Time and process in business network research

Abstract

This Special Issue of Industrial Marketing Management brings together a range of articles by authors who have undertaken the difficult task of researching time and process in business networks. Understanding interaction processes within a business relationship and network perspective requires the elaboration of time, the central construct by which humans grasp and comprehend change. As an introduction to the articles we present the concept of human time and delineate accordingly three methodological approaches available for the study of network processes. We also introduce the authors' contributions to the special issue that broadly divide into two groups: those that deal with methodological issues concerning the study of processes in business networks and those that consider the role of time and timing for studying business processes.