Social Aspects in Buyer-Supplier Relationships of SMEs in Hungary

Abstract

Cooperation among companies was brought to the focus of attention by the fast changes of economic circumstances and the role it can play in coping with risk, appreciating all those characteristics which can help fast reactions and adaptability, like faith among business partners and long run relationships. The entrepreneur him/herself has a great influence on the characteristics of cooperation as well, besides these processes pushing them to the direction of cooperation, whose intention to get involved depends on his/her skills, abilities, but such characteristics of the company like scale, fields of activities affect it too. Economic, social and cultural circumstances are of major importance too, among which the above mentioned factors pursues their effects. Cooperation among companies can happen on any fields of the firms’ activities, for example research and development, marketing, purchase, or trading. This present paper intends to introduce the reader to the characteristics of supplier-purchaser relationships of small- and medium sized enterprises, based on an empirical research’s experiences. According to our opinion, we can draw conclusions on the intention to cooperate concerning the nature of the buyer-supplier relationships of companies, so a wide range of information can be concluded on small- and medium sized enterprises’ partnerships.