1 Polish business interaction, does it exist? Towards a broader understanding of business interactions Grzegorz Leszczyński (g.leszczynski@ue.poznan.pl) Poznań University of Economics and Business, Poznań, Poland Tibor Mandjak (tmandjak@em-normandie.fr), Ecole de Management de Normandie, Le Havre, France Marek Zieliński (m.zielinski@ue.poznan.pl) Poznań University of Economics and Business, Poznań, Poland Abstract Business interaction is one of the core concepts of IMPGroup. We refere to human perspective as well as to cognitive process of the interaction by paying attention to its context. The starting point is the assumption that perceptions and behaviors are shaped by social system and, consequently, they shape interactions. This paper is partly embedd our paper in the Polish conext of business interaction as an exeplication, however we are not interested specifically in features of Polish business interaction. We are interested in the features of any national/local business interaction. If the context of business interactions matters then we can understand more the behavior of acting actors in business interaction, we can see richer complexity of interactions. Keywords: Business interactions, embeddedness, Poland Introduction Interaction is the cornerstone of the IMP approach. It is the base of the nested view of IMP saying that interactions create business relationships which are embedded in their business networks and business networks create business landscape (Håkansson et al 2009). IMP approach is historically based on two robust empirically based models, i.e. the Interaction Model (Håkansson 1982) and Actor-Resource- Activity (ARA) model (Håkansson and Johanson 1992, Håkansson and Snehota 1995) describing the business networks. Both models are the distilled results of two broad international empirical researches realized by a close cooperation of many researches of different Western countries (Håkansson 1982, Håkansson and Snehota 1995). Although the two models are different in their scope, as the Interaction Model is focusing on the buyer-seller dyad and the ARA is to describe the network, it is commonly considered that the Interaction Model is somehow nested in the ARA model (Medlin and Törnroos 2007). The two basic IMP models are based on international empirical researches conducted in the seventies and eighties in the most developed countries by a group of young Western researchers. However, the bordering of globalization, the deep geopolitical and technological changes (Schwab 2017) and the emergence of new dynamic and powerful actors of the world business (Portes 2010) during the last thirty years affect the business actors’ behavior. These processes have an impact on both the social interaction and exchange due to diversity in cultural backgrounds (Medlin and Törnroos (2007). Welch et al (2007) emphasize the important role of the foreign language, precisely of the English as the language of international business, in business interactions. However, these changes also may pose certain questions of the entire validity of the models. Namely do the models developed in the most developed Western countries fit well to other countries having different, sometimes very different historical pathways and social construction or socially constructed institutions? In this paper applying the human perspective of business interactions (Axelsson 2010, Lenney and Easton 2009, Medlin and Törnroos 2007) we follow the logic of Medlin and Törnroos (2007) who make distinction between the physical and cognitive process of the interaction. They consider the environment in which the interaction takes place “as a temporal space structure created through social construction, in which firms are partially directed by individuals who are involved in dialogue” (Medlin and Törnroos 2007:41). Dialogue is a part of the cognitive interaction process. It englobes the exchange of ideas and opinions, and a discussion between representatives of parties to a conflict that is aimed at resolution (Medlin and Törnroos 2007). As illustration of business interactions which are neither international nor happening in the Western world we are interested by the behavior of Polish actors in relationships where both parties are Polish. In other words, we should like to understand if the Polish local business interaction does have some specificities comparing to the Western models.