The Impact of Political Connectedness on the Internationalization of Russian Companies

Abstract

The main goal of the master thesis is to analyze the relationship between political connectedness and internationalization process of Russian companies. For this purpose, several hypotheses were developed and the regression model was designed and tested. The regression analysis has identified the positive relationship between internationalization degree and two factors of political connectedness: the number of current and former politicians on the board of directors and the level of personal political connections of the shareholder or top manager of the company. In addition, statistical analysis has confirmed that state-owned firms, on average, have a higher internationalization degree. Finally, it has been proved that the density of state ownership and the number of politicians on boards of directors differ significantly across industries. The master thesis concludes with the suggestions for future research and recommendations for the companies on how to implement the findings of this study.