• Cambridge Scholars Publishing

    "[Second Thoughts on Capitalism and the State is a] profoundly reflective book shows a pathway forward for academics and activists alike who are stymied by the disconnect between deep critical scholarship and emancipatory social change, yet who will still not give up the good fight."

    - Professor Diane E. Davis, Harvard University

The Internationalisation Maturity of the Firm: A Business Relationships Perspective

In the 21st century, even small firms can reach customers located in different, often remote, parts of the world. In fact, internationalisation has become a common phenomenon that affects the majority of companies worldwide. Recent research emphasises that there are numerous determinants of a company’s competitive advantage in the international business environment, including product quality, price, and market knowledge. Much less attention, however, has been paid to the role of business relationships.

The task of determining the impact of business relationships on performance poses a considerable challenge. In the book, business relationships are operationalised by a set of characteristics and determinants which influence a company’s competitive advantage. The contributors here refer to these characteristics and determinants as components of the company’s internationalisation maturity. It is argued that a higher level of internationalisation maturity increases the firm’s performance.

The book includes both conceptual discussions on the role of firms’ business relationships in the internationalisation process and results of extensive empirical studies. In order to verify the concept of a firm’s internationalisation maturity, a mixed methodology was used, combining quantitative (almost 300 companies) and qualitative (40 case studies) research. As such, the book provides useful insights for academics, students of management and international business, and business practitioners.


Krzysztof Fonfara is Full Professor and Head of the Department of International Marketing at the Poznań University of Economics and Business, Poland. His research interests include the internationalisation process and market orientation. He is the author of six books and over 170 papers published in journals such as International Marketing Review, European Journal of Marketing and Industrial Marketing Management, being a member of the Editorial Board of the latter.

Łukasz Małys is Associate Professor at the Poznań University of Economics and Business, Poland. His research relates to the company internationalisation process and business relationships. The author of over 40 publications, he has been involved in numerous consultancy works for business and government organisations.

Milena Ratajczak-Mrozek is Associate Professor at the Poznań University of Economics and Business, Poland. Her research concerns companies’ relationships and networks in an international setting. She is the author of two books and over 50 papers published in such journals as IMP Journal and Industrial Marketing Management.

"The methodological approach, theoretical framing and results provided in this book clearly show the wide and long-term experience of the team behind this project. I found this work very interesting and insightful, indeed, in some respects, even ground-breaking. I especially appreciated the fact that the authors combine the issues of competitive advantage, internationalization and business networks. In particular, company performance is explicitly assessed and linked to both the “maturity” of a company’s international operations and to key characteristics of its business relationships. Importantly, the results are well empirically grounded in both qualitative and quantitative data."

Professor Enrico Baraldi Uppsala University

"We are living in a highly complex and dynamic business world. There are so many highly specialized businesses constructing and producing complex and advanced products and services in an increasingly global setting. How can companies find their role and position in such an international business world? This is a challenge which this book takes seriously by involving managers from a number of Polish firms as well as developing a very comprehensive and advanced empirical methodology. The results are impressive both in terms of depth and breadth. There are no simple major correlations, but instead a large number of very deep and insightful observations. There is much to find in the results for anyone interested in how trust, conflict, psychic distance, openness for cooperation, levels of formalization, and the duration of the internationalizing process influences maturity, and thereby also ROI and sales."

Professor Emeritus Håkan Håkansson BI Norwegian Business School

"The Internationalisation Maturity of the Firm: A Business Relationships Perspective is a very interesting, well-written and inspiring text. The authors deal with business relationships in the context of companies’ mature internationalization and their competitive advantage in international markets. The focus on the companies’ maturity in analyzing processes of the firms’ internationalization is rather fresh in scholarly texts and may become a good inspiration for those who plan a research in that area."

Professor Elzbieta Duliniec Warsaw School of Economics

Bartosz Deszczynski

Adam Dymitrowski

Krzysztof Fonfara

Aleksandra Hauke-Lopes

Milosz Luczak

Łukasz Małys

Marcin Soniewicki

Marcin Wieczerzycki

Buy This Book

ISBN: 1-5275-0900-1

ISBN13: 978-1-5275-0900-9

Release Date: 21st June 2018

Pages: 186

Price: £58.99

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