THE NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELATIONSHIPS IN INTERNATIONAL PROJECT BUSINESS NETWORKS

The understanding of networks and business relationships is seen as a basis for understanding the behaviour of firms in industrial and business-to-business situations. International Project Business creates a network involving complex relationships between companies often from several countries. The success of the project business effort depends not just on the technical expertise of the project sellers but on their ability to successfully manage the network with its mix of actors with different technical, economic, cultural and business backgrounds. Yet, the complex nature of the project marketing network has still not been fully understood. The critical reason is that none of the previous studies has used a wholly network approach to the subject. This study aims at understanding the structures, relationships and the process of development of the international project marketing network, using a focal network perspective, which requires a simultaneous analysis of more than one actors or even the dyadic perspective.