Fundamental to the building of social networks is the concept of trust, which has been widely acknowledged as a key social norm in governing and coordinating alliances (Gulati 1995). Competence-based trust (Ganesan 1994) exists to the extent that partners consistently exhibit traits such as credibility and expertise. This reflects the degree to which partners are willing to rely on each other's expertise, capabilities, and judgments (Shah & Swaminathan 2008). Trust is likely to assume greater importance is specific alliance contexts that are associated with high risk as marketing alliances among firms participating in the same industry, which sometimes may seen as competitors.

Elements of networking includes similarity, trust, credibility, integrity, honesty, knowledge and familiarity, commitment, better communications among firms, as well as confidence among parties (Morgan & Hunt 1994; Coviello et al. 2002; Coote et al. 2003). This study considers the definitions of relationship commitment used by Morgan and Hunt (1994) and Coote et al. (2003). Hence, this research understands relationship commitment in marketing activities as: Partners and potential partners, trying to maintain and enhance a value relationship for the development of a better inter-firm co-operation in marketing activities at local and/or international levels.

3. METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data for this study was collected by postal questionnaire survey and follow-up process to the total population of companies involved in the main value chain activities of the salmon farming industry (N=229) in the two participant countries: Scotland and Chile.

For the questionnaire not many scales of measurement related to inter-firm cooperation in marketing have been previously reported in published academic journals. The scales of measurement and questions for operationalisation of this study were taken from the 'case study' research conducted by Brown and Bell (2001). The scales developed by Brown and Bell, measured in a five point Likert scale (1= extremely useful to 5= not at all useful) the usefulness of membership to the Christchurch electronic cluster in New Zealand in developing 'active marketing externalities' to the participant firms. The concept of trust has been described as an important element that influences inter-firm co-operation. Based on the definition by Morgan and Hunt (1994) and Coote et al. (2003), this research understands the elements of trust in marketing as: Willingness to rely, be confident and have credibility in a partner, or potential partner, when developing inter-firm co-operation in marketing activities at local and/or international levels. Partner is understood as any firm or organisation (e.g. Trade Associations, individual firms, etc.).

To be consistent with previous research, the scales used by Morgan and Hunt (1994), Coote et al. (2003) and Coulter and Coulter (2003) are the basis for measuring similar concepts. However, new items and proxies were added, which were related to the specific research and country context of this study. Other constructs related to the social elements of networking and marketing practices came from Granovetter (1973) and Coviello et al. (2002). Aiming to ensure validity, the survey questionnaire was reviewed by leading international selected academics. It was also pretested using suggestions from industry informants and participating firms. This means, it was possible to achieve a better instrument of measurement. Modifications to the instrument were done when necessary.

The final effective response rate achieved was 25.6% (33% response rate in Scotland and 20% in Chile). The differences in response rate may be linked to cultural, economic (structural) and organisational factors in the participant countries, as well as in the specificity of the aquaculture/ agriculture sectors. A high level of item response was found in the usable questionnaires, as well as a high internal consistency of the responses. The usable responses were analysed using SPSS for Windows using exploratory methods.

3.1 Industry selection

The particular industry was chosen for diverse reasons. Firstly, it possesses similar characteristics in two countries with different levels of economic development and distinctive cultures. Secondly, it is located in specific geographical regions, contributing directly to the local economic development of rural-remote areas of each country. Thirdly, obvious inter-connections in value chain activities, combined with its geographical specificity, suggest that this industry constitutes an industrial district or cluster in both countries. Finally, Chile and Scotland were the second and third largest producers and exporters of farmed salmon during the time of this study2 and are thus important players in the global market of salmon farm products. Interestingly, there are also some differences in the 'cluster strategy' in Chile and Scotland. The former has a 'bottomup' approach, being led by the local companies with a minimum or not at all governmental intervention. The latter uses a clear 'top-bottom' approach, being the industry an integral part of the Scottish Food and Drink Cluster, which is led by the developmental agency for Scotland: Scottish Enterprise. Collectively, these characteristics suggest that this industry sector can be usefully investigated for comparative purposes.

4. RESULTS

Enhanced reputation or credibility of the firms and products, buying intermediate goods from other firms, providing access to better specialised suppliers, and finding new customers in new markets, are the main externalities that the respondent's firms found more useful as benefits of geographical co-location. The 'enhance reputation' and the 'finding new customers in new markets' variables, correspond to a 'passive marketing externality' that certain geographical places may create. The 'buying intermediate goods' and 'access to better specialised suppliers' are traditional economic externalities. These results confirm previous research in economic geography which specifies the importance of production related benefits that industrial districts and regional clusters can bring (see for example Becattini 1990; Bellandi 2001; Van Dennerg et al. 2001). Inter-firm transactions and the creation of economies of scale are the main benefits derived from geographical co-location. The results also shows that active marketing externalities are not the main benefits that simple geographical colocation brings to companies. As a result, other factors are needed to stimulate marketing cooperation, as it may be the case of social networks.

Chilean firms seem to appreciate greater benefits of agglomeration, with the exception of 'access to a skilled labour', 'greater international market demand' and 'enhance reputation or credibility of firms and products'. This may be because agglomeration is more obvious in the specific urban location of the industry in Chile, or it may be the case that there is a better perception of the benefits of the cluster. Significant differences were found between Scotland and Chile in the following factors: 'selling intermediate goods to other firms' (p=0.002), 'access to new technology' (p=0.023), 'greater market knowledge' (p=0.054), 'greater innovation/new product development' (p=0.004) and 'inter-firm referrals to your firm' (p=0.046). Chilean companies were more likely to rank these factors as useful or extremely useful. Similarly, significant differences were found in 'enhance reputation' (p=0.083), with Scottish companies being the ones that perceived it as more useful. This issue may be seen to be related to the country of origin effect in agrofood and aquaculture products (see Tootelian & Segale 2004).

Applying a multiple regression may be a good predictor of the strength and relation of independent variables influencing marketing cooperation among firms, as it is one of the main objectives of this research. Standard multiple regression was employed aiming to see the strength and direction of the associations between a set of independent variables related to general externalities produced by co-location and their influence on marketing cooperation (see Table 1).

The results of the analysis presented above only explain 6.7 per cent (R square) of the variance of marketing cooperation (dependent variable). The factors 'intermediating transactions' (beta=.199) and 'expanding customer base' (beta=.194) make the largest contributions for inter-firm cooperation in marketing. However, they do not make any statistical significant contribution to the equation. This may suggest that the factors expanding customer base (mean=3.27; s.d.=1.12) and intermediating transactions (mean=2.95; s.d.=1.13) are overall the most important activities that companies are looking for in cooperative activities. Further regression analysis exploring all the different factors that influence inter-firm cooperation in marketing is presented in the next section of the results.

Significant differences between countries were found in two factors: knowledge networking and intermediating transactions. There, Chilean companies seem to have found more usefulness of intermediating transactions between geographically co-located companies, compared to their Scottish counterparts. Once again, these may be due to the specific location of Chilean companies, which are mainly located in the urban area of Puerto Montt, compared to the more dispersed ones in Scotland, which can be found in both remote-rural and urban areas. Besides, 'knowledge networking', involving inter-clusters referrals, innovation and new product development is strictly seen more predominant to occur among Scottish companies. These differences may imply dissimilar levels, depths and objectives of marketing activities and strategies among Chilean and Scottish companies participating in the selected industry. This may be explained because of their differences in export markets and the particular entry strategies involved.

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