Foreign markets entry motives and strategies of polish exporters

The article presents the results of research on the strategy of Polish companies that export their products to foreign markets. It presents motives, conditions and forms of expansion and is comprises of three parts. In the first one, the theoretical aspects of a company’s internationalization are discussed, with stress on motives and forms of entering foreign markets. The second part is concerned with the complex problems regarding methodology of research – goals, hypotheses, methods and description of study sample are the main focus here. The synthetic, summation of the results of the study are presented in the third part. The study verifies the hypotheses regarding motives of internationalization and concrete forms of entering foreign markets. The most powerful premises to internationalize Polish companies are market motives. The relationship between the size of the company, decision to start export goods and the nature of expansion (offensive, as well as defensive) has been ascertained. One of the strong motives for internationalization among companies belonging to SME group, were encouragements and invitations for cooperation from foreign partners. However, the main strategy was direct export, complemented by other forms of expansion, of lesser importance. In the expanding process Polish exporters took advantage of direct investments, via establishing divisions and subsidiary companies that deal with distribution of products. The waterfall strategy proved to be the most common in entering foreign markets – used by roughly 70% of the examined exporters. The research could be a contribution into the process of scientific examination and development of international business practice. It can also provide a ground for further discussion on marketing internationalization, methodology of formulating marketing strategies, their nature and assessing their effectiveness on international markets. Last but not least it can encourage more such scientific studies and research conducted by international teams of scholars