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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual model for explaining insurance customers' intentions towards using the internet as a channel for communication and interaction with insurance companies by integrating Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and trust. Design/methodology/approach – The paper seeks to conceptually develop an integrated framework for studying and measuring the perceptions of customers towards using the internet as a source of communication and interaction. The TAM model is taken as a point of departure where trust and trustworthiness, being essential in insurance relationships, have been included in the model. Trust is divided into perceived competence, perceived benevolence and perceived integrity, which in turn affect whether the customer will find the firm trustworthy or not. A second dimension that is developed in this paper is the disposition to trust, which is defined as a customer-related factor. This disposition to trust is in turn affected by the customer's internet knowledge and product knowledge. Findings – The paper contributes by developing the model for understanding and explaining factors that affect customers' attitudes and intentions towards on-line interactions. By emphasizing internet-, customer- and Ffrm-related factors, it would arguably be possible to explain factors that affect trust, and trustworthiness, as well as the customer's attitudes towards the organization and the communication and distribution channel while also integrating the customer-specific factors. Research limitations – The model developed in this paper is conceptual and needs to be tested empirically. Originality/value – The findings of this paper will serve as a basis for further research aiming at answering the research question on what factors affect customers' attitudes towards using the internet as an interface within the financial services sector. It also contributes to practices by identifying and defining factors that can affect trust in relationships as well as the choice of communication and distribution channels depending on customers' attitudes.

Our aim is to add to the knowledge on a network level, focusing on if, and how, interpartner legitimacy affects the success or failure of network formation and development processes. Existing network theories and research tend to focus on resource exchange rather than on how actors perceive each other in terms of being legitimate or not. The purpose of the article is to analyze the interpartner legitimacy's in?uence on the formation and development processes of regional strategic networks (RSNs) from a network level. Two Swedish cases are discussed in terms of pragmatic, moral and cognitive interpartner legitimacy. The cases and the following discussion illuminate that interpartner legitimacy is important to incorporate into the analytical model if we wish to understand the processes of negotiations on the rules and norms which set the possibilities for survival of multi-actor interactions.

From a network perspective, entering a foreign market is seen as establishing relationships across borders. In this article, however, it is argued that apart from and/or along with developing relationships, it is vital to consider how the entrant firm understands what is perceived as legitimate. The purpose, therefore, is to develop the research on foreign market entry processes by focusing on the entrant firm’s understanding of host country actors’ expectations on its behaviour, providing legitimacy to the entrant firm. It is proposed that the foreign market entry process is affected by the degree of internationalisation in the home market network, the structure of the host country network, and the coercive, as well as the normative pressures. One implication is that an entrant firm must understand the correspondence between its interpretations and the host country’s real expectations.

Flera försäkringsbolag har under åren expanderat genom att etablera verksamheter utomlands. I samband med att järnridån föll i början 1990-talet var det flera försäkringsbolag och banker som såg möjligheter med att gå in på dessa tidigare relativt oexploaterade marknader. Att gå in på en sk. emerging market, dvs. en marknad som är i snabb expansion, kan verka lockande och många gånger kan det även verka enkelt att etablera sig på denna typ av marknad men pga. att det är utvecklingsmarknader är det många faktorer som behöver vägas in. En av slutsatserna som drogs i en studie av tre försäkringsbolag som under samma period etablerade sig i Polen visade att en etablering ofta tar längre tid och kräver mer resurser än vad bolagen initialt förutspått. Några av förklaringarna till detta är icke-existerande distributionskanaler och att de institutionella ramarna starkt bidragit till att försvåra processen.

Taking the network approach developed in the Nordic countries as a point of departure (cf. Håkansson, H. and Snehota, I. (1989); Turnbull, P., Ford, D., and Cunningham, M. (1996)) this paper seeks to explore how firms and networks are affected by high involvement by governmental authorities. A special focus is given to the regulating instrument of licenses. In two case studies of protected industries, the pharmacy and insurance industry, we find that licenses are restrictions but also facilitators for relationships and networks. Licenses render firms a certain degree of acceptance, define roles and positions in the network, and affects efficiency. Thus, although licenses can be seen as a restriction for firms it also becomes evident that they facilitate firms' activities related to operating and/or entering new markets.