This book systematizes the concepts of business relationships and network embeddedness, taking a new approach to internationalization, relevant for the global economy. It reflects the growing importance of network internationalization theory and explores the impact of embeddedness in domestic and foreign relationships on a company's performance. The author questions the validity of the distinction between domestic and foreign activity of companies and demonstrates that in the B2B market, there are actually no exclusively domestic companies which are not directly or indirectly connected with foreign entities. Chapters cover both small to medium sized enterprises and large multinational corporations, presenting a qualitative analysis of over 400 companies including case studies from the IT and furniture industries. This informative study will provide useful insight for academics and students of business and management, international business and organization studies.

Autorentext

Milena Ratajczak-Mrozek is Associate Professor at the Pozna University of Economics and Business, Poland. She is an Outstanding Young Scientist holder of the Minister of Science and Higher Education scholarships and member of the board of Industrial Marketing and Purchasing Group. Her main areas of research include companies' relationships and networks in international settings.

Inhalt

1. Introduction.- 2. The Essence of the Network Approach.- 3. Relationships and Interactions as the Basis of Companies' Activities.- 4. Three Perspectives of Companies' Embeddedness.- 5. The Importance of Embeddedness for Companies' Activities - Perspective of Relationships and Interactions.- 6. The Network Theory of Companies' Internationalization - The Importance of Relationships for International Expansion.- 7. The Importance of Embeddedness for Companies' International Activities.- 8. Methodology of the Empirical Studies.- 9. Positive and Negative Outcomes of Embeddedness for the Domestic and International Activity - Results of Case Studies Analysis.- 10. The Importance of Relationships and Embeddedness for Companies' Internationalization and Performance - Results of Quantitative Study.- 11. Conclusions.