A Framework to Localize International Business to Business Web Sites

The main purpose of this study is to propose and apply an analytical framework to help B2B marketers assess and develop web sites that are localized not only for the B2B marketplace but also for international markets. This study deals with an area that has not received much attention in academic research as previous studies have mainly focused on B2C web sites. The study focuses on B2B web sites and provides a framework to assess web site localization. A content analysis of American and Korean web sites was conducted to analyze the proposed framework. The overall results show that U.S. companies have not accomplished a high degree of localization for B2B markets. The study results indicate that most U.S. companies focus primarily on the translation of web content from English to Korean to create web sites.While it is true that globalization has brought us closer than ever to Mcluhan\u27s (1964) idea of a global village, major differences across countries and regions exist and play a significant role in how consumers react to web site designs and content. Therefore, this framework is vital to business seeking consumers globally. Using this framework should allow businesses to localize their B2B web sites and included key areas that appeal to local consumers.The study concludes by providing marketers insights into factors that can help them better localize their international B2B web sites

A Framework to Localize International Business to Business Web Sites

The main purpose of this study is to propose and apply an analytical framework to help B2B marketers assess and develop web sites that are localized not only for the B2B marketplace but also for international markets. This study deals with an area that has not received much attention in academic research as previous studies have mainly focused on B2C web sites. The study focuses on B2B web sites and provides a framework to assess web site localization. A content analysis of American and Korean web sites was conducted to analyze the proposed framework. The overall results show that U.S. companies have not accomplished a high degree of localization for B2B markets. The study results indicate that most U.S. companies focus primarily on the translation of web content from English to Korean to create web sites.While it is true that globalization has brought us closer than ever to Mcluhan\u27s (1964) idea of a global village, major differences across countries and regions exist and play a significant role in how consumers react to web site designs and content. Therefore, this framework is vital to business seeking consumers globally. Using this framework should allow businesses to localize their B2B web sites and included key areas that appeal to local consumers.The study concludes by providing marketers insights into factors that can help them better localize their international B2B web sites

Dissemination of Corporate Web Information in Spanish: The Case of the US Healthcare Sector

In the business context, to achieve international projection, the use of several languages is essential. The healthcare sector is not an exception, as it is a remarkable domain of specialization. So, the analysis of the keys to corporate language management—considered as the application of communicative management strategies regarding business internationalization processes—on the Web is fundamental. The main objective of this work is to identify the main features that multilingual corporate Web communication presents, specifically in the English > Spanish language combination. To this end, a sample of corporate Web sites of US companies in the healthcare sector extracted from the Fortune 500 ranking, published annually by Fortune magazine, is analyzed. A statistical analysis of frequencies and correlations has been carried out. Results show that 58.3% of the Web sites studied have undergone some kind of linguistic management processes from a multilingual perspective. In addition, Spanish language occupies a prominent role in the processes of corporate Web information dissemination. The data obtained seem to indicate that healthcare US corporations tend to make considerable efforts to disseminate their Web information in a wide range of languages. This endeavor seems to increase in the case of Spanish language. However, these efforts are still limited

Localization of Crowdfunding Platforms : The Influencing Role of Culture, Institutions and Geography

Master's thesis Business Administration BE501 - University of Agder 2019This master thesis examines the role played by culture, geography and institutions onEuropean crowdfunding platform’s decision to localize their content towards international markets. The authors conducted a binary logistic regression analysis is based on 470 observations of platform-country dyads collected from 269 European crowdfunding platforms and supplemented by additional sources of macro level indicators. Of the eleven hypotheses, social trust, geographical distance, high-context culture, rule of law and the investment orientation on platform have an effect on the decision to localize the platforms. IT infrastructure and the cultural dimensions of individualism, uncertainty avoidance, as well as a compounded variable of cultural distance, did not impact the same decision. The study’s findings are limited contextually to European crowdfunding platforms offering lending, equity, donation and reward-based models. Other micro-factors or countries of operation may exhibit different patterns than what is presented in this thesis. The study is one of the first in the field of localization andcrowdfunding, opening up for new discussions and insights. The results constitute and challenge the pre-existing theory on website localization. This thesis’ findings suggest that the context of this research is of significant impact as cultural adaptation has been highlighted to be one of the key factors to succeed in foreign markets in other industries

Cultura e web design : desenvolvimento de questionário a partir de parâmetros culturais para a avaliação de websites junto ao usuário

Orientador: Prof. Dr. Marcos Namba BeccariDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do Paraná, Setor de Artes, Comunicação e Design, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Design. Defesa : Curitiba, 27/02/2018Inclui referências: p.85-87Resumo: Cross-cultural design consiste em projetar para diferentes culturas, garantindo a qualidade de interação do usuário através de barreiras culturais. Ao adaptar um website para outra cultura, não é suficiente apenas traduzir o idioma; toda a estratégia de comunicação do website deve ser adaptada. Hoje, um dos maiores desafios na área de IHC é o desenvolvimento de sistem as que atendam às necessidades e expectativas de usuários com diferentes repertórios culturais. Dentro desse processo está a avaliação desses sistemas. É comum, no projeto de websites cross-cultural, avaliar os websites através de testes de usabilidade. No entanto, esses testes não avaliam os aspectos culturais da interface, e sim a sua eficácia e eficiência com o um todo. Dessa forma, a presente pesquisa tem com o objetivo propor um procedim ento que possibilite avaliar aspectos culturais de interface com o público-alvo. O objeto proposto, assim, é um questionário, construído com base em parâm etros culturais retirados da literatura. Esta pesquisa é classificada com o de natureza aplicada, objetivos exploratório e descritivo e abordagem qualitativa. Ela é dividida em cinco fases: pesquisa bibliográfica, análise de similares, desenvolvimento do questionário, avaliação do questionário com os usuários e revisão do questionário com base nos resultados obtidos nos testes. A intenção é auxiliar designers e desenvolvedores no projeto e avaliação de websites adaptados para diferentes culturas, contribuindo em um contexto econôm ico e social. Palavras-chave: cross-cultural web design. aspectos culturais. com ponentes de interface.Abstract: Cross-cultural design is designing for different cultures, ensuring the quality o f the user interaction through cultural barriers. When adapting a website to another culture, it is not enough just to translate its language; the website's entire com m unication strategy should be adapted. Today, one o f the biggest challenges in HCI is the developm ent o f system s that meet the needs and expectations o f users with different cultural backgrounds. Within this process is the evaluation o f these systems. It is usual in the design o f cross-cultural websites to evaluate them through usabilitytests. However, the se te sts are not concerned with the interface's cultural aspects, but with its overall effectiveness and efficiency. Thus, this research aims to propose a procedure that allows evaluating the interface's cultural aspects with its target audience. The proposed object is a questionnaire, built on cultural parameters taken from the literature. This research is classified as being of applied nature, exploratory and descriptive purposes and qualitative approach. It is divided in five phases: bibliographic research, comparative analysis, development of the questionnaire, user testing and the review of the questionnaire based on the test's results. The intention is to help designers and developers to create and evaluate websites adapted to different cultures, contributing in an econom ic and social context. Key-words: cross-cultural web design. cultural aspects. interface components

Localization of medical websites: Implications of localizing for medical purposes

Η πανδημία της COVID-19 έφερε στο προσκήνιο συζητήσεις για την αξιόπιστη ιατρική ενημέρωση, η οποία είναι αναγκαίο να είναι διαθέσιμη σε όλους. Ένας από τους παράγοντες για τη διαθεσιμότητα της πληροφορίας είναι η γλωσσική προσβασιμότητα. Στην εποχή του ίντερνετ και των ιστοσελίδων, η προσβασιμότητα επιτυγχάνεται μέσω της επιχώριας προσαρμογής. Η παρούσα έρευνα επιχειρεί να υπογραμμίσει τη σημασία της επιχώριας προσαρμογής ιατρικού περιεχομένου εστιάζοντας στους τελικούς χρήστες ιστοσελίδων. Πιο συγκεκριμένα, με τον όρο «χρήστες» αναφερόμαστε σε όσους κατοικούν στην Ελλάδα και οι οποίοι δεν θα είχαν πρόσβαση σε ιατρικές πληροφορίες χωρίς την επιχώρια προσαρμογή (γνωστή και ως τοπικοποίηση ή τοπική προσαρμογή). Ο σκοπός αυτής της διπλωματικής, αλλά και η σημασία της, είναι να εμπλουτίσει τις γνώσεις μας σχετικά με το πολύ πρακτικό ζήτημα της επιχώριας προσαρμογής ιατρικού περιεχομένου στην Ελλάδα, το οποίο δεν έχει ερευνηθεί ικανοποιητικά. Υποστηρίζουμε ότι ένα μεγάλο μέρος των ιστοσελίδων με ιατρικό περιεχόμενο έχει τοπικοποιηθεί για να καλύψει τις ανάγκες του ελληνικού κοινού. Πιστεύουμε, ωστόσο, ότι οι εκδοχές των ιστοσελίδων, οι οποίες απευθύνονται σε Έλληνες τελικούς χρήστες, δεν θα είναι σε ένα υψηλό επίπεδο τοπικοποίησης, ακόμα και μετά τη διασκευή τους. Επίσης, ότι τα σημεία των ιστοσελίδων που περιέχουν πιο εξειδικευμένες ιατρικές πληροφορίες δεν θα έχουν συμπεριληφθεί στη διαδικασία της επιχώριας προσαρμογής. Σκοπός μας είναι να ανακαλύψουμε τις αιτίες αυτού του φαινομένου και να εξερευνήσουμε τις επιπτώσεις που έχει στον Έλληνα τελικό χρήστη και στη δημόσια υγεία. Το σώμα κειμένων αποτελείται από ιστότοπους παγκόσμιων φαρμακευτικών εταιριών, οι οποίες απευθύνονται σε Ελληνόφωνο κοινό. Αναλύουμε τα χαρακτηριστικά των ιστοσελίδων που αφορούν στον χρήστη με βάση τα κριτήρια που έχουν θέσει οι Singh και Pereira (2005) και Singh et al. (2012) για την αξιολόγηση του επιπέδου τοπικής προσαρμογής. Η αρχική υπόθεσή μας επιβεβαιώνεται, καθώς όλες οι ιστοσελίδες που συμπεριλήφθηκαν στην περιγραφική, ερμηνευτική ανάλυσή μας πράγματι εφαρμόζουν μία στρατηγική προσαρμογής, σε διαφορετικές ωστόσο βαθμίδες όπως ήταν αναμενόμενο. Για τα επακόλουθα ερωτήματά μας, αναφορικά με τους λόγους και τις επιπτώσεις αυτού του φαινομένου, μπορούμε να κάνουμε μόνο βάσιμες υποθέσεις (εικασίες), καθώς τα αποτελέσματα της έρευνας δεν μας επιτρέπουν να καταλήξουμε σε οριστικά συμπεράσματα.The pandemic of COVID-19 has brought to the fore discussions about reliable medical information accessible to everyone. One of the factors that make information available is linguistic accessibility. In the realm of the Internet and websites, this is achieved through localization. This research tries to shed light on the importance of localizing medical content by focusing mainly on end users of websites with medical content based within the Greek territory who would otherwise have no access to the information provided in the websites had it not been for localization. The purpose of this dissertation, and its significance, is to enrich our knowledge on the very practical and rather under-researched issue of localization of medical content in Greece. This study argues that several medical-content websites have been adapted to meet the needs of the Greek end user. We believe however that even when transcreated, the Greek version of these websites does not fulfill the higher standards of localization and their more specialized medical content is not at all localized. It is our intention to discover the reasons as to why this phenomenon exists and explore the implications it has on the Greek end user and public health. Our corpus comprises webpages of global pharmaceutical companies which are addressed to the Greek-speaking audience. We analyze their front-end level characteristics based on the criteria of Singh and Pereira (2005) and Singh et al. (2012) for assessing the level of localization. All the websites that constitute the corpus of our descriptive, interpretative analysis adopted a localization strategy to different degrees as expected, thus confirming our main hypothesis. As far as our research questions pertaining to the reasons and the implications of this phenomenon, we can only hypothesize as our results are insufficient to reach a definite conclusion

The use of social media by exporting B2B SMEs, implications for performance

Previously held under moratorium from 1st December 2016 until 1st December 2021.The evolution of social media enables the creation of virtual customer environments where online communications have impacted increasingly on the marketing environment. As such, 21st century firms need to consider the many opportunities that social media present. Given the scant empirical evaluation of social media use in the SMEs Business-to-Business (B2B) context, this thesis aims to “empirically investigate SMEs B2B firms’ actual use of social media and how it impacts their export performance”. This study contributes to the emerging SMEs B2B digital marketing literature by determining, firstly, the factors that affect SMEs B2B firms using social media and, secondly, the mechanism through which SMEs B2B firms can potentially benefits from using social media in their exporting efforts. A number of hypotheses were developed building on the available literature. These hypotheses were examined using data from a sample of 277 British firms from different industries. Structural equation modelling was employed to test the hypotheses. The results suggest that the usage of social media is affected significantly by perceived ease of use; perceived relative advantage; and subjective norms. Additionally, both the firm’s training and innovativeness enhance the relationship between subjective norms and social media use. The results reveal, also, that the social media use influences export performance indirectly through the quality of international business contacts; understanding customers’ views and preferences; and understanding competition in different markets. However, the link between social media use and export performance is not indirectly influenced by the number of international business contacts and brand awareness. Furthermore, customer engagement enhances the relationships between social media use and the aforementioned factors through which social media use indirectly influences export performance. Cultural adaptation enhances, also, the relationships between understanding customers’ views and preferences;understanding competition in different markets; and export performance. Important implications for how SMEs B2B firms may benefit best from using social media for their exporting efforts and future research are derived from the findings.The evolution of social media enables the creation of virtual customer environments where online communications have impacted increasingly on the marketing environment. As such, 21st century firms need to consider the many opportunities that social media present. Given the scant empirical evaluation of social media use in the SMEs Business-to-Business (B2B) context, this thesis aims to “empirically investigate SMEs B2B firms’ actual use of social media and how it impacts their export performance”. This study contributes to the emerging SMEs B2B digital marketing literature by determining, firstly, the factors that affect SMEs B2B firms using social media and, secondly, the mechanism through which SMEs B2B firms can potentially benefits from using social media in their exporting efforts. A number of hypotheses were developed building on the available literature. These hypotheses were examined using data from a sample of 277 British firms from different industries. Structural equation modelling was employed to test the hypotheses. The results suggest that the usage of social media is affected significantly by perceived ease of use; perceived relative advantage; and subjective norms. Additionally, both the firm’s training and innovativeness enhance the relationship between subjective norms and social media use. The results reveal, also, that the social media use influences export performance indirectly through the quality of international business contacts; understanding customers’ views and preferences; and understanding competition in different markets. However, the link between social media use and export performance is not indirectly influenced by the number of international business contacts and brand awareness. Furthermore, customer engagement enhances the relationships between social media use and the aforementioned factors through which social media use indirectly influences export performance. Cultural adaptation enhances, also, the relationships between understanding customers’ views and preferences;understanding competition in different markets; and export performance. Important implications for how SMEs B2B firms may benefit best from using social media for their exporting efforts and future research are derived from the findings

Generation Y’s Behavioural Usage of Small Businesses’ Retail Websites in Canada

This research delves into the factors that influence Generation Y’s usage of Canadian small businesses’ retail websites in order to suggest how they can be attracted to use them more. Based on the Use of Technology Two (UTAUT2) theory, questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews revealed linkages between Behavioural Intention, Habit, Facilitating Conditions and Use Behaviour with demographic variables moderating some relationships. Improving the website designs and social media marketing can entice Generation Y consumers