Mid Sweden University

The internationalization process has become an important part of the expansion of many companies, because the decision of going abroad gives the companies new possibilities of doing business. Before a company decides to go abroad it can try to define its international marketing objectives and polices and decide what the foreign volume of sale should be. After deciding which countries to enter the company can focus on evaluating the countries one by one. Market size, market growth, competition risks and costs are important factors that need to be considered (Kotler & Armstrong, 2007). Every country has unique features and this is important for companies to understand. If a new market is suitable for a foreign company depends on cultural, economic, political and legal dimensions, also called the four dimensions of distance (Kotler, 2007; Ebenius, 2002; Slangen & Tulder, 2009).The purpose of the study is to investigate and compare pathways to internationalization. How does the internal factors experiential learning, network and a company’s size together with the external factors: the four dimensions of distance, culture, economic and legal/political dimensions, affect a medium-sized company taking the decision of entering new markets.I collected primary data through six interviews with employees of the case company involved in the internationalization process of four different markets.The main contribution that this thesis provides to the research of the process of internationalization is the confirmation that the four dimension of distance together with experiential learning and the social network of the founders or CEOs’ can have a great impact on a company’s internationalization decision.