INTRODUCTION

Whereas the other cases selected to study joint ventures in the construction industry in different countries in Europe were big infrastructure projects, the project examined in Berlin was the only building project in the sample. The main reason for the inclusion of a building project in the number of projects studied was very simple: a great infrastructure projected executed by an international joint venture of construction firms like the other projects included (Channel Tunnel, Storebælt, Second Severn Crossing, the planned TAV in Italy) was not available in Germany at that time. So we had to choose another type of project, which is not strictly comparable with the other projects in the sample. But this point compensated by the possibility to include some additional questions to study in more detail due to some differ-ences, which discriminate the Berlin project from the other ones. These differences followed from several facts. Firstly buildings to a certain extent differ in their nature from infrastructure works. Secondly the project coalition was not a joint venture but a coalition of different actors from dif-ferent countries acting under a national regulatory framework that was more or less unknown to all of them. Thirdly the importance of the project for one of the main actors lay not only in this particular project, but in the project as a means to reach an overriding aim: to enter the German construction market. And fourth-ly labour market conditions in German construction at that time were different from those in the most other countries in Europe. So the main question to study in this project was not how firms cooperate inside an international joint venture, but how construction firms manage their cross-border activities and what, in particular, the internationalisation of labour markets in construction means. For a building, as opposed to infrastructure works, the architectural design is more important and the number of functions, which are to be fulfilled is great-er. The project, and therefore also the project coalition, are more complex. So it is not above all the technological competence of the structural contractor, which is crucial to the whole project (this normally can be expected from every large construction company), but a certain organisational power and expe-rience. In the case studied here to win the contract required not a high performance to a given bill of quantities was required, but a threefold competence: the archi-tectural one to present an extraordinary design for the building, the organisat-ional one to ensure the management of the whole process, and last but not least the financial power of an investor, who was able to buy and to develop the site. Therefore a joint venture of developers was formed, which then gave the project to a Generalübernehmer, who was responsible for the execution of the whole project from the design phase to the handover of the building to the user. Unlike the client, the project coalition itself was not a joint venture2. It was formed not along the border lines between full trades (e.g. like superstructure, steelworks), but had to organize the performance of a single trade (e.g. superstructure) as a coope-ration between different actors (respectively responsible for structural engin-eering, site management, different parts of site works) - with the particular point here, that these different actors all came from different countries. Furthermore contractors and subcontractors from different countries worked together, so that cross-national cooperation was required. And last but not least they all worked under German regulations, which again made their activity some kind of a cross-border one. Unlike the case of great infrastructure projects, the client in Berlin was totally private. So interested parties had to bid for not only the project, but for the land where the site was to be. This land in the centre of Berlin was of course extremely attractive, so the fight for getting the plot of land that the construction site was on represents a good part of the whole story. On the other hand once the site was sold to the developers, the state no more interfered as an actor into the project. It was involved neither as client nor in the construction process and came on stage only in its regulatory role safeguarding the observance of urban planning policies, building norms and health and safety matters on site. It was not a member of the project coalition. For private developers an investment like this does not only have - like infra-structure projects do - the quality of a single investment, but also represents a market in the respective local area. So investors and firms involved in this case re-garded the project also as a key to a bigger and future market and tried to use it for market entry. In particular, this project was subject to the market entry strategy of the major French actor involved. But it did not, like firms normally do when they go abroad or when they take part in international joint ventures concerning infrastructural works ordered by the state or its agents, try to cooperate with local, (i.e. in this case German partners), but ex-plicitly tried to avoid to do so. Finally the project was affected by the special situation of the construction market in Germany and in particular in Berlin. After the end of the border to-wards the East, the unification of the country, and the re-establishing of Berlin as its capital, there is an enormous inflow of capital and a huge demand for construction work. And as a consequence of the big changes in Europe after 1989 there are particular conditions in the labour market in construction, which is under high pressure from migration by mobile workforces from regions which are peripheral to Western Europe's industrial centres. So not only do construction enterprises from abroad attempt to enter the Berlin market and the German market via the Berlin one, but also workers from many different countries come and are offered the opportunity to perform the works on site, but whose professional origin and qualification very often is.completely unknown.