The essence of enterprise internationalization in the modern market

Abstract

The aim of the article is to present issues related to enterprise internationalization in the the- oretical aspect, taking account of its various manifestations under conditions of increasing variability and complexity, i.e. the turbulence of today’s environment. It is assumed that an understanding of the concept of enterprise internationalization should go beyond identifying it solely with foreign expansion,

i.e. with issues such as the motives for taking up business outside the home country, the forms of entry, and the ways of competing on foreign markets. The approach to broadly understood internationalization as presented here includes very diverse activities setting up the basis for the distinction between active and passive internationalization. It is further assumed that internationalization issues do not only concern the entities implementing strategies of active internationalization, the descriptions of which dominate in the literature, but among other things, they should take into account the behavior of domestic entities

concerning increased foreign competition on the home market, or their participation in international cooperation relations with no active servicing of foreign markets. Phenomena that are also gaining im- portance in the context of internationalization are de-internationalization, in the sense of downsizing the scope of enterprise international activity, and re-internationalization, i.e. re-entry into international oper- ations which concerns enterprises already having knowledge and experience in servicing foreign markets.