Expectations in the internationalization process – The case of two Swedish banks’ foreign activities 1995-2010

Abstract: Studies of banks’ internationalization are few, particularly of Swedish banks’ and studies holding a process view of internationalization. This is surprising considering the fact that banks’ have an incredibly important role in our societies. Furthermore, the Swedish banks have until recently been restricted from internationalizing. However today the four largest Swedish banks have all become multinational. The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze the two Swedish banks Handelsbanken and Swedbank’s internationalization process between the years 1995-2010. This achieved by covering all relevant foreign markets that the banks are active in during their internationalization process in a longitudinal cross-case study based on archival sources (i.e. newspaper articles, press releases and annual reports). The analytical framework is constructed from behavioral theories and follows a process view of firms’ internationalization by applying the concepts of market commitment, market knowledge and expectation. Latterly firms’ expectation is included to take the future dimension into account in understanding firms’ internationalization behavior.Conclusions made in this thesis show that the banks internationalization process has some semblances but otherwise they show completely different internationalization behaviors. The study shows that firms’ internationalization process is bound to what the firm will expect of the future and that this expectation is very different based on what knowledge the firm has and its experience. Furthermore the study evidences through empirical findings that the internationalization process of firms’ is also strongly related to the state of the market, i.e. stable or unstable.