The Role of Business Knowledge in the Internationalisation Process of Hungarian Corporations

The aim of this paper is to identify the knowledge elements that are crucial in the internationalisation process of Hungarian firms. It uses a two-dimensional model of business knowledge, which separates business knowledge along two dimensions: the tacit or explicit nature; and the codified or uncodified one. This model tells us that tacit and codified knowledge is the most difficult to transfer, while the explicit-uncodified part is the easiest. The five types of business knowledge were measured with a questionnaire. It is non-representative, filled in by 104 Hungarian firms among which the larger and more internationalised ones are overrepresented. Based on this non-representative sample we have found that the organisational beliefs and habits, and the competence of the employees are the two business knowledge elements that are most closely associated with the internationalisation of the firms. This makes it especially difficult to promote internationalisation through the transfer of knowledge, because these key knowledge elements are the stickiest, the hardest to transfer.