On business collaboration patterns: A comparative study between Europe and China

Business collaboration has been taken as an effective resort to establish and maintain the company´s competitiveness. This paper explores the modes of business collaboration with special focus on the comparison between European and Chinese small and medium enterprises (SMEs). An empirical survey was conducted in five European countries and China to better understand their attitudes towards collaboration, types of collaboration and relationship with their partners, etc. The results reveal that SMEs from both Europe and China are collaborating or are willing to collaborate with their partners to increase their sales, develop new products or to access new markets and so on. Although SMEs do collaborate, these collaborations are limited to areas with cultural similarities. Generally speaking, most of the SMEs under survey are satisfied with their collaboration in terms of sales increase, new product/service, improvements in quality and skills as well as market access. Further research will be required to study factors that affect collaboration, particularly factors related to cultural backgrounds.