Analysis of Ebay China’s Failure and Suggestions to Ebay’s...

Analysis of eBay China’s Failure and Suggestions to eBay’s Return Strategy from the Perspective of Cross-cultural Conflicts 1. Introduction Along with the development of global economy, no one is unfamiliar with the word of globalization, and the world is filled with multinational-corporations. In such circumstances, those companies have realized that the necessary way to survive in the global market and maintain the competitive advantages is to enlarge the geographical scope of their business. As a result, the issue of localization strategy is put into the essential agenda of every multinational-corporation’s meeting. Culture, as an invisible hand, leads the multinational-corporations†¦show more content†¦Of course, the problem of cross-cultural conflicts commonly existed in multinational companies. Cross-cultural conflicts stem from the term of â€Å"Culture Shock†, it was first applied by Kalvero Oberg, an American anthropology, in 1960. In his article, Oberg defined Culture Shock as follows: â€Å"Culture Shock is precipitated by the anxiety that results from losing all our fam iliar signs and symbols of social intercourse. These signs or cues include the thousand and one ways in which we orient ourselves to the situations of daily life. (Oberg 24)† Oberg refers to the visual aspects of culture like behavior, language, and customs, because in contrast to values and beliefs they can be observed. The fact that people tend to judge visual aspects applying their own values and beliefs is responsible for the anxiety. 2.1 Related Research Results Six years ago, eBay Eachnet’s failure in China was a shock to many multinational-corporations, especially internet companies which were planning to open Chinese market. Before long, Google and Yahoo also left mainland China. At that time, a lot of scholars analyzed the reasons of those big international internet companies’ failure in China from different aspects, while the reason caused by cross-cultural conflicts was an important one. And a numbers of papers were written in this subject. When typing the words of â€Å"eBay China† and â€Å"cross-culturalShow MoreRelatedStephen P. Robbins Timothy A. Judge (2011) Organizational Behaviour 15th Edition New Jersey: Prentice Hall393164 Words   |  1573 Pages10.5/12 ITC New Baskerville Std Credits and acknowledgments borrowed from other sources and reproduced, with permission, in this textbook appear on the appropriate page within text. Copyright  © 2013, 2011, 2009, 2007, 2005 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. This publication is protected by Copyright, and permission should be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval