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This study surveys the historical geography of suburban landscapes built and abandoned over the course of the United States' long twentieth century. Diverse thinkers and actors, it shows, have understood the edges of the American metropolis to be laboratories of a sort, experimental sites where the forms of a reordered city might be glimpsed in microcosm and put on display. Suburbs have also served as laboratories where questions of landscape's animacy — not what landscape means, the focus of a generation of scholarship in cultural geography, but what landscape does — came vividly to the fore, provoking much debate and speculation. Drawing on archival sources, visual materials, maps, plans, and field study of the built environment, this work recasts debates that have long been central to cultural geography, geographic thought, urban and suburban studies, and the intellectual histories of planning and urbanism. It argues that both the modal techniques planners and builders came to prescribe for the post–World War II suburb and the most noticeable programs since predicated on redressing suburbia's perceived failures can find their roots in prewar debates, ontological in character, on the "life" proper to landscape, indeed to matter itself. Both tendencies, the study argues furthermore, established the terms by which Americans since have considered the possibility of giving life form by way of its environment — and assessed the threats presented by built environments deemed formless.This work makes its intervention in three stages. It first assembles a new intellectual history of American planning around questions of the suburbanization of industry and the decentralization of urban form. During the Progressive Era, planners, architects, industrialists, realtors, and a host of reformers held industrial suburbs, more than strictly residential ones, to be the key to remedying urban "congestion." In ways that existing histories have not realized, these actors also articulated a distinctive ontology of suburban landscape as an animate participant in life and work. This was not an environmental determinism, as most geographers would have it, but rather a multiform theory of the milieu that was indebted to broader vitalist and materialist currents in social thought. Numerous social scientists, life scientists, and philosophers, too, contribute to this history. In juxtaposing their thought with that of the first generation of self-identified scientific planners, this study explores ongoing tensions between formalist and anti-formalist, rationalist and vitalist, organismic and non-organismic tendencies lending structure to how certain Americans have made sense of how landscape matters. Many maneuvers central to contemporary "new" materialisms, "object-oriented" ontologies, and "non-representational" theories in geography and its neighboring disciplines are, in fact, quite old. To couple them with questions of landscape, one does well to revisit the decentralist debates taking place at the turn of the twentieth century.The analysis then scales down empirically to the San Francisco Bay Region, where premiums on a decentralized metropolitan form, as well as notions of the environment's "influence," have particularly deep roots. It turns most especially to the Carquinez Strait, a peculiar, imperfectly visible vector of suburbanization east of the bay, to which industrial flight was early, intense, relatively coordinated, and financed remotely by capitalists in San Francisco and, to some extent, Oakland. From the late nineteenth century on, the Carquinez became a repository for only the most noxious functions expelled from denser urban centers, as well as a site of considerable experimentation in sorting, buffering, and enclosing the "whole" new towns employers composed adjacent to their workplaces between 1880 and 1930. In surprising, sometimes unsettling ways, planners and industrialists also theorized the affordances of ambient climate and unbuilt environment to industrial work. A prehistory of the post–World War II suburb must consider the portable models and morphologies worked out in these and other "suburbs of last resort."As the narrative moves into the postwar period, its conceptual focus pivots from questions of suburban order to suburban ruin. Since the 1970s, the Carquinez has been marked by landscapes of abandonment: decapitalized workplaces, decommissioned military installations, and, lately, overgrown pockets of the post-2008 residential foreclosure crisis. Suburbs and peripheries are increasingly the loci of American privation, but there is still a tendency among analysts to narrate urban "decline" in ways that privilege denser centers, deploying metaphors of the rotting core rather than the fraying edge, and granting visibility and salience to some landscapes of decay at the expense of others. "Suburbs of Last Resort" establishes a prehistory in this sense as well. It argues that concepts of inbuilt suburban "formlessness," which intensified in Northern California in the 1950s and 1960s, have rendered working-class suburbs, even or especially in times of their abandonment, peculiarly invisible. Such notions, too, have roots in prewar debates. The study closes by tracing a countervailing intellectual history, complementary to the more affirmative account of prescriptions for suburban form, of attempts to ontologize — and to denigrate — newly built suburbs as their own species of "ruins." It has been precisely when their form is ambiguous or abandoned that suburban landscapes have seemed most animate: "contagious" in their putative spread, productive of manifold anxieties, and provocative of new forms of reflection and action.

Purpose– This paper aims to analyse how well enterprise systems capture the business network in which an industrial company is involved. Enterprise systems have been presented as a "dream come true" with a seamless integration of business data through a common database and software modules that can be customized to the companies' different functions. However, research shows that companies' utilization of enterprise systems is limited, and that internal processes are prioritized.Design/methodology/approach– European multinational companies and some of their partners have been followed through case studies between 2003 and 2010. The pattern-matching analysis has been supported by a theoretical framework that depicts industrial companies as engaged in business relationships in a network setting.Findings– The results show that the company's relationship-oriented activities are badly captured by the enterprise system. The study highlights limitations that future enterprise systems need to address if they are to be able to offer the company a better insight into its business network.Originality/value– The traditionally internal focus on enterprise systems means that important business information transcending inter-organizational activities will be missed. To be worthy of the name enterprise system, more customer- and supplier-oriented activities need to be supported and captured.

Information technology has come to play an important role in organizations over the last few decades. Though it began as an entity dealt with by specialists, IT has evolved to become an everyday tool with both operational and strategic impacts. Most modern organizations have adopted different forms of IT, and become dependent on their computer-based information systems and their peripherals for everyday operations. Information technology offers opportunities to increase efficiency, customer value, and competitiveness. Given the financial investment in IT required by organizations to remain com.

Purpose– Research has shown that companies focus their internal processes when they adopt enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. However, the ERP systems need to expand their functionality to include customers and suppliers (with e-commerce functionality) to reach their full potential. The purpose of this paper is to consider business relationships as a resource but also a limitation when companies strive to get an extended ERP system.Design/methodology/approach– The paper presents an illustrative case study of an industrial company's process of developing an extended ERP and how the company's portfolio of business relationships has affected the solution. The analysis is supported by the markets-as-networks theory.Findings– The process of developing an extended ERP system needs to incorporate the company's business partners (customers and suppliers). It is a simultaneously bottom-up and top-down process given that the operative frontline staff hold the knowledge about the company's business relationships while the corporate management has the means of extending the ERP system functionality and align it with the focal company's strategy.Research limitations/implications– Companies need to consider the fact that the technological and financial status of their customers and suppliers differ. Thus, an effective and flexible extended ERP system needs to include both a high-end and low-end solution as well as understand that a full interorganizational integration might not be realistic.Originality/value– The paper puts forth business relationship portfolios as an important factor to consider when extending the ERP system functionality in the supply chain and toward customers.

Purpose
This study aims to offer a mid-range theory conceptualization of factors central to understanding and facilitating business actor engagement (BAE). Reports on a study of real estate companies and their sustainable development goal (SDG) driven business initiatives. The aim is to identify the factors that need to be in place to facilitate positive engagement amongst actors in business-to-business (B2B) settings.


Design/methodology/approach
A case study of real estate companies (landlords of business premises) and their business customers (tenants of offices and warehouses) – comprising interviews and workshops – offer insights related to the factors that need to be in place to facilitate BAE types and outcomes.


Findings
The identified central factors of BAE – needed to understand and facilitate positive engagement to unfold – are the actors' perception of: willingness (to act), resourcefulness (to contribute and solve issues) and influence (to affect decisions) regarding solutions related to the business initiative at hand. Failing to facilitate these factors may result in negative outcomes of BAE where "engagement" merely constitutes perceived obligations and responsibilities.


Research limitations/implications
The study offers theoretical and managerial insights on how to manage the factors needed for BAE. It also sheds light on how actors can use SDG-driven business initiatives to achieve sustainability goals.


Originality/value
It contributes to the concept of BAE, by emphasizing the dynamics of engagement, from the motivational and behavioral dimensions specific to B2B settings. It offers insights how to managerially cogovern rather than control BAE. It presents central factors needed to include and capacitate customers, facilitating successful implementations of SDG-driven business initiatives to reduce absent or negative outcomes.

PurposeTo explore the emergent characteristics of IT portfolios in business-to-business (B2B) firms. The goal is to develop a model that clarifies what interaction capabilities B2B firms develop and to what form of IT this corresponds to.Design/methodology/approachWe apply ana prioriconceptual framework that is based on the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) Group's theoretical focus on business relationships. The framework depicts the business relationship as dealing with uncertainty and equivocality as well as building and upholding reliance and trust. We utilize a case study approach involving a focal firm and ten of its customers and suppliers. Building on 60 interviews, field observations and archival data, we analyze interviewee responses and the complementary data to evaluate the role of IT in supporting or automated various aspects of organizational relationships.FindingsResults show how "high tech" and "high touch" relate to different interaction capabilities, which firms develop based on the characteristics of their business relationships. Although IT is associated with "high tech" and "high touch" interaction capabilities, some forms of IT are deployed to support the former, while other forms support the later. Both forms of technology-enabled interaction capabilities require investment, and firms must balance investment costs against the value created by improved interaction capabilities.Originality/valueOur findings emphasize the interorganizational perspective (dyadic or network) rather than a solely organizational perspective for understanding IT portfolio development. This perspective is presented through an emergent tech–touch interaction capability model that shows how B2B firms can align their IT portfolio based on the specific characteristics of their business relationships.

PurposeWhile much existing research on multinational corporation (MNC) digital transformation has followed a linear design and implementation logic using cross-sectional data, the multiple and divergent needs of headquarters (HQ) and subsidiaries suggest that MNC digital transformation actually involves a more iterative journey. The purpose of this paper is to apply the theoretical perspective of embeddedness to better define the complexities of MNC digital transformation, and identify how HQ and subsidiaries can navigate the complexities.Design/methodology/approachThis paper presents a longitudinal multi-case study of fiveForbes Global 2000firms that are HQ in Europe with large subsidiaries in the USA. The authors conducted in-depth interviews with 26 senior executives at HQ and subsidiaries over a 15-month period.FindingsThe process of digital transformation is significantly influenced by internal embeddedness (relationship of HQ with subsidiaries and across subsidiaries) and external embeddedness (relationship of subsidiaries with their local markets), and also by strategy, financial and technology considerations. While HQ and subsidiaries have different perspectives, an understanding of these influences can help HQ and subsidiaries navigate digital transformation.Research limitations/implicationsHQ and subsidiaries can apply insights from this research to navigate the complexities of digital transformation.Originality/valueThis paper demonstrates that embeddedness is a useful theory to understand the complexities of MNC digital transformation.

Purpose– This study aims to investigates the possible gap between the logic of these information technology (IT) systems and industrial firms' marketing practices. Industrial firms rely extensively on IT systems for their business.Design/methodology/approach– Based on the contemporary marketing practice (CMP) model, which depicts firms' marketing practice as ranging from transactional to more relational and networked-based, the logic of IT systems and how users in industrial firms adopt them are amended to create an extended model. The extended model is used to analyze an in-depth case based on 63 interviews regarding one industrial firm's business with customers and suppliers and how IT is utilized in this setting.Findings– Results show that industrial firms' relationship-oriented business is poorly supported by currently used IT systems. This gap between the IT systems, which are transaction-focused, and industrial firms' marketing practice, which is relationship-based, has severe effects on adoption and efficiency of IT systems. The marketers prefer local, non-integrated, IT with limited usefulness on an overall firm level while resisting the firms' comprehensive IT systems. This forms an IT–marketing gap given that current IT does not match the marketing practice of relationship-oriented industrial firms.Originality/value– This study applies an extended CMP model in a novel way focusing one industrial firm, its customers and suppliers and the IT used in this setting. The study shows that all marketing practices of the CMP model can be found in one firm's business, albeit one category, i.e. interaction marketing (a relationship approach), is dominating. The use of the CMP framework offers new and valuable insights into the fundamental cause to the industrial marketers' limited use of integrated IT.

Whether waiting for the train or planning the future city, infrastructure orders—and depends on—multiple urban temporalities. This agenda-setting volume disrupts conventional notions of time through a robust examination of the relations between temporality, infrastructure, and urban society. Conceptually rich and empirically detailed, its interdisciplinary dialogue encompasses infrastructural systems including transportation, energy, and water to bridge often-siloed technical, political-economic and lived perspectives. With global coverage of diverse cities and regions from Berlin to Jayapura, this book is an essential provocation to re-evaluate urban theory, politics, and practice and better account for the temporal complexities that shape our infrastructured worlds