Human Resource Management of eBay in China Essay

Human Resource Management of eBay in China - Essay Example eBay’s failure in China is attributable to its rigid and product-centered approach that did not complement consumer behavior in China. Cultural differences, unique characteristics of Chinese consumers and hence their demands from e-shopping differ vastly from that of American buyers. This problem identification requires the development of appropriate solutions to help eBay tackle the threat of dominant competition in China that is being posed by Taobao. A success in doing so would allow eBay to capture the booming e-shopping market in China which is expected to grow to an astounding $315 billion dollars by 2015 and therefore, presents a monumental opportunity for eBay to move forward with its plans of global expansion. The report proposes an incorporation of the expertise of local managers and workers in the operations of eBay China to remove issues that are being posed by cultural barriers. It should also be noted that this Human Resource Management initiative will also help in cost reduction and minimization. Diversity in a workforce is integral to idea generation and would also help redesign eBay’s business model to suit to the needs of the Chinese C2C market. Drawbacks of the proposed solution are also discussed and it is recommended that further reports are commissioned to assess the validity of the said drawbacks and how they should be minimized. Contents 1.Terms of Reference 3 2.Literature Review 5 3.Problem Identification 7 3.1 Background 7 3.2 Competition from Taobao 9 3.3 Cultural Issues 10 3.4 Unique Characteristics of Buyers 10 3.5 eBay’s Business Model 11 4.Evaluation of Alternatives 11 4.1Employing Local Managers 11 4.2Transferring Core Employees with Chinese Background 13 5.Recommendations 14 6.Reflective Appendix 15 References 17 1. Terms of Reference eBay is a global internet-based business that acts as an intermediary between consumer-to-consumer transactions for a wide range of products that include electronics, automobil es, clothing, sporting gear and several other products falling under various categories. eBay entered the Chinese market in 2003 through its acquisition of EachNet (Zhang et al. 2009) with hopes of gaining a considerable market share and to repeat the success that it had achieved in the U.S. However, as industry analysts would later report eBay failed to compete with the dominant force of Taobao – a local website that was launched by Alibaba in hopes of battling the imminent threat that eBay posed to sellers in China’s booming internet shopping market. While, commentators and analysts have evidently explained the reasons why eBay eventually could not make a significant impact on the online shopping market in China, it is important to note that much of that discussion has been directed towards assessing comparative analyses between the business models of eBay and its adversary Taobao. The purpose of this report however, is to focus specifically on the Human Resource Man agement of eBay in China in order to utilize the evaluations derived from the assessment to propose recommendations and suggestions that could be undertaken by the multinational corporation. The report aims to do so by defining the problems and issues that eBay faced in the Chinese market which posed as obstacles in allowing the organization to capture a considerable market share within the industry in the face of tough competition. These main issues include exploring

Love in Marriage Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Love in Marriage - Essay Example This research will begin with the statement that marriage is the basis of a family unit, and society's central component is family - thus, marriage. On a general term, marriage is the coming together of two individuals whose aim is a lifetime of partnership and possibly, reproduction. If this is true, then it is safe to say that stability is important for couples to move on with their married lives towards the fulfillment of their unified goals. While it is true that some couples may be married for reasons other than love, and while it is also true that these types of marriages may have worked for some of these couples, it still remains true that love plays a major and important role in the majority of marriages in the world. Nowadays, it can be said that love is overrated in relationships and undervalued in marriages. This may be the reason for several early marriages or relationships, and continuous increase in divorce rates. While no one says it is wrong to get involved with love at an early age, while inside a marriage, couples need to recognize it's importance â€Å"till death do them part.† According to recent studies, while romantic love is a concept that is widely accepted, not everyone considers it as an important factor in marriage. However, most studies show that love in marriage helps in stabilizing the union between the couples. Surprisingly, while not everyone views love as necessary to establish marriage, a large percentage of marriages in societies are based on romantic unions.... However, it should be first emphasized that the attention it needs is not the one that causes romance novel bestsellers or blockbuster hits. For one, successful marriages seem to be a rarity (De, 1996, p.703). How many among acquaintances or relatives have successful marriages, or have at least come from successful unions? It seems that almost everybody in today's world at least knows a person who have come from a broken home. Gone were the days when the term â€Å"broken home† causes tugs at the hearts of those who hear. Why? Because it has become so common. It is possible that people may have been so cynical of the concept of love that the more they hear of it's supposed failure to make marriages work, the more they disregard it. One has to remember that while love in marriages will not change the annoying things that they say make marriages collapse little by little, love may help in making couples focus not on what is annoying, but on what is pleasing. And while love will not keep either party from getting hurt, it will at least pave the way for possible forgiveness (Chapman, 2007, p.29-31). On a logical note, since humans are inherently in need of affection, marriages should be the foundation where the fulfillment of the sense of belonging and security should come from. As mentioned earlier, love in marriages helps in providing stability in a union. Therefore, people should not look into the idea of love in marriages as some sort of just a romantic idea resulting from too much reading of pocketbooks or watching romantic movies. Love in marriages runs deeper than shallow Hollywood presentations. Love and marriage are two crucial elements in human society. Understanding the importance of love is stabilizing this core unit

High school Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

High school - Research Paper Example There are various phases in a person’s development and growth which are more memorable than others. For some, high school life is the most endearing due to the new relationships and experiences that occur at the opportune time. As adolescents explore the world and develop strong bonds with friends and teachers, it is recognized that level and depth of relationships differ according to formal or informal structures (Chapter 4: School and Classroom Environment). With regard to student-teacher relationships, some students have formal relationships with teachers, and some of them have informal relationships with teachers. Formal relationships between students and teachers exist when communication patterns and lines of authority are clearly established and enforced. As defined, formal structures observe â€Å"sets of rules and regulations that define the relationships between people and tasks, and determine the distribution of power† (Capra 104). In formal relationships, there are evident boundaries and communication is made on a professional manner. The manner of speaking, words chosen, topics of conversation are formally structured and focus mainly on academic performance and progress of the student. Likewise, even the way professors dress or be addressed by title affects the way students apparently perceive relationships as strictly formal (Sebastian and Bristow).

Substance abuse in Veterans Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Substance abuse in Veterans - Research Paper Example These drugs provide relief for a short lifespan. However, this can in turn bring a heavy aftermath after the lapse. Its effects include nightmares, addiction, anxiety, flashbacks, suicide, overdose, sleeplessness, depression, aggressiveness, loneliness and even in the worst scenario; death (Lewis, Dana & Blevins, 2011) Stress forms a greater influence than any other cause and it greatly hinders a person’s mentality. The soldiers especially those from Iraq and Afghanistan, tend to overuse opioids a lot as a way of relieving stress. Most of them don’t use it because of physical injury, but because they want to erase the painful memories of their lost ones in the army. Hence, they misuse these drugs to relieve dark memories. Some veterans also use excessive hard drugs as a supplement of the opiates in case they don’t manage to get one. One of the majorly abused illegal drugs was heroin. This was because of fear from war tensions .Heroin abuse was largely used by Vietnam veterans. Battles needed courage and bravery; and that is why a huge number of soldiers used these drugs to boost their confidence. Injured soldiers especially those with severe cases were prescribed powerful painkillers which provided pleasure in return. The most prescribed painkillers included hydrocodone, oxycodone and meperidine. These drugs were commonly abused by being injected or sniffed in the blood system by the patients. These painkillers provided a similar feeling like the heroin. Excessive opioids brought about addiction which made most of them captive. The patients later turned to the abuse of painkillers which served as alternative opioids, having been controlled by the Department of Veteran Affairs. Opioids also caused anxiety and sleeplessness. Flashbacks were also recorded by the veterans causing them to scream or cry when sleeping. The patients sometimes took huge amounts of the painkillers whether prescribed or not, and

Description Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Description - Essay Example However, bees are the most prevalent or common because these can be breed (raised and propagated in artificial hives) and perform the pollination function much more efficiently compared to other insects, animals, or so-called carriers of pollen or termed as vectors. Bees are very important to human survival, because without them, pollination cannot take place and many products in agriculture, such as fruits and vegetables, will not be available if not for the bees. However, it is also alarming that bees themselves are under serious environmental threats. It is estimated some $40 billion to $50 billion worth of agricultural products are due to the pollination activities of these bees (Abrol 762). Bees are very crucial for survival of the human species. Discussion Besides pollination, bees are also well known for their honey. I remember when I was still a young kid, my mom used to make me eat honey at breakfast. I can still very vividly recall its sweet taste in my mouth; among the sug ars available from Mother Nature, it is honey that has most health (anti-bacterial) beneficial effects. People today are more health conscious as compared to earlier generations; honey as a natural sweetener is much better to the artificial sweeteners in the supermarkets today (Chepulis 37); whenever I see honey, I remember bees. Since ancient times, honey has been considered to have medicinal properties, but it is only now, with the use of modern science, that its chemical composition has been analyzed to know what makes honey a powerful tonic, and even as an aphrodisiac. Science has confirmed the firm belief of the people in antiquity that honey contains many of the elements essential for good health, among them anti-oxidants amino acids, vitamins, and minerals (Sharma 14). One can eat plenty of honey without getting the ailments associated with sugars or sweets such as diabetes, heart diseases, hypertension, atherosclerosis, and vascular diseases. I was walking home one day when I heard a persistent buzzing sound. At first, I did not know immediately what it was; I had originally thought I just imagined hearing the sound, a buzzing sound in my ears, because there is something wrong with my hearing. Only later on did I realize a big bee was buzzing and flitting from flower to flower in our home garden. This garden has been planted with a variety of flowers, and the bee made great use of the spring. It flew among the red flowers, sipping the nectar of each bud and seemed tremendously happy. What a sight it was! A bee is very graceful when flying; its wings beat at 190-250 times per second! (Micucci 28). This frequency can be compared with the wing beats of a butterfly (4-20 times per second, while the fly beats its wings at 1,000 times a second). A honey bee actually has two pairs of wings, and its wings are so small compared to its body weight, it is defying both the laws of gravity and aerodynamics because of so much energy from honey! Honey bees are one of the most useful insects in the world, and it is difficult to have a good harvest without them pollinating all the flowers of the fruits and vegetables. The apple is an example, without bees pollinating their blossoms, no apple can be produced. Further, a lot of people may not know it, but bees also make beeswax used for making candles (during earlier times when electricity was not yet harnessed to produce lighting); candles made from beeswax have a higher

Medicine during the revolutionary war Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Medicine during the revolutionary war - Essay Example The military was the most affected by undeveloped medical practices and poor knowledge on the field of medicine. They used to use branding iron to stop bleeding. Amputation was also very common and was somehow considered equal to what is an antibiotic currently. It was believed that, to stop an infection from spreading to the rest of the body from the part of the body that has been struck by a bullet or diseased, was to amputate it. Doctors tending to the military during that time had little concept of germs. They barely washed their hands or even their tools. They had an approach that curing a person mainly involved getting the disease out of the system. One of the common methods that were used was cupping. The doctors took a heated glass cup and placed it on the patient’s chest with an attempt to sweat out the disease. They also used a method called leeching. That is, they used leeches to suck out bad blood. Or they could simply cut the patient’s wrist and let them bl eed out an ailment. Dental hygiene was also a major issue during this time. People’s teeth were either black or yellow or missing altogether. They usually used twigs to brush their teeth. If someone can afford something better than twigs, they used a bone with pigs’ hair. A family could afford only one toothbrush which they had to share. Going to the dentist wasn’t very much necessary unless one is in deep and extreme pain. Alcohol was mostly used to ease the pain as a medical procedure. Pulling out a tooth could not have gotten any more literal. A metal object, whi

Fossil Evidence Essay Example for Free

Fossil Evidence Essay 1. A. Fossil evidence has been used to support evolution. Paleontologists have dug up old bones and other things that were preserved in sedimentary rock. All of these things that were found show evidence that there was life long ago, however that’s not the only thing these fossils show. Fossils also show that there have been changes in the organisms that have inhabited this earth. The reason it supports that is once we compare the fossils to another organism, by using many different techniques, we can then see how the fossil from back then has adapted and evolved into this new organism. However it is still the same organism just modified to the environment it lives in during that time period. Just like everything else that has positives, this also has some negatives. One of the weaknesses of fossil evidence is that many organisms that died never got preserved because of where they were located. Not only were some organisms not fossilized, but some fossils were destroyed by geological processes. That leaves only some to be found. Despite these weaknesses the fossil record is still a great tool to show us the biological change that has occurred over vast amounts of time. B. The relationship between many organisms can be traced back to a common ancestor. As time progresses organisms evolve and change from this common ancestor, making it harder to just see the relationships between organisms. There are three types of evidence that explains how organisms can be related and that it just is the organism evolving; comparative anatomy, comparative biochemistry, and comparative embryology. One of the ones I am discussing is comparative biochemistry which is when you compare organisms by the similarity of their DNA, proteins, genes, gene products and their common genetic code. DNA, RNA, the genetic code and proteins are similar in all organisms. When the genetic and molecular similarity between species is great, that means that those two species are closer to sharing a common ancestor. The second one I will explain is comparative anatomy. This also shows that organisms share a common ancestor, but proves it by the similarities of the organism’s anatomical structure. You look at the organism’s body parts and their anatomy and look to see if there is any connection between the organisms. There are two major concepts to comparative anatomy; homologous structures and analogous structures. Homologous is when the structures are  similar due to common descent. While analogous is when structures are similar because they evolved in similar environments. You do this by taking the bone structures and looking the appendages, because that is where you can see if one or multiple organisms have the same bone structure for that particular area.