Motives for Retailer Internationalization to Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

This paper focuses on internationalization motives of multinational retailers with regard to three Central and Eastern European countries including Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. Based on the prior literature reviewed, a comprehensive set of retail internationalization motives was identified. The highest ranked retail internalization motives were found to be concerned more with host country-specific motives than home country and firm-specific motives. The study also found that the relative importance of the retail internalization motives varied most with the retail type of operations, and to a moderate extent with the market entry mode. However, no significant difference was found between the relative importance of the retail internalization motives and host country origin.