Internationalization of Firms through Cooperation

In the 80s, a consensus has been reached about the empirical analysis of industrial relations. At the beginning of the 90s, the authors have noticed that firms tended to keep more frequently a cooperative form in their strategy when they were facing a challenging environment in terms of technological changes, competitive conditions and market globalization. On another hand, this observation was in agreement with the evolution of the literature. In fact, in different analytical areas, a more important place has been given to what is known today as “the intermediate forms of coordination” between market relations and firms internal relations. This subject has finally been illustrated in a particular context, that of the European economy in which the Maastricht agreements have been the lastest evolutions. The question was to study the most performing tools to create a competitive technological pole (faced by the two other areas of the “triad”: Japan and the United States), and a less heterogeneous industrial organisation while respecting the rigid competitive conditions.