Doing business in the CEE. A comparative franco-german study in light of the financial and economic crisis

International audienceThe expansion of the European Union in 2004 towards Central and Eastern European Countries (CEE) has offered new opportunities for firms which seek to expand their international business. The challenge in this context is to understand internationalization as a process that is highly dynamic but naturally not always successful, a process which is cyclical instead of linear and necessarily dependent on events and happenings within time (Leonidou and Katsikeas, 1996, Hurmerinta-Peltomäki, 2003). Based on this assumption, this paper evaluates the business experience in the CEE in the light of the world-wide financial and economic crisis. The Franco-German comparative analysis provides cross-cultural perspectives of current challenges and expected future developments when doing business in the CEE