Abstract:

Globalization influences the development of enterprises, regions and national economies. It also affects transportation markets. The air and maritime transport enable and accelerate the development of trade on a global scale. In EU, road transport plays a significant role in international trade and is responsible for ¾ of transported goods. The competition between European road carriers is strong. Polish enterprises are an important element of that process. It should be noted that the road freight transport is dominated by SME sector. In Poland, the structure is similar (although the majority are micro and small enterprises).

The possibility of servicing on foreign markets, the necessity to compete with foreign competitors, the opportunity to develop intellectual resources may improve carrier’s competing abilities.  The purpose of that article is to indicate the role of internationalisation in competitiveness in road transport companies, to reveal the change in the perception of that role and to test if employment level has influence on perception of the role of internationalisation in shaping competitiveness of road carriers. The study was conducted in 2013 and in 2019. The respondents evaluated 6 factors that determine the internationalization process of Polish road carriers.

In statistical analysis, measures of location and variability were used. To test the significance of differences between the groups (one from 2013 and the second from 2019), the Mann Whitney's U test was used. Research results prove that internationalization is important in shaping competitiveness of road carriers. Moreover, time and size of employment had an influence on research results.