"The New International Structural Stages Model" - The Structural Process of Organizations

Abstract: The organizational evolution of companies’ expansion abroad has been an interesting research object for many researches. Stopford and Wells belong to these researchers. This dissertation is based on their famous model, the International Structural Stages Model, which was developed during the 1960s. The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate whether there are additional factors that are not considered in the International Structural Stages Model. Furthermore, we wanted to find out if it is possible to develop the International Structural Stages Model. The survey was conducted on large international corporations with extensive business activities in Sweden. The population was 50 corporations and 18 companies participated in our survey. As a result of our research, we have been able to add a new dimension to the International Structural Stages Model, the Information-Processing-Need dimension. Keywords: Matrix, International Structural Stages Model, process model, structure and organization