Short analysis: The main factors separating businesses at this stage are financial. The recession and credit crunch are the two mentioned most often. Others mentioned crises and political instability as factors.

Question 5: DO NOT WRITE THE QUESTION.

Summary for all companies: Six of the nine companies shared (recent) examples of how they have managed to successfully maintain relationships with an existing partner.

Short analysis: Three of the companies just flat out said they had no success recently with partners. The other six companies gave emphatic yeses and mentioned extension of contracts, very good summer, and established great contacts.

Question 6: DO NOT WRITE THE QUESTION.

Summary for all companies In this stage all nine companies said that, mutual familiarity, understanding, close psychic distance and communications are needed to maintain existing levels of trust and commitment and to continue to reinforce positive experiences and enhance satisfaction made perfect sense to them.

Short analysis: The answers to this statement were all yes. Yes this is right and yes this is correct were most prevalent among the nine businesses corresponding.

General Questions

Question 1: DO NOT WRITE THE QUESTION.

Summary for all companies: All nine companies were asked about the countries from which many of their business partners hailed from. North Africa, United Kingdom, and Malta were all places in which six of the nine organizations had established partnerships.

Short analysis: Other countries that were mentioned were: Italy three times, Egypt, Tunisia, and Greece twice, Algeria, Spain, Turkey, Libya, all once. Southern Europe and The Far East were also mentioned. This indicates that the nine organizations are establishing partnerships in a variety of countries.

Question 2: DO NOT WRITE THE QUESTION.

Summary for all companies: The nine businesses identified many different key factors that foreign organizations should take into account when doing business with companies in Libya. The main responses were in culture, language, and knowledge.

Short analysis: This indicates that the nine organizations believe that culture, language, and knowledge are the most important factors in doing business with companies in Libya. Other answers that were given included communication, weather patterns, and experience.

Question 3: DO NOT WRITE THE QUESTION.

Summary for all companies: The nine businesses identified important key factors that Libyan organizations should take into account when doing business with foreign companies. The main responses were in culture, language, and knowledge.

Short analysis: This indicates that the nine organizations believe that culture, language, and knowledge are the most important factors for Libyan companies when doing business with foreign companies. Other answers that were given included communication, experience, reputation, flexibility, and prior business experience.

Question 4: DO NOT WRITE THE QUESTION.

Summary for all companies: The nine businesses identified important steps can you take to carry on building good relationships between themselves and their business partners. The main responses included culture, culture adaptation, and communications.

Short analysis: This indicates that the nine organizations believe that culture, culture adaptation, and communication are the most essential elements in building good relationships between themselves and their business partners. Other answers that were divulged were recent experience, research area, flexibility, and constant communication.

Question 5: DO NOT WRITE THE QUESTION.

Summary for all companies: The nine organizations made several recommendations that they would give to a foreign company seeking to develop business relationships with Libyan companies and they are culture, culture awareness, culture adaptation, and communication.

Short analysis: This indicates that the nine organizations believe that culture, culture adaptation, and communication are the most essential recommendations that they would give to a foreign company seeking to develop business relationships with Libyan companies. Other answers included flexibility, research, and recent experience in that area.

Part 3

Summary and discussion of part 2

Writers Hallen and Wiedersheim (1984), Dwyer et al. (1987), Wilson (1995) and Brooks (2008) believe that in order to develop a business relationship, it is necessary first and foremost, that the business is ready to give so that the trust-quotient could be proved, and credibility built with a given market scenario. Here are the examples of Dwyer et al. (1987), Wilson (1995), Brooks (2008) and Hallen and Wiedersheim (1984) stages in developing a business relationship. For the purpose of this analysis the Hallen and Wiedersheim's (1984) four broad stages will be used.

Dwyer et al. (1987) suggest five stages in the development of a relationship:

1. Exploration

2. Awareness

3. Expansion

4. Commitment

5. Dissolution

Wilson (1995) also suggests five stages in business relationship development, but with a slightly...

Search & selection
2. Defining purpose

3. Setting boundaries

4. Value creation

5. Hybrid stability

Brooks (2008) suggested four stages that businesses follow in the implementation of a relationship building exercise:

1. Emerging - getting know each other with a few test transactions (both financial and non-financial)

2. Growth - increases in size and/or volume of transactions

3. Maturity - steady state: stable size and/or volume of transactions

4. Declining - decreases in size and/or volume of transactions"

Hallen and Wiedersheim (1984) suggest the following four broad stages:

Pre-contact: Given that the parties taking part have not been in contact, the perceptions on both sides rely on the second hand appreciations of the whole nation, thus the initiation of the process is the cultural affinity which is considered a starting variable (Hallen and Wiedersheim 1984). The overall argument at this stage is that there are minimal chances of any other variables getting involved in relationship development, thus the remainder take effect just after making contact.

Initial Interaction:

Prior to carrying out any critical steps the prospective partners must first have a meeting or a series of meetings, which can be said to be initial interaction. This stage is similar to 'exploration' as referred to by (Dwyer et al. 1987), and goes on for an undefined period, but generally between 1-12 months, dependent on the frequency of the contacts made.

Development:

The relationship is developing at this stage and is beyond the initial interaction stage. The emergence of problems is more likely at this stage, as it signifies the end of the 'honeymoon' period and the focus of the partner's moves from relationship development to the core objectives of the business.

Maturity:

A business relationship reaching the maturity stage should be an indicator that the partners involved are sufficiently familiar with each other to the extent of being able to anticipate each others' needs and wants. Synonymous to partners in marriage, the partners in a business relationship should be comfortable with each other, and work in unity of understanding and accepting the operational parameters of the relationship.

Businesses must begin to rely more on relationship building, because in a global market the idea of this is understood to be an important element for success. It is equally important to consider that relationship building happens between people, within organizations, and not between the organizations themselves.

To obtain the necessary information about establishing and maintaining successful international business relationships, a survey must be put assembled to collect and analyze the data for the case study. A test pilot was used in this study and randomly selected five international businesses to do both face-to-face and phone interviewing to ensure that the data collection process is both valid and reliable. After the test pilot was complete, the surveys were sent to the nine businesses from a variety of geographically different locations.

Two test runs were completed prior to implementing the collection plan to be sure that the level of risk is minimized as much as possible. Being that all of the scoring is done via the computer, isolating specific applicants and questions is a feasible task to complete. This has also ensured that the information is coming from the selected sample and that it accurately represents international businesses establishing and maintaining successful relationships.

The focus of the survey will be on the nine companies that participated in the case study and volunteered time to answer questions from five specific categories in dealing with partnerships in business. The stages included the pre-contact, initial interaction, development, maturity, and one that included general questions. The data was collected from surveys electronically with the appropriate measures taken to ensure proper permission is granted. Technology, in this case, was important as well.

The first questioning component used in the survey was the pre-contact stage. Four questions were asked to the nine businesses in this stage. Question number one asked about finding new business partners and the nine organizations were in agreement on many of the characteristics they seek in new business partners such as quality, knowledge, and reputation. The second question asks what the aims and objectives are during this stage and all nine companies mention that their aims and objectives are to improve and strengthen partnerships in one way or another.

Next, the nine businesses are asked about how they searched for partners; 100% of the organizations agreed that they would search for partners via the Internet by looking into subject expertise. Another finding was that contact was often made by using email and the telephone and these avenues have had a direct correlation to future meetings. The fourth question inside the pre-contact stage asked the nine businesses to describe the most important characteristics looked for when choosing a new business partner; the answers divulged that the nine companies were…