A systematic approach to international market selection: measuring the attractiveness of emerging economies in the case of the timber industry

Managers need to screen and evaluate foreign markets before deciding on market entry and subsequent entry modes. Therefore, international market selection (IMS) has been the topic of much research in the international business domain. However, surprisingly few researchers have empirically studied the IMS process by providing detailed descriptions of how this process is conducted. Reviewing the literature on the subject, this paper aims to look at IMS from a practical point of view. Accordingly, the paper introduces a model, which includes the IMS criteria with their relevant weights needed to assess emerging markets for doing timber business. The Delphi method was used to gain the opinions of the experts in the field to develop a model that can assess the market attractiveness of a country for a firm in the timber industry looking to enter new markets.