the same time, the literature analysis provides evidence that there is a great diversity of sources of SR, from joint membership in organizations (clubs, associations, networks, etc.), through a shared territory, ethnicity, previous jobs, passions, experiences, etc. (Bastian & Tucci, 2017; Mehta, Maretzki, & Semali, 2011; Milana & Maldaon, 2015; Turner, 2007; Yoon & Hyun, 2010). Sources of SR are either inadvertently analyzed or only some of them receive more attention (e.g., ethnic or national origin – Portes & Sensenbrenner, 1993; Turner, 2007). The literature lacks the identification of various sources of SR and their analysis from their origin point of view, that is, the social context in which they are built. This is all the more surprising as the literature emphasizes that such context, for SR analysis, is critical (Granovetter, 1985; Uzzi, 1997). Several studies show the positive influence of SR not only on business activity in general but also on inter-organizational cooperation (e.g., Cohen & Prusak, 2001; Granovetter, 2005; Gulati, 1995; Wang et al., 2016). Without trust, treated often as a critical component of SR (Chassagnon & Audran, 2011; Granovetter, 1985; Macke & Dilly, 2010; Staber, 2007; Wang et al., 2016), cooperation is difficult or even impossible to initiate (Czernek, 2014). Nonetheless, some results also show the impact of entrepreneurs’ SR on cooperation as negative (Anderson & Jap, 2005; Czernek-Marszałek, 2020b; Luo, 1997; Mitręga & Zolkiewski, 2012). Although this is an interesting issue, there is relatively little research showing this negative impact of SR on economic activity, in particular inter-organizational cooperation. Moreover, there is a need to gather the results of previous research in this area – that is, works showing the impact of entrepreneurs’ SR on economic activity (including business cooperation) – in order to organize and present them synthetically. Given the existing works, it seems that the links between entrepreneurs’ SR and cooperation may be bi-directional, that is, that not only SR affect cooperation, but also that inter-organizational cooperation may affect SR (Ashton & Bain, 2012; Xu & Zhai, 2018). On the one hand, business cooperation is shown as contributing to the establishment of SR between managers and/or companies’ employees (Gibson, Hardy, & Buckley, 2014; Wang et al., 2016). It can bring friendship and companionship between business partners (Arnott, Wilson, Mouzas, Henneberg, & Naudé, 2007; Ashton & Bain, 2012; Migliore, Schifani, Guccione, & Cembalo, 2014; Ryan & Mulholland, 2014a, 2014b) since it leverages trust (Arnott et al., 2007; Ferru, 2014; Zhong, Su, Peng, & Yang, 2017). On the other hand, in the long-term perspective, these SR contribute to future improvements of expertise, competencies and skills (e.g., due to exchange, sharing and the transfer of knowledge possessed in a new employment environment – for example, Ryan & Mulholland, 2014a, 2014b; Sorenson, 2018; Zhou, Li, Zhao, & Cai, 2003; Zhou, Siu, & Wang, 2010), and develop cognitive abilities (Bottom, Gibson, Daniels, & Murnighan, 2002; Maurer & Ebers, 2006) which are beneficial for future business cooperation. Nevertheless, attention has so far been paid either to the role of SR regarding cooperation or vice versa, but not in both directions simultaneously. This becomes even more interesting if we consider that the impact of inter-organizational cooperation on entrepreneurs’ SR can be not only positive but also negative, whereas there are far fewer works that consider this dark side of SR (e.g., Czernek-Marszałek, 2020a; Mitręga & Zolkiewski, 2012). Thus, although SR are more often claimed to impact entrepreneurs (Shu et al., 2018; Sorenson, 2018; Stuart & Sorenson, 2005) and business cooperation (Dasgupta, Zhang, & Zhu, 2021), their connections seem to be more bi-directional than one-directional. Moreover, numerous feedback loops are possible between SR and inter-organizational cooperation. It is therefore worth collecting and organizing the existing knowledge on this issue. Given the knowledge gaps, technological changes changing a way of building and the role of online and offline relationships and considering the importance of both phenomena, that is, inter-organizational cooperation and SR, the authors deemed it relevant to conduct a systematic literature review (SLR) (Bramer, Rethlefsen, Kleijnen, & Franco, 2017; Callahan, 2010; Durach et al., 2017; Okoli, 2015; Rojon, Okupe, & McDowall, 2021). Regarding the reviewing methodology, the integrative approach (Torraco, 2016) would seem to be most appropriate for our analysis. Our review focuses on two sufficiently mature theoretical constructs (Torraco, 2005), while it also addresses new and up-to-date questions about the building blocks, types, and sources of SR, together with interlinks between both constructs, that is, SR and inter-organizational cooperation. The aim of this chapter is therefore to develop knowledge – through its organization, synthesis, systematization and analysis – using an integrative SLR on entrepreneurs’ SR, including their links with inter-organizational cooperation. 2. Research Design In this study, the SLR was used as conceptual and methodological support (Hagen-Zanker & Mallett, 2013), helpful in designing the research project and making critical decisions regarding project justification, constructing the research model, asking research questions (RQ), setting up hypotheses, etc. According to the typical aims of SLRs, this chapter summarizes, synthesizes (Okoli, 2015), systematizes (Di Vaio, Palladino, Pezzi, & Kalisz, 2021), organizes (Boon et al., 2019; Cooper, 1988), analyzes (Fisch & Block, 2018) and therefore develops (Durach et al., 2017; Rojon et al., 2021) knowledge about SR and COOP, including in particular their interconnections. 2.1. The SLR Process We applied the input-processing-output approach (Levy & Ellis, 2006) typical for systematic reviews, which also remains in line with the integrative approach to literature reviewing (Callahan, 2010; Torraco, 2005, 2016), and is seen as appropriate for ensuring the robustness of the reviewing process (Di Vaio et al., 2021). The adopted approach covered five phases (Boon et al., 2019; Denyer & Tranfield, 2009; Durach et al., 2017), namely: (1) setting up the RQs: September 2018; (2) literature collection including academic literature: October/December 2018 and gray literature: January/February 2019; (3) literature screening and selection: April/May 2019; (4) content analysis aimed at literature integration, synthesis and interpretation: July 2019–December 2020; and (5) reporting of preliminary findings: from January 2020. Given the methodological recommendations, and acknowledging that the transparency and replicability of systematic reviews require detailed description and reporting (Hagen-Zanker & Mallett, 2013; King & He, 2005), the following sub-sections present our reviewing pathway. 2.1.1. Setting Up the Research Questions At the beginning of the SLR, we asked several RQs to clarify our research interest and set the boundaries for our cognitive exploration. The RQs focused on SR were as follows: (1) What are the definitions of SR? (2) What are the different types of SR? (3) What are the building blocks of SR that link individuals from cooperating organizations? (4) What are the sources of SR that link the representatives of cooperating organizations? (5) What is the importance of SR for COOP? and (6) What is the importance of COOP in establishing SR between the representatives of cooperating organizations? These RQs gave us grounds for designing the SLR protocol and later on for data analysis and interpretation. Indeed, our “research protocol served as the road map towards their answers” (Okoli, 2015, p. 889), showing us how to get closer to answers starting with the initial creation of the literature base (i.e., setting up inclusion and exclusion criteria), through a selection of the most relevant publications (i.e., setting up and applying screening criteria), to content analysis (i.e., setting up the list of issues searched for, analyzed and compared). 2.1.2. Literature Collection To access relevant publications, two recommended tracks were followed (Di Vaio et al., 2021; Hagen-Zanker & Mallett, 2013): an academic literature search and the capture of gray literature. Given that “the process of excluding sources (and including respectively) has to be made as transparent as possible” (Okoli, 2015, p. 883) our general guidelines adopted at this stage are briefly presented in Table 4.1. Table 4.1. Initial Database – Search Process and Results. Category Search Criteria Keywords/Phrases Social relations* & Networking; Social relations* & Cooperation; Social relations* & Coopetition; Social relations* & Collaboration Interpersonal relations* & Networking; Interpersonal relations* & Cooperation; Interpersonal relations* & Coopetition; Interpersonal relations* & Collaboration Personal relations* & Networking; Personal relations* & Cooperation; Personal relations* & Coopetition; Personal relations* & Collaboration Informal relations* & Networking; Informal relations* & Cooperation; Informal relations* & Coopetition; Informal relations* & Collaboration Social embeddedness & Networking; Social embeddedness & Cooperation; Social embeddedness & Coopetition; Social embeddedness & Collaboration Social ties & Networking; Social ties & Cooperation; Social ties & Coopetition; Social ties & Collaboration Interpersonal ties & Networking; Interpersonal ties & Cooperation; Interpersonal ties & Coopetition; Interpersonal ties & Collaboration Personal ties & Networking; Personal ties & Cooperation; Personal ties & Coopetition; Personal ties & Collaboration Informal ties & Networking; Informal ties & Cooperation; Informal ties & Coopetition; Informal ties & Collaboration Social relations* & Innovativeness; Interpersonal relations* & Innovativeness; Personal relations* & Innovativeness; Informal relations* & Innovativeness; Social embeddedness & Innovativeness; Social ties & Innovativeness; Interpersonal ties & Innovativeness; Personal ties & Innovativeness; Informal ties & Innovativeness; Networking & Innovativeness; Cooperation & Innovativeness; Coopetition & Innovativeness; Collaboration & Innovativeness Social relations* & Networks; Interpersonal relations* & Networks; Personal relations* & Networks; Informal relations* & Networks; Social embeddedness & Networks; Social ties & Networks; Interpersonal ties & Networks; Personal ties & Networks; Informal ties & Networks Networks & Innovativeness Databases/Sources English: EBSCO, ProQuest Polish: BazEkon Type of publication EBSCO, ProQuest: only reviewed scientific articles*, in English, in full text, free access BazEkon: reviewed scientific articles*, in Polish (or English), in full text, free access * Articles only (excluding proceedings, books, working papers) Keyword range Abstract or title/topic (or possibly subject terms/subject area) Publication language EBSCO, ProQuest: English only, full text, free access papers BazEkon: English or Polish only, full access papers Publication access EBSCO, ProQuest: Free access to full-text papers under University licensing agreements Database Search In/As … No. of Records No Duplicate Within One Database No Duplicate Within All Databases Total Academic Review 1,525 ProQuest Abstract 551 467 1,390 EBSCO (Academic Source Complete) Abstract 990 892 BazEkon “term” 67 55 Gray Review Google Scholar – 139 139 135 For the academic search, EBSCO and ProQuest were used as they have the broadest scope of coverage of managerial, economic and business literature (Machi & McEvoy, 2016). In the review process, the research team decided to search only for already published articles, while keywords were used to search for abstracts in the chosen databases. The search keyword sets were constructed on the basis of three main constructs underlying the entire project and also included synonyms (Durach et al., 2017), that is, cooperation (the words: Cooperation, Coopetition, Collaboration, Networks, Networking); social relationships (the phrases: Social relations*, Interpersonal relations*, Personal relations*, Informal relations*, Social embeddedness, Social ties, Interpersonal ties, Personal ties, Informal ties), innovativeness (the word: Innovativeness). It should be emphasized that although these three constructs were investigated, only two of them are analyzed in more detail in this chapter due to the topic and aim of the chapter.1 To acquire a more comprehensive picture, the search results were not limited to a particular field of science, industry or country. Only papers in English and with full content available were accepted for further analysis. It should be noted, however, that given inter-organizational relationships are acknowledged as highly country-dependent (Bensaou & Venkatraman, 1995) we found it reasoned to add a national database. Therefore, since the research team wanted to compare the national and global stock of knowledge, the largest Polish database – BazEkon – was also included in the SLR process. Similarly, as only journals were used as data sources, hence the search language was Polish. In general, we found no significant differences between global and national literature. Our purposeful decision was to implement gray literature (Bramer et al., 2017) as supplementary to academic literature (Hagen-Zanker & Mallett, 2013), thus reducing the risk of omitting important works that are available digitally (Di Vaio et al., 2021). The gray literature search was run using the most popular search engine: GoogleScholar.com (Di Vaio et al., 2021; King & He, 2005). Again, the search procedure was conducted simultaneously in English and Polish using the following keyword sets: social relations AND cooperation AND innovativeness. One exclusion criterion was imposed, that is, quotes and patents. Additionally, according to methodological recommendations and due to the abundance of search engine results, only the first 200 search results of papers available in the full text were included in the literature database (Bramer et al., 2017). Finally, for the advanced search criteria, we searched for articles with all words (from the phrase) and papers in which words appear anywhere in the article as two additional specific criteria. As a result, we obtained an initial overall database (known also as the baseline sample of potentially relevant literature – Durach et al., 2017) that included 1,525 publications (see Table 4.1). 2.1.3. Literature Screening and Selection To select only the most relevant papers (Okoli, 2015) which would ultimately be subject to in-depth content analysis, the 1,525 publications collected in the initial database were screened by the research team through careful reading of the abstracts, keywords and conclusions. Following methodological guidelines (e.g., Denyer & Tranfield, 2009; Durach et al., 2017), the publications were evaluated based on the suitability of their abstracts to our RQs (Hagen-Zanker & Mallett, 2013)