International Expansion: A case study of how a state-owned enterprise expands internationally

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this single-case study is to investigate how state-owned enterprises internationalize. This is a perplexing phenomenon as state-owned enterprises face the constant threat of changing political opinions which makes long-term strategic planning difficult. A qualitative study has been conducted on a Swedish state-owned enterprise and empirical data has been collected from a range of sources. The results indicate that a financially strong owner who encourages internationalization enables the enterprise to expand simultaneously to many markets, contrary with the Uppsala model. Moreover, stateowned enterprises are more willing to create a permanent presence in areas which are regionally integrated, through institutions such as the European Union, than areas which are not. State-owned enterprises exploit markets with changing institutions, if they can predict the direction of the change however they do prefer markets with little government turbulence. This is because political turbulence is harder to predict and makes the development of appropriate connections difficult. Furthermore, stateowned enterprises want to establish themselves as large players on markets and obtain full control of acquired companies as it incites the domestic market’s government to engage in cross-governmental discussions with the host country’s government. Finally, state-owned enterprises choose to apply the domestic organizational structure on the acquired companies so that the owner can maintain control over its subsidiaries.