Working Across Cultures: Challenges and Strategies for Ola's Expansion into China

WORKING ACROSS
CULTURES

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Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................1
Country specific factors.............................................................................................................1
Industry specific factors.............................................................................................................2
Cultural factors that needs attention...........................................................................................2
Cross cultural factors..................................................................................................................3
Steps undertaken to facilitate effective negotiation, inter and intra cultural communication....3
HRM practices of the two nations can be merged or adjusted...................................................4
Three most significant cultural challenges.................................................................................4
Engaging the board to make an investment decisions...............................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................5
References..................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
Many companies from the emerging countries are moving into new nations in search of new
customer sets. This has allowed people the firms to manage and generate new revenue
sources. This is also essential for the firms in terms of the fact that competition in industries
have increased and firms need to make sure that they have a plan for ensuring their growth
however cross-border expansion is not so smooth (Hedley, 2019). It is critical to merge the
HRM practices of two nations so as to have standardisation in the company’s norms. Ola cabs
is a transportation network company that offers services including ride sharing hailing, food
delivery, taxi and peer-to-peer ridesharing. This company is created by ANI Technologies
Pvt. Ltd. and was valued to approx. $6.2 billion. Till now this firm is operational in Australia,
New Zealand and UK. This report is going to highlight the country specific factor and the
industry specific factor that is going to have impact on the expansion plans of Ola in China.
Cultural and cross-cultural factors differences between the home and host country influences
the firm’s ability to make quick expansion. It also underlines the ways in which cross-cultural
barriers could be treated along with the ways in which HRM practices of the two nations can
be merged or adjusted. It also defines the three major cultural challenges that could be faced
by Ola while expanding into China.
Country specific factors
There are certain country specific factors which is having influence on the expansion project.
These are:
 Chinese approach towards Indian companies: It is seen that Chinese people considers
India as a rival country hence the perception about the Indian companies is not so
good. This will have impact on the pace of the expansion of Ola.
 Regulatory environment: Chinese government has imposed a harsh regulatory
environment which is not allowing firms to deal with the business decision making in
their own manner. The Chinese government policies are such that it favours the
companies that are from China.
 Complex bureaucracy: Bureaucracy in China is too complex and it is not allowing the
firms to make fast policies. The challenge related to corruption is much bigger
headache for the companies that aim to expand in this country however this company
had spent a lot of their time in dealing with such issues in India. This might increase