The Impact of Organizational Identityon Resource Integration in B2B Service Ecosystems
Purpose Project business represents a large part of the business to business sector. The qualitative and quantitative scope of many project networks requires that several supplier firms participate in their development and delivery. Consequently, such project networks are characterized by a great heterogeneity with respect to the participating firms building a service ecosystem. This raises the question of how resource integration for value co creation can be shaped successfully for all partners, not least because many projects are characterized by sometimes dramatic failures with respect to costs, duration, and scope. Specifically, the different organizational identities provide institutional frames of reference to the resource integrating actors. As the organizational identities are typically not harmonious with each other, at least partial misalignments of the institutional arrangements that shape the resource integration processes may emerge, leading to imperfect value co creation or even value co destruction. The purpose of this thesis is to conceptualize and to empirically investigate the impact of organizational identity as an institutional context on resource integration in B2B service ecosystems. Design/methodology/approach The thesis makes use of interpretive phenomenology in conjunction with a qualitative case study approach to access the lived experience of actors of different professional service firms who have experienced changes in resource integration into a single B2B service ecosystem. Findings A conceptualization of organizational identity as institutional context for resource integration is developed and empirically investigated. The findings show a strong impact on the firms' organizational identities and the actors' resource integration experience and evaluation. Moreover, it is also very likely that if unmanaged, an at least partial misalignment of the institutional arrangements of multi organizational B2B service ecosystems would represent a normal and also stable condition