This study advances understanding of Artificial Intelligence transformation (AIT) barriers that hinder value realization in public organizations. We conducted a 1.5-year case study with a medium-sized Swedish municipality, involving active participation in daily work, development of an AI strategy, interviews, and analysis of four AIT cases. Using the Process, People, Technology (PPT) framework as inspiration, we developed a new AIT framework tailored to public sector transformation. Findings show that AI creates barriers but also offers opportunities, particularly as a driver of innovation and organizational effectiveness. Overcoming knowledge gaps, resource constraints, and integration challenges is critical for sustainable AIT. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that different forms of AI-related value manifest through observable outcomes, including resource gains, organizational adaptations, and the development of new citizen services. The study provides practical examples of AI implementation and illustrates the complex balance between barriers and opportunities in organizational change. The proposed AIT framework contributes both theoretically and practically, offering insights into how municipalities can navigate AI-driven transformation successfully.

Digital technology diffusion is reshaping innovation across supply chain dynamics and ecosystem partners. Prior work often looks at one firm or uniform settings, missing how technology diffusion need to be orchestrated by ecosystem leader across diverse suppliers and other actors. To address this gap, this study employs an exploratory case study of the intelligent vehicle ecosystem, focusing on an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and six supply chain partners. Although positioned in the supply chain, these actors influence the wider ecosystem thereby affecting technology diffusion beyond dyadic ties. Drawing on 35 interviews, observations, and secondary data, the research advances the technology diffusion and innovation ecosystem literatures in three ways. First, it highlights the evolving role of focal actor as ecosystem leader, demonstrating their progression from transformational to collaborative and ultimately empowering roles across different phases of digital technology diffusion. Second, it identifies three orchestration mechanisms, namely knowledge orchestration, incentive aligned orchestration, and market driven orchestration, and specifies when each should be deployed in response to partner-specific requirements. Third, it offers a novel perspective on how ecosystem leaders shift value propositions to include both core and peripheral partners. From a practical standpoint, the study offers OEMs actionable guidance to diagnose their diffusion context and select appropriate orchestration mechanism. It also provides policymakers with insights for designing targeted instruments that strengthen digital diffusion and support sustainable industrial growth.

As industrial business-to-business firms increasingly pursue digital servitization to generate recurring revenues, making digital services commercially viable remains difficult, especially when value capture depends on customer access, data permissions, and intermediary-governed contractual arrangements. Although prior research has emphasized value creation and capability development in digital servitization, we know little about how industrial firms make digital-service pricing commercially viable. In this paper, we undertake a longitudinal exploratory qualitative case study of a leading European OEM operating in a mission-critical context. Our findings make three contributions. First, we develop a pricing-conditions perspective by showing that digital-service pricing depends on data access and interpretability, measurability and attribution, governance positioning, and service architecture and repeatability. Second, we identify four digital-service commercialization patterns of SLA-enhancing, incident-based, predictive, and planning-oriented, and enabling and infrastructural services that explain why digital services differ in how they can be packaged and defended commercially. Third, we develop four pricing configurations, i.e., ad hoc, customized, standardized, and value-based pricing, showing that pricing viability depends less on selecting a pricing approach than on aligning the service's commercial role, customer-value locus, feasibility conditions, and commercial and governance arrangements. In this sense, pricing in digital servitization is better understood as a configurational approach than an isolated price-setting decision and strategy. By doing so, the study extends research on digital servitization and industrial pricing, offering a configurational understanding of how, and under what conditions, digital-service pricing becomes commercially viable.

This study investigates how digital innovation (DII) drives sustainable performance (SUS) through the mediating role of business model innovation (BMI) and the moderating effects of servitization (SER) and relational orientation (REO). Drawing on Service-Dominant Logic, a survey was conducted among 167 medium and large Swedish enterprises in manufacturing, packaging, logistics, and environmental technology. Using partial least squares structural equation modeling, results show that DII significantly enhances BMI, which in turn improves SUS. Servitization strengthens the DII-BMI link, while relational orientation amplifies the BMI-SUS relationship. The findings advance theory by integrating digital innovation, service strategies, and stakeholder collaboration into a sustainability context. Practically, the study provides actionable insights for managers seeking to integrate sustainability into their business models through technology-enabled services and multi-stakeholder ecosystems. This research contributes to the growing body of work on digital-sustainable transformation pathways in advanced economies.

Although trust is critical for entrepreneurs in all markets, it likely differs in gray markets from that in white or black markets. In this inductive study, we find a coherent configuration of trust mechanisms in a gray market that offers new insights into how entrepreneurs can use their network (i.e., referrals and “lineaging”) and heuristics (i.e., “villageing”) to build trust in new stakeholders when trust formation is challenging and violations are costly. We also offer new insights into the practices for verifying (i.e., impromptu tests and extensive probationary periods) and maintaining (i.e., financial support) trustworthiness, as well as repairing trust.

Twin transition, the concurrent development of digitalization practices and circular practices, are believed to be the key to firm performance. However, empirical evidence is currently scarce regarding the effect of twin transition on firm performance and the complementary practices that enable and realize it. This study draws on a survey of 188 Swedish manufacturing firms and employs PLS structural equation modelling to test the hypothesis. The results indicate that firm performance can be improved through digitalization practices but with circular practices as a mediator. Moreover, our results show a significant and positive moderation effect of supply chain orchestration and supply chain business model innovation as complementary mechanisms for enabling and realizing the process. This implies time sequencing between the two twin transition dimensions. These results carry theoretical implications for twin transition research and circular economy literatures. The results also provide novel managerial insights by showing that digital investments must be coupled with early orchestration of supply chain partners and aligned business model innovation to effectively scale circular practices and realize performance benefits.

Purpose

Implementing circular business models (CBMs) in industry is promising yet difficult. Prior research has largely focused on identifying barriers to CBM adoption and the enablers needed to overcome them. However, addressing barriers alone is insufficient, as circularity must ultimately be embedded in companies’ routine-based practices to become operational and scalable. Existing practice-oriented studies remain limited and tend to examine isolated aspects of CBMs, such as value creation, value delivery or value capture, rather than how these dimensions are pursued together. This study aims to address this gap by synthesizing how industrial companies implement CBMs through phase-based practices that span business model dimensions.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted a three-stage review (identification–screening–eligibility) of academic and gray literature, ending with 87 studies included. Using qualitative content analysis, the authors coded circular practices and their underlying activities and applied the Gioia methodology to visualize them. The study grounds in the Swedish industrial context, given its early and coordinated adoption of circular economy policies and strategies.

Findings

The findings reveal a three-phased CBM implementation process: designing, developing, and scaling. In the design phase, companies explore circular value logics, build internal capabilities, and renew ecosystem partnerships. The development phase involves testing circular concepts, transforming organizational processes, and launching new revenue models. Finally, the scaling phase focuses on market expansion and digital integration to enhance circular operations.

Originality/value

This study advances CBM literature by identifying business practices and underlying activities that outline how industrial companies implement CBMs in practice. It structures these practices into a phased framework along with specific actions and key considerations for each phase. Finally, it shows how value creation, delivery and capture are activated differentially across implementation phases.