Creating Partnerships: A Study of Swedish : South African Small Business Collaborations

Abstract: Background: The Background of this thesis dates back to November of 1999 when Sweden arranged its largest manifestation ever in a developing country, namely South Africa. The origin of this study lies within the frame of Trade&Industry, more specifically a seminar on small business partnership. At the seminar companies with less than 20 employees from both countries were introduced to each other with the long term goal of establishing partnerships between the two countries. These companies awoke our interest in the process of creating a partnership. Purpose: With this thesis, we hope to contribute to a higher level of knowledge about small business partnership creation. We also intend to give normative guidelines as for what may be important to have in mind when creating a partnership. We will do this by describing the initial stage of collaboration between small companies and by discussing how initial conditions may affect the parties’ collaboration. Delimitation: Our focus is on the strategic objectives and context of collaboration, and we have looked upon these factors without taking corporate culture or external factors, such as political environment, business climate etc., into account. Proceed of the Study: As well as participating in the manifestation and at the seminar we have conducted interviews with representatives from 8 companies. Results: In creating a small business partnership companies often heavily depends on one key-person. Communication between companies will contribute to a clearer value-creation scenario - and misunderstandings can be avioded. Furthermore, flexibility, openness and equality between partners will substantially ease the process of creating a partnership.