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Publication informationIndustrial Marketing Management, 38 (6): 608-617 Publisher ElsevierItem record/more information http://hdl.handle.net/10197/5189 Publisher's statement þÿ T h i s i s t h e a u t h o r s v e r s i o n o f a w o r k t h a t w a s a c c e p t e d f o r p u b l i c a t i o n i n I n d u s t r i a lMarketing Management. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Industrial þÿ M a r k e t i n g M a n a g e m e n t ( V o l u m e 3 8 , I s s u e 6 , A u g u s t S e p t e m b e r 2 0 0 9 , P a g e s 6 0 8 6 1 7 ) Industrial Sales People as Market ActorsAbstract: We develop the concept of boundaries in the context of sales personnel and their counterparts encountering and negotiating these while they undertake work to shape markets and build relationships. Drawing on a case study from production chemistry, we show that market shaping implies a mutual development of relationships, goods and services exchanged, and boundaries. In particular, we show that while relationships can submerge and obscure parts or dimensions of boundaries to other market actors, normal business activities such as testing new products and adapting products to changes in environmental legislation make visible some material dimensions of the exchange object, which can attract attention from other sellers. Visibility finds an expression as those market objects are exchanged, such that objects can be devices by which other actors join in and position themselves and their objects within markets.

Acknowledgements: This research is supported by the Leverhulme Trust, research grant F/00 273/N. We are grateful to Daniela Corsaro and the anonymous referees for their detailed and constructive comments and criticisms as we have developed this paper, and participants at the 28th IMP Conference in Rome for their comments. AbstractIMP researchers have examined conflict as a threat to established business relationships and commercial exchanges, drawing on theories and concepts developed in organization studies. We examine cases of conflict in relationships from the oil and gas industry's service sector, focusing on conflicts of interest and resources, and conflict as experienced by actors. Through a comparative case study design, we propose and explanation of how actors manage conflict and manage in conflict given that they tend to value and maintain relationships beyond episodes of exchange. We consider conflicts in relationships from a network perspective, showing that actors experienced these while adapting to changes in their business setting, modifying their roles in that network. By identifying conflict with the organizing forms of relationship and network, we show how actors formulate conflict through pursuing and combining a number of strategies, distributing the conflict across an enlarged network.