Inter-firm co-operation: a New Zealand perspective

The fundamental impulse that sets and keeps in motion the capital engine comes from the new consumers, goods, the new methods of production or transportation, the markets, and the new forms of industrial organization that capitalist enterprise creates. The same fundamental impulse changes the competitive market and forces small firms to adapt. One innovation many small firms adopt to improve their competitiveness is co-operative working. Despite much research on the propensity of small firms to co-operate and many publications on why small firms should co-operate, there is still doubt over the efficacy of inter-firm co-operation. This paper revisits this research and then considers the relatively unusual case of New Zealand. A country where there are all the usual indicators for co-operation (small number of firms, the transparency of activities, interdependencies, personal familiarity and geographical proximity) yet surprisingly little cooperation occurs.