Perceived importance of contract value, offshore market experience and buyer attractiveness among SME service suppliers in Norway

摘要

This paper focuses on the perception of offshore market attractiveness among SME service suppliers in the Norwegian offshore market. From the buying companies' perspective, it is desirable to recruit and maintain a sufficient great supplier base of local service suppliers in the Norwegian offshore market in line with the national industry policy in Norway. This research analyses possible barriers to entry for small service suppliers in the Norwegian offshore market. The empirical findings demonstrates that the suppliers' perceived importance of contract value, materialised as contract size and contract duration play an important role for increasing new entries of service suppliers into the offshore market. The perception of the importance of contract value is in particular important for enhancing the perceived attractiveness of offshore buying companies among service firms outside this market (solely onshore suppliers), while this effect is rather modest among service suppliers who have entered the offshore market.