Strategic Shifts between Business Types : A transaction cost theory-based approach supported by dyad simulation

Many companies in business-to-business markets hope to improve their profit situation considerably by fundamentally changing the technological or contractual dimensions of their market offerings. Often enough, reality does not live up to these expectations. Since such strategy shifts often imply substantial investments, a systematic ex ante analysis of the chances of success is an important issue in strategic management. Katrin Susanne Mühlfeld classifies the heterogeneous selling and purchasing processes on business-to-business markets and derives different business types. Against this background, she analyzes motivations and conditions for strategic changes of market offerings which can be interpreted as shifts between these business types. Transaction cost economics provide the main theoretical foundations while additional reference is made to Austrian economics and research on power-dependence relations