Industrial Relationships with Foreign Firms: The Case of Government Impact in the Iranian Business Market

In studies of business markets two different tracks primary dominate the marketing disciplines. One dominating view, as stated by Hadjikhani (2000), has its roots in the microeconomic theory (See Kotler, 1967). The other track has, in contrast, its base in the system and behavior theory thinking (Arndt, 1985, Cyert and March, 1963; Thompson, 1967). The study presented in this paper takes its ground in the latter and focuses on local firms' behavior in its interaction with foreign firms. As both business and political environments affect this relationship, this study has the ambition to develop a theoretical model aiming at studying the impact of business as well as non-business actors on international business relationships. The paper is thus focused on the interfacing of two interconnected relations, the industrial and the political. The former concerns the interaction in industrial buying and selling of products and services and the latter the political rules affecting this relationship.