Risker vid svensk företagsverksamhet i Estland

All companies face risk in their daily business. Internationalised companies tend to experience higher risk due to for example unfamiliar business environment than companies that act only on the national market. Estonia became independent as late as in 1991 and is therefore a new interesting market for many companies in neighbouring countries like Sweden. Risks that are most apparent for an internationalised company are political risk, currency risk, capital and interest rate risk, business risk and credit risk. Our intention of this study was to find out how Swedish companies acting on the Estonian market faced the different risks when entering the Estonian market and how they value the risks today. We also wanted to learn how these companies are protected against the above mentioned risks. Another aim with this study was to analyse how the companies’ process of internationalisation, focusing upon the different types entry mode, influenced the apprehension of risk by the management. We found that Swedish companies acting on the Estonian market valued the risks to be of limited importance. Credit risk and business risk were experienced as the most essential risks. Use of protection varied among the different risks. As expected, most companies entered the market through limited engagement and these companies experienced a lower risk than companies that initial had chosen to do a foreign direct investment. Key words: Process of internationalisation, political risk, currency risk, interest rate risk, business risk and credit ris