From Cravens to Intellectuals

As the world is becoming increasingly integrated, many firms search for partners overseas with hope to find benefits. Internationalization is today the industrial norm, and in this new and ever-expanding environment, international purchasing has become a major challenge that firms have to face in their daily operations. Yet, despite the growing importance of international purchasing by retailers, previous studies have mainly focused on international purchasing by manufacturing firms, and as the authors have acknowledge the retailers' significance on the national markets, a gap has been identified. The purpose of this thesis is to examine and map out the current state of Swedish retailers' international purchasing activities. One common feature existed; regarding what risks that were connected with international purchasing. Almost everyone highlighted the loss of control, due to long distances, as being the main risk with international purchasing.