Cognitive Risk Maps of Distant Countries - The Case of Eastern and Far Eastern Markets

China, the South-east-Asian region and some other Eastern countries have become one of the most interesting business and trading partners in the last few years. The dynamic economic development has been recognised by leading companies from the very early beginning. Nowadays the Far East markets face different instabilities and difficulties. The research focus and main interest of the study deals with the risk awareness of Austrian managers towards markets in China, Russia, South Korea, Japan and other eastern and south eastern regions in general. Comparisons are made with more traditional trading partners as reference markets in overseas and Europe. The result is a perceptional risk map, which is constructed by a MDS unfolding procedure. First results show a clear distinction between different countries and risk areas on a cognitive map in three dimensions.