Foreign market entry and culture

Going abroad is nowadays much more easy due to the continuous globalization process with lower transportation costs and immediate information exchange. Especially during the last decades firms have increasingly committed themselves to global markets in order to exploit cost advantages through lower labour costs or in order to follow the demand for their products (Barkema et al. 1996:164). A firm seeking to perform in a foreign market by establishing a business function (e.g. production management, distribution) has to choose the best mode of entry which is very relevant for the success of foreign operations and therefor an important issue. But foreign market entry does not come along without any costs especialy in cultural distant countries. The impact of differences in national culture, measured as cultural distance between the home country of Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) and the country of operation is a very important issue and therefor worth to examine. The main questions the paper tries to answer is: In which ways does culture matter in the internationalization process of a firm? How does culture affect the choice of market entry and which problems arise due to cultural differneces? Which impediments regarding culture have firms to deal with when going to China?