Abstract
Globalization and advances in information and communication technologies have boosted the use of Horizontal Cooperation (HC) practices in many industry sectors. In the current international market, these ‘alliances’ become especially relevant for small and medium organizations, which are forced to compete with large-scale corporations. This paper analyzes benefits and challenges of HC practices in three service sectors that are critical for most developed and emerging countries: Internet-based higher education, computational logistics and transportation and telecommunication services. The paper discusses the role of HC to benefit from economies of scale and reduce costs, improve quality of service and become more environmentally friendly. Hence, by using HC firms not only increase their competitiveness and extend their markets but, in addition, they also promote social responsiveness actions.
Highlights
In our global economy, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) need to continuously innovate in services and strategies to be more competitive and meet their customers’ expectations in terms of service level and quality
The results showed the coexistence of two internationalization models: the predominance of the traditional international cooperation, based on competition and collocation in the globalized labor market and the tendency of the horizontal international model, based on the international awareness and the willingness to strengthen the endogenous scientific capacity of the weakest members
We have analyzed the role of horizontal cooperation experiences in very different industry sectors which are strongly related to information and communication technologies, such as Internet-based higher education, computational logistics and transportation and telecommunication services
Summary
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) need to continuously innovate in services and strategies to be more competitive and meet their customers’ expectations in terms of service level and quality.
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