Venturing to Distant Markets – Polish Firms in Latin America

The objective of this paper is to shed light on the understudied phenomenon of expansion of Polish firms to distant markets. Authors ask the following questions: (1) What is the current state of internationalisation of Polish firms in Latin America, in both quantitative (i.e. value of exports and FDI) and qualitative terms (i.e. characteristics of key exporters and investors); (2) What are the main distance-related barriers to internationalisation of Polish firms in Latin America. In order to describe the scale, scope and characteristics of Polish exports and investments in Latin America, authors analyse publicly available information, macro-level data and micro-level data, collected from the press and financial statements of Polish firms present in Latin America, combined with the information received from the Trade and Investment Promotion Sections of the Polish Embassies. In order to assess the distance between Poland and Latin America, thus indicating the major barriers to internationalisation of Polish firms in this region, the psychic distance measures elaborated by Hakanson and Ambos and the CAGE framework offered by Ghemawat are employed. This paper contributes to the discussion on whether the ‘go global’ strategy is viable for Polish firms and whether it should be supported by the State. Keywords: internationalisation, distance, Poland, Latin America JEL Code: M16