Relationships in international business networks

The research examines business relationships operating in international business networks within the engineering services industry. In particular, the research involved engineering service companies based in Australia with operations in Thailand. The relationships were examined from both an Australian and a Thai perspective, and examined the applicability of both the actors-activities-resources model (AAR) and the use of structural characteristics to analyse business relationships within this western/eastern environment.

The research was conducted within an interpretative social science approach, using an in-depth interview technique for the collection of data. This allowed the researcher to develop rich information on the business relationships being examined. Data was entered into NUD.IST, qualitative data analysis software, and analysed from a cross-cultural perspective. Both the Australian and Thai perspectives of the business relationships were examined and compared for similarities and differences.

The research contributed to knowledge through a deeper understanding of international business relationships within professional business services. The six contributions are: the generation of two new concepts - actor bond negative and network constraint in the AAR model; the generation of the antecedents for the substance layers of the AAR model within an Asian context; further development of the concept of a network catalyst; the development of a new description for the internationalisation process based at the firm level; the generation of the antecedents for the structural characteristics within an Asian context; and the development of definitions for the main constructs through an inter-coder reliability method.