Open Access

Globalization is altering the international economic environment. To remain competitive and gain future competitive advantage, corporations need to operate successfully in an international context. Exploiting the potential offered by the increasingly global economy requires the effective capture of markets. Although the world economy is becoming globalized, some international markets continue to have high entry barriers and are thus closing themselves off to foreign companies. These barriers impede access to these markets and thus hamper corporations from adequately exploiting them. However, corporations should by no means allow these markets to lie fallow since this would deprive them of the possibility to participate in prospective growth markets. Corporations must consequently promote adequate internationalization and engage in market exploitation strategies to remain successful in an internationally competitive environment. It is the aim of this research to support corporations within the processes of internationalization and market exploitation. Therefore, the research explicitly focuses on developing an encompassing model that supports corporations in identifying markets, which, in order to be exploited effectively, require local production activities. Typically, this entails markets that show foreclosure tendencies. A decision-making process model for corporations’ internationalization and market exploitation strategies structured in different phases is developed, and relevant influencing factors are compiled and assigned to the appropriate phases. The process model, which aims to enable corporations to follow a structured internationalization and market exploitation approach by analyzing the most decisive influencing factors at respective process phases, is thereby targeted at empowering corporations to adequately exploit the potential the globalizing world economy offers. The aim of this research is thus to develop a comprehensive decision-making process model to effectively support corporations during the process of internationalization.