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ABSTRACT
The standardization vs. adaptation debate in international marketing is still ongoing, yet, in the online realm the discussion is only just emerging. While practitioners are excited to jump on the online communication and commerce bandwagon, empirical research on the issue of online standardization vs. adaptation is still relatively limited and mostly concern US firms. This paper explores 100 German companies' domestic, U.S., U.K. and Latin American websites and employs a cultural value analysis. We build on Hofstede's and Hall's cultural framework. Findings suggest that cultural value depiction is not very strong in the relevant markets, thus a certain degree of 'cultural alienation' takes place. It is suggested that to engage better with their customer and reach better cultural congruency companies need to work harder on developing culturally adapted websites.
Keywords: online standardization, adaptation, cultural analysis
1. Introduction
Nearly a billion people are already connected to the Internet [Okazaki 2004]. Between 2000 and 2005 the Internet experienced a growth of 160% [Internet World Stats 2005], making it a source of about US-$3.2 trillion in revenues for businesses and their e-commerce activities [Singh, Zhao, and Hu 2003]. Hence, web-presence is arguably crucial in terms of improving international marketing efforts [Vivekanandan and Rajendran 2006], and overall business-success [Alvarez, Kasday, and Todd 1998]. However, although websites are virtually accessible to anybody from anywhere, truly tapping into online customers involves more than simply putting up a website. Yamin and Sinkovics [Yamin and Sinkovics 2006] point at the particular dangers connected with over-reliance on digital media. They argue that by being close to customers but distant from markets, companies may become susceptible to falling into a 'virtuality trap'. Appropriate relational governance mechanisms [see e.g. Wu et al. 2007] are considered to reduce the possibility of this virtuality trap. Boshoff [2007] suggests that with the Internet as a retailing channel, distinctive service delivery and service quality criteria need to be developed for the Internet. The study by Lynch and Beck [2001] is particularly relevant in this respect. They point out that the rapid growth of the internet created an exaggerated expectation that it would enable companies to create a new, standardized mode of communication, one where 'buyers would speak and be comfortable with the same "electronic language", regardless of region,...