UNIFIED EUROPEAN MARKET: OPPORTUNITIES AND THREATS FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

Small companies involved in foreign operations provide an avenue for the U.S. to improve the balance of trade and to revitalize the U.S. economy. This paper develops a model for assessing risks in foreign operations which emphasizes country environmen- tal analysis, and which also provides a typology of host and foreign principal arrangements which can be used by small businesses to limit risks. Risk assessment for firms doing business in three European countries in transition to market economy, Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia, are examined in light of this model.