Market as a Multilevel System

Globalized markets require long distance partnerships between companies, 'globalpipelines' as Bathelt and Schuldt (2008) call them. But what kind of relationships do these partnerships represent? Behind each partnership between companies there are always inter-individual ties (Gulati 1995). If a partnership between two organizations necessitates inter-individual collaboration at the beginning of a contracting process between companies, the more a partnership is repeated between two companies, the more it breaks away from the inter-individual relationship to become an inter-organizational tie that does not need specific acquaintances between its members (Lorenz 1999). In order to understand how international ties are created between companies one should study the coordination and the complex interdependencies between these two kinds of actors and these two levels of actions: individuals and organization