Perspectives of Latvian companies on foreign market entry modes and Turkey as a foreign market

Today, boundaries are much more permeable among countries, encouraging companies sooner or later come to consider opportunities to expand their business activities in foreign markets. This arises questions such as "what markets to enter?" or "how to be there?" Even though, opportunities and alternatives are abundant to be an international player these days, according to the statistics, for each successful foreign market entry, there are four failures. Being knowledgeable and experienced in selecting foreign market entry modes seem to be critical for business success. Thus, identification of the factors in successfully determining foreign market entry modes (FMEM) becomes the principal subject of this study. Since the researcher is from Latvia and studying in Turkey, reflecting Latvian businesses' perspectives towards Turkey as foreign market in the light of topic was deemed necessary. In order to reach the objectives of the study, 121 Latvian international companies were selected, contacted, and 96 of those participated in the study were interviewed. The study is believed to contribute to the relevant literature by discovering several dependencies between various factors and foreign market entry modes, collecting information on the most and the least important factors for entrepreneurs in deciding on the FMEM, and revealing the most common problems that Latvian companies are facing in their business operations abroad, and reflecting their perspectives on Turkish market. Key Words: International Business, Foreign market entry modes, Factors in determining foreign market entry modes