Expectation as the Driving Force for Entry and Exit in the Turbulent Russian Market

The market activities of international firms are now in unstable markets. Their decisions on how to act in such markets depend on their expectations of the future. The aim of this paper is to analyse the process of change in the expectations of a Swedish firm operating in the Russian market and facing dramatic market changes. To study the expectation behaviour of the firm, a longitudinal method covering the period from 1986 to 1993 is employed. The paper examines the expectation change process and the way the firm builds up its future market operation in order to penetrate, expand, and then exit from the Russian market. The absence of stability forced the firm to function either without any experiential knowledge or with knowledge that constantly lost its value. The thrust of this paper is grounded in the explanation that the basis of market activities rests on three forms of expectations: institutional, relationship, and network. The expectation view captured in the study is process-based and was explored through the concepts of commitment and knowledge from the internationalisation process model.