The Importance of Relationships and Embeddedness for Companies’ Internationalization and Performance—Results of Quantitative Study

Abstract

Based on the survey responses from over 400 companies the chapter describes companies’ domestic and foreign embeddedness in business relationships. The results show that all companies are embedded to a different degree in domestic and international business relationships and are subject to domestic and international interactions. The chapter presents the effect of embeddedness in relationships on companies’ internationalization and summarizes the main outcomes of interorganizational network embeddedness that are specifically associated with a higher or lower degree of embeddedness in relationships with key customers and suppliers, and the most frequently reported positive and negative outcomes of relationships in general. The concluding results of multiple regression provide the evidence of the effect of the higher degree of embeddedness on companies’ performance.