Company Behavior in the Internationalization Process and Its Performance

The aim of the paper is to determine the role of different types of company's behavior in the internationalization process, identified from the perspective of a network approach, for corporate performance. In order to describe the company's behaviour in the internationalization process a set of criteria has been proposed. These are: formalization of the internationalization process, openness to cooperation in the internationalization process and activeness in creating network of relations in the internationalization process. Taking into consideration the proposed criteria, the analysis of business practice enabled to identify four possible types of company's behaviour in the internationalization process: type A - Active, type B - Submissive, type C - Independent and type D - Distrustful realist. The assessment of corporate performance of the four types of company's behavior has been performed. Additionally, the dynamic approach to the typology of company's behavior in the internationalization process has been proposed. The conclusions presented in the paper are the outcome of long-term studies of behavioral aspects of company's internationalization process, performed within two research projects carried out in years 2006-2008 and 2010-2012.