In an increasingly integrated Europe, intensive collaboration is a mean for economic growth in the border regions. The EU is investing money into cross- border initiatives to foster economic integration. The European Union is trying to integrate economies and member- states even more with the European Cohesion policy the policy behind hundreds of thousands of project all over Europe that receive funding. Therefore the border between Germany and the Netherlands is characterized by many cross- border initiatives. The Eems Dollart Region is the main initiative in the north of the German- Dutch border. Within the region Veendam and Papenburg want to collaborate.
From an economic perspective the municipality as well as the business club of Veendam on the Dutch side of the border and the municipality and business club of Papenburg on the German side of the border want to collaborate. There has not been a study on the facilitation for cross- border collaboration in order to reach competitive advantage. Using a case study, the diamond model, from the competitive advantage theory of Michael Porter (1990) is used to create a collaboration scheme. Through interviews and literature the main research question, how can cross- border collaboration be facilitated between small and medium- sized enterprises between Veendam and Papenburg, was answered using the analysis method of grounded theory. The most important factor of the diamond model is the importance of innovation, since it creates competitive advantage and an economic gain.
The cross- border collaboration between Veendam and Papenbug has competitive advantage at its core goal, with SME’s at its core. This should lead to more revenue, value added activity and work in both municipalities.
The collaboration has to be small, specific, direct and demand based in order to gain a competitive advantage out of the collaboration. The companies need to benefit from it and need to be stimulated by economic gains thus according to the factors in the diamond model, collaboration leads to competitive advantage in the case of SME's in Veendam and Papenburg.
The scheme that has resulted from the research creates involvement from all stakeholders. In this scheme the government the businesses and the companies all have their responsibility for creating a collaboration that will lead to a competitive advantage by demand being demand driven.