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- Alshaibi, Alsedieg
(författare)
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Business Relationships Between Local Firms and MNCs in a less Developing Country : The Case of Libyan Firms
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- International business relationships have been widely researched over the last three decades. Themajor attention of these studies, no matter what their theoretical perspective, concerns the MNCs inthe less developing countries (LDCs). Studies that illustrate how firms in LDCs behave regardinginteraction with MNCs are slim. Therefore, this study focuses on firms in LDCs, namely Libyan firms,and their relationships with MNCs. The study reflects not only on the relationships between the localfirms with MNCs but also the impacts of other interrelated business and non-business units on theserelationships. The study employs business network theory for industrial marketing and develops amodel applicable for studying such a market.The empirical study employs a survey method which examines 60 Libyan firms’ relationships withforeign suppliers containing more than 300 questions. In the empirical part, the study shows that therelationships like technological adaptation, technological cooperation and information exchange wereawarded low values. The measures on the other hand show a high value of impact from the politicalactors and even activities in the contextual environment. The study shows in detail where and howthe political actions influence business relationships. These impacts from the local environment affectlocal firms more than the foreign suppliers, and thus have some bearing on the MNCs and local firms’relationship weaknesses and strengths.The thesis’ conceptual contribution stands on development of new notions in business network theoryby integration of the contextual environment, in other words, network environment, and examinationof their impact on the strength of the focal business relationship. The study further contributesknowledge, not only for firms and politicians in LDCs to understand the consequence of their actions,but also provides deep information for MNCs to understand issues like why firms in LDCs behave ina specific way. Such understandings facilitate the development of cooperation. The study providesinformation about a number of characteristics which are specific for the business networks of such amarket which is dependent on only one resource like oil. While most studies in the field ofinternational business regard the business activities of MNCs, more research is needed to also observethe behaviour of firms from LDCs to gain deeper knowledge on the relationship between the MNCsand local firms from LDCs. The role of political actors and the influence of dependency on one soletype of resources and aspects like change in the prices of this resource seem to be important, but arequite neglected in research in international business.
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- Ekman, Peter, et al.
(författare)
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Understanding Enterprise Systems' Impact(s) on Business Relationships
- 2006
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Ingår i: Advances in Information Systems Development. - Boston, MA : Springer. - 9780387308340 ; , s. 591-602
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Enterprise systems (ESs), i.e. standardized applications supplied from software vendors such as SAP or Oracle, have been extensively employed by companies during the last decade. Today all Fortune 500 companies have, or are in the process of installing, this kind of information system. A wide-spread denotation for these applications is enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. But the broad utilization use of these software packages in business is rendering this labelling too narrow (Davenport 2000).A central aspect of ESs is their multi-dimensional characteristics. Based upon a (virtual) common database, ESs allow all business activities to be observed throughout the company (i.e. an operation performed by marketing may be displayed in finance; purchasing; supply functions, and so forth, in real-time). But with this high visibility and extensive information processing capacity comes the drawback that the information system as a whole may be hard to grasp (Markus 2004, Davenport 1998).When implementing an ES package, the company can select from different industry-adapted modules providing core functionalities (i.e. that support proc¬es¬ses such as production, supply chain management, and R&D), as well among complementary modules to be used in support processes (such as finance, HR, marketing, etc). In fact, along with Internet, ESs can be seen as the most important technology to have attained wide-spread use during the last decade (Seddon et al. 2003). For a company this means that the integration of an ES into its business operations by neces-sity will, to a greater or lesser extent, affect the business activities that are carried out. For companies, these business activities have been observed by researchers to take place within relatively stable, long-term oriented business relationships with specific well-known counterparts (Håkansson and Snehota 1995). This means that ESs, especially with the high level of usage in companies (Seddon et al. 2003), become an interesting research object not only from a company-focused perspective, but also from a broader perspective, allowing business relationships to unique suppliers and customers to be included.But how can ESs be captured and understood in this setting? This question will be discussed and elaborated on in the following sections, leading to some recommendations on relevant issues
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| 4. |
- Hadjikhani, Amjad, et al.
(författare)
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Impact of international political units on small business firms’ relationships – the case of EU and Swedish small firms
- 2009
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Ingår i: International Journal of Business Environment. - 1740-0589 .- 1740-0597. ; 2:4, s. 435-452
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In the field of globalisation, there have emerged political organisations with international missions, affecting business firms. The focus of this study is on how international organisations such as the European Union (EU) influence small firms conducting business in Sweden. The study employs a business network approach and aims to develop a theoretical view to study how the coercive and supportive behaviour of such a political organisation affects business relationships. The theoretical view is constructed in two analytical parts: the focal business relationship and the political connections. The business relationship is explored by means of seven dimensions and the political connection is investigated by coercive and supportive relationships. In the study, statistical information retrieved in a survey involving 134 Swedish SMEs is analysed using PLS techniques. The results of the analysis highlight the view of heterogeneity, not only for the types of connections, but also for the different types of relationship dimensions.
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| 7. |
- Hadjikhani, Amjad, et al.
(författare)
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The impact of horizontal and vertical connections on relationships' commitment and trust
- 2005
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Ingår i: Journal of business & industrial marketing. - : Emerald. - 0885-8624 .- 2052-1189. ; 20:3, s. 136-147
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- While an ever‐increasing body of research on business networks has commented on vertically connected relationships, this study embeds the horizontally connected relationships. Constructed on business network theories the paper aims to add more knowledge on business networks by developing a connection model including both vertical and horizontal connections. The model aims to explore the impact of connections on focal business relationships. It differentiates connected relationships on the basis of their vertical and horizontal natures. The purpose is to grasp the impact of these different connected relationships on the focal business relationship. The focal relationship elements are defined by commitment and trust, which capture their properties from the dyadic interaction and the two types of connected relationships.Design/methodology/approachThe paper tests the theoretical construction empirically. The empirical study is based on the IMP2 survey, utilizing information from extensive interviews with 138 firms regarding their relationships with important foreign customers.FindingsThe statistical findings in the form of a LISREL‐model clearly expose the impact of the horizontal connections and verify the validity of the theoretical model. It depicts that trust increase by vertical connections leading to increased commitment, thus strengthening the relationship while horizontal connection, on the contrary, weakens it. The facts also demonstrate how the horizontal connections impose effects on technological long‐term investments.Originality/valueMarketing researchers advocating certain theoretical views are thereby required to observe respect for the market realities with which managers are confronted.
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