M16 - International Business AdministrationReturn

Internationalization, or the process of foreign market entry, has lately been a frequent topic of discussion. It is an essential phenomenon that has shaped the global economy over the past decades. At a micro level, internationalization can be a very effective tool for supporting sustainable company growth. This paper focuses on the internationalization of Austrian firms in the Czech Republic. It lays down the author's research into 52 Austrian firms currently present on the Czech market with regard to the eight main internationalization theories and models. Austria plays a very important investment role in the Central and Eastern European region, including the Czech Republic. Indeed, the Czech market is the third largest recipient of direct Austrian foreign investment, following Germany and the United States. After defining the term internationalization, the paper first describes the firms' entry onto the market, answering the following research questions: How have Austrian firms internationalized on the Czech market and what are their common characteristics? Then, these internationalization approaches are analyzed as follows: the Uppsala model, the network theory of internationalization, the strategic behaviour theory, the international product life cycle theory, the transaction cost theory, the eclectic theory, the behaviourist internationalization theory, and the "born global" theory. However, their evaluation is only partial and solely based on the research sample. A more complex analysis of the theories and models would require larger samples from different regions and the application of statistical methods.

This paper deals with the problems of organizational culture management and transfer. Current theoretical concepts of organizational culture are discussed in the first part, so that they can be used in the application part. The second part of the article is based on the results of a case study of an international retail company currently present on the Czech market. Primary qualitative research has been carried out as part of the case study in order to analyze several aspects of the organizational culture of the respective company and try to answer questions such as how the organizational culture is formulated, managed and transferred from the home to the host country and how it is perceived by employees, mainly front line employees. A discussion about the specific retail macro culture is performed over the example of the examined company. Even if the results of this case study cannot be generalized, they can serve as a continuation of the research work already performed by Elke Pioch and thus this case study can be compared to similar studies carried out in other retail markets such as in the UK and Germany.