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Purpose This study aims to examine how a focal firm in Sweden’s recycling sector draws on embedded interorganizational ties to strengthen network resilience across its business-to-business (B2B) relationships. It draws on the concepts of embeddedness and the interaction model to understand how firms develop strategies for long-term network stability using Sweden’s recycling sectors as empirical context. Design/methodology/approach This paper adopts a qualitative case study approach, drawing on semi-structured interviews with department managers and sales personnel in a Swedish recycling firm. The analysis follows an abductive framework informed by literature on resilience and embeddedness. Findings This study finds that firms foster network resilience by modulating the level of social embeddedness in response to situational factors such as profitability, regulatory demands, industry pressures and the need for process efficiency. In more complex or regulated collaborations, firms invest in trust-building, continuous communication and mutual adaptation, thereby creating resilient ties capable of withstanding market turbulence. Originality/value This paper advances a contingency view of embeddedness in B2B networks, conceptualizing it as an adjustable governance mechanism calibrated to situational conditions. By integrating the interaction model with embeddedness, this study specifies when oversocialized vs undersocialized approaches are effective and how they are combined with contractual mechanisms to generate network resilience. The Swedish recycling context provides sector-specific evidence that illustrates – rather than delimits – the mechanisms.
Eriksson et al. (Fri,) studied this question.