ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the developed country variant of the embeddedness model of local growth together with the Third World and transnational corporations extensions of the model. The inclusionary arguments of the model, built on issues of trust, reciprocity and loyalty, are tempered with counter tendencies towards exclusion that are evident in the same relationships. The chapter discusses the inclusionary and exclusionary tendencies in the concrete circumstances of inter-firm relationships within the formal economy of Fiji. In this analysis three main types of enterprise are recognised: foreign-owned firms, Indian-owned family business networks, and small, single plant, livelihood firms that are principally concerned with 'coping'. Foreign-owned firms have very distinctive relationships with other Fiji-based enterprises and the Fiji economy in general. In the domestic small firm sector, among Indo-Fijian small and medium sized enterprisess, price issues rule buyer-supplier relationships, with the smallest enterprises operating in an essentially cash economy.
