1 Norms of Autonomy, A Study of SMC Cooperation

This article focuses on normative, behavioural expectations which guide cooperation between multiple companies. Relational norms which bring parties to act together in cooperation have been in focus in many earlier studies. The importance of relational norms is acknowledged also here. However, this article focuses the attention to the individual interests of the parties and particularly to the need of maintaining autonomy in certain areas also while in cooperation. While most of the studies on norms guiding inter-company relationships have been quantitative, this research was performed as a qualitative research with a case group of five small and medium sized companies. The purpose of the cooperation was to develop export operations of the parties. For the study, data was mainly collected through interviews while the events were still unfolding. Documents and supplementary information acquired through telephone discussions were used to complement the interview data. The analysis was performed through discourse analysis. The framework is based on Ian Macneils (1980) theory of contracts. The theory distinguishes ‘discrete norms ’ and ‘relational norms ’ which both have gained attention in research concerning inter-company exchange relationships. Macneil’s theory is briefly reviewed in order to provide a specific field of discussion, and to provide the context in which to give meaning to the findings and a place to incorporate the findings of the analysis