Swedish companies in Polish transition

Abstract

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 a period of transition, with a move from socialism to capitalism, started and the long and tough process of opening up the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries began. Many foreign companies started to invest in production in this region. One of the benefits of the Foreign Direct Investments is that they develop interfirm linkages with local suppliers that speed up the transformation process. Poland is a good country to study, since it has attracted most FDI of all transition countries. Many of the investments come from the closely located country, Sweden. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the local/regional impact of FDI on the linkages and future development of the supplier networks in Poland. For this study six different case companies, of different sizes and from different industries, have been used. All of them originate in Sweden, and started their production in Poland at the beginning of the transition period. Many companies started producing in Poland as isolated islands, getting all their supplies from their home country. As the process continues on they are increasing their number of Polish suppliers aiming at using only local suppliers in the future. The interaction within the local supplier networks is augmenting, as Poland is getting closer to a membership in the European Union.