Swedish Cleantech Opportunities in China : From a Business Network Perspective

Sammanfattning: The emerging cleantech market in China will bring new business opportunities for Swedish cleantech SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises). In such an internationalization process, business network building is an important approach that Swedish entrepreneurs should consider about. Guanxi is a culture pattern in China and plays important role in business of Chinese context. The purpose of the thesis is to find how business network and guanxi affect on Swedish SMEs’ internationalization, especially their business with China in the cleantech industry. Based on market information from pre-study, four propositions connected with business network and guanxi are generated for Swedish SMEs in their business with China. Later, four cases are selected to match raised propositions for deeper analysis. By the theory of guanxi and business network internationalization, each proposition and case gives a specific view to analyze and understand this topic from an explorative way. Several conclusions are drawn by the analysis. First, guanxi plays an important role in network building for China market, and the native Chinese can provide great help in such a guanxi building process. Second, the business network can bring valuable information and business opportunities for Swedish SMEs in their business with China. Third, it is beneficial for Swedish cleantech SMEs to cooperate with Chinese state owned companies in their business network. Fourth, Chinese local SMEs cannot gain competitive advantage by guanxi building because the foreign competitors can copy or imitate with proper strategy to learn the skill to connect with Chinese people in the market.