The Investment Development Path: Evidence from Poland and Other Countries of the Visegrád Group

ABSTRACT

This article discusses Polish foreign direct investment against that of the other Central and Eastern European countries belonging to the so-called Visegrád Group. The article is a continuation of this author’s previous work, now revised and taking into account a longer perspective of the analysis, theoretical recommendations modifying and widening the scope of the Investment Development Path model, the results of analytical studies published by other authors as well as the results of two research projects conducted by a Nicolaus Copernicus University team between 2006–2009 and 2010–2013. This article’s fundamental aim is to define the current stage of Poland’s economic development according to the Investment Development Path trajectory. The author concludes that Poland is in its third stage of development according to the Investment Development Path model, although still in an early phase of that stage.

KEYWORDS:

• Comparative analysis
• foreign direct investment
• international business
• investment development path
• transnational corporation
• Visegrád Group

Author notes

The preliminary version of this article was presented as a paper at the First World Congress of Comparative Economics held at Roma Tre University, Rome, Italy, June 25–27, 2015.

Notes

J. Cantwell (1987, pp. 127–151) and Witkowska (2003, pp. 41–53) argue that integration processes affect business paths of foreign expansion to large extend and in many various ways.

However, countries such as Luxembourg, Cyprus, Switzerland, and the Netherlands should be referred to the phenomenon of trans-shipping and to less extent round-tripping investment rather than perceived as final destinations for Polish OFDI—according to the Central Statistical Office of Poland (GUS 2015a) at the end of 2013 Polish capital has been involved in 103 countries around the world with Germany, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Russia, and Romania being the main locations for foreign affiliates and branches owned or co-owned by Polish investors.