THE IMPACT OF GLOBALIZATION ON HAIER
Name:
Institution:
Date of submission:

THE IMPACT OF GLOBALIZATION ON HAIER
Introduction

People across the world have been interacting with other cultures in numerous ways, many of them for economic reasons. Integrating the insights of the past, one could envisage that it was difficult initially for people to communicate and do business together. However, these obstacles still subsist even in today in international business. Despite that, our world has become undoubtedly smaller in the last decades, cultural and geographical contexts still take place in shaping different societies and their methods of relations. The term globalization is the method of international incorporation arising from the exchange of worldviews, products, ideas, and other aspects of culture. There are several factors generating interdependence of economic and cultural activities which include telecommunications and transport infrastructure. Most recently, due to the industrial revolution and innovation in the transportation and communication, the units of international interaction resulted into multinational corporations who were finding materials, labor, and clients outside their own. It can be realized that multinational corporations are agents of globalization. Haier Group Company has10 industrial parks world wide and 22 other plants overseas and has been impacted by the global world. The reality of this branches from the fact that it has many subsidiaries, some which profit from globalization while others do not. However, this paper seeks to identify and analyze how Haier Company has projected, spread, and entrenched its corporation communication strategies, organizational structure, among others in the age of globalization.

Background of Haier Group Company

In the year 1980’s, Haier Group Company was still manufacturing a single product, which was the refrigerator. At this time the company was facing insolvency with a debt of 1.47 million RMB and had 800 staff members (Gareth , 2001:420). Due it its persistency and continued innovation, the company has succeeded in setting up 10 industrial parks world wide and 22 other plants overseas. According to ChinaAbout.net (2013),

“Haier Company has established itself as a global manufacture and enabling timely action to satisfy local user needs for quality Haier products that in turn greatly anchors the company to achieve its goals of world-class brand”.

This involves a new commercial reality in which products and ideologies have been standardized in an unimagined scale of magnitude in the global markets. This is observable in Haier Group Company as a corporation that has geared to this technological reality benefits from enormous economies of scale in the market chain at large.

Organization structure

Through the help of globalization, Haier Company has been able to integrate its organizational structure in order to help achieve its set goals. Apparently, it is using divisional structure under the product divisions in order to help the companies in each group to produce similar product lines. However, the company has further used functional and matrix structures under globalization to benefit from the economies of scales. In addition, when similar departments are combined under the original product division into a distinct functional department, replication of personnel and equipment would be abridged. On the other hand, adoption of the matrix structure adoption has helped achieve equilibrium through specialization and cost management in Haier Group Company. This is echoed from the impact of globalization that has brought about commonality across the world (Suo and Bardhan, 2013:202).

Leadership styles

Over decades, the company embraced on the task and relationship behavior and this contributed much in integrating the follower’s capacity of motivation, aptitude, experience as well as interest in accommodating responsibility. The actual leadership styles observed in this company are telling, participating, selling, and delegating. However, in the current leadership style observed as the effect of globalization is based on its unique strategy. This resulted from the realization of the changing market where the company found out that the domestic consumers would soon have quality options from overseas competitors. Due to this, the company embraced on the participation style by giving the employees a sense of belonging. The objective of these measures is to meet employee’s emotional needs and provide many opportunities to make them participate in the company. Men are excellent business leaders and have assisted in generating incredible amount of wealth for their companies as well as investors (Li, 2005:301). Zhang Ruimin has helped in inventing many great products with customers’ specifications and has revolutionized the concept of modern business management. The company has exalted the concept of leader ship that in the other hand has changed the landscape of global market in its own ways by engendering globalization. The leaders of Haier are equipped with clear vision and ability to transform vision and reality and this has helped the corporation to turn from money losing to dreadfully profit making.

Looking ahead by engendering globalization

Ideally, it is now extensively accepted that globalization has been taking place over the last half century. There is no doubt that everything done in the world today can be viewed in a larger global context, which is particularly true for business activities. Haier Company has realized that going global is the trend that gives attribute to its brand and gives the flexibility to accommodate diverse trading patterns. This has been promoted by the use of media and variety of products as well as political cultures where there is a lot of readiness to embrace change in the market, which is essential for continued success. In order to accommodate all the changes, Haier Company realized the need to move towards digitalization with the internet fitting as the source of medium. In addition, the company has been able to see the rise of activities increasing economies as they strive not only to join but also succeed in the global market. As a result, the company has used this medium to engender global as culture that provides connectivity (Zhu et al, 2007:41).

Through these technology advancements, products and services have been used in many countries and this show the ancient times when products and services used to be sold marketed in national contest is gone. As the global popular culture contains products and symbols that penetrate most local markets, it encompasses ideology of the economic freedom. Here, the consumer selection encourages the diverse uses and interpretations of the consistent patterns. Consumers obtain goods from different societies or countries and do not deny the powers of multinational corporations that promote the consumption of their products and logos. A research shows that popular cultures usually produces global tastes, but also creates consumers who keep the culture from becoming uniform. Haier Group Company has recently discovered the interest of customers and has hence integrated them through producing products that meet their specifications and do not only target national customers but also customers across the globe. This great change has recently posed a lot of challenges in the company’s production that keep them in the global market (Chen, 2011:680).

Chameleon adapts in all changes of the environment regardless of color and thus can be used as a good example of globalization. This is a technique adopted by the Haier Group Company in order to help the company trade in different countries. This is all about the diversity in the cultural activities depict a movement that refer to the investors and customers. Improvement in the technology contributes much to the customer attraction through stemming up various products in the whole world. The focus mainly remains disbursed by the media through photos shared all over the world in the social media and other media devices. Advertisement through the television and the newly introduced channels that access all kinds of people in the world make the conveyance of the information easily accessible all over the world. People who get interested move to enjoy these activities in the world regardless the different cultural activities practices in that community (Yi & YE, 2002:94). To realize this, the company has embraced in producing products that meet all the requirements of the customers across the globe. Quality and consistency is the key attributes in maintaining position in the global market.

The impacts of globalization on Haier’s in the last five years

The rise of Haier is a typical story that could happen back in 1980’s when the Chinese government began to deepen the reform and opening up policy and mingle with the outside world. This interaction was in terms of business sector and economic activities in order to help engender the global concept. This was observed from the company’s strategic change to bring forth an advanced refrigerator from the German Liebherr Company in a joint venture and brought glory in the refrigerator business. However, in order to keep the pace in the international market and cut across the competitive edge, Haier has constructed 18 design centers world wide in order to consolidate resources from developed countries. With the aim of satisfying European consumers, the Haier team has integrated the talent European, Asian, and the US designers to widen a high-end Italian refrigerators that assisted them to win Plus X award in the year 2009. This was the help of the genuine European style design as well as the humanized functions integrated into the machine. This was the globalization of research and development that has helped them to be inclusive to the different design and also talents from the foreign market who tend to have different ideas (Jacob et al, 2009:330). This is because they are living in different social and cultural setting as well as their exceptional inputs that they contribute to help them facilitate the diversifications and global of research and development activities of the group.

In the supply chain management, in terms of the electronic business, the strategic mode of Haier’s electronic business was clearly mirrored by the electronic business platform that include the eminent Haier business to business transaction supply chain management project. However, this supply chain management system was built on the platform of iHaier.com with the aim of integrating the supply and distribution process. Although it was built in the beginning of the century, it is widely accepted and its usage is increasing with the suppliers and distributors accepting the electronic mode Haier it offers. Because of the introduction of the platform, the company has shifted its gears in picking up the paramount suppliers around the world and projecting up close partnership with the suppliers while at the same time plummeting the purchasing costs as well as improving the product quality. This is to show that globalization has helped the company in meeting its customers from the global market as well as the best suppliers across the globe.

Global corporate culture

Haier corporate culture is led and urbanized by advanced concept, innovative strategy, efficient organization, creative technology as well as market orientation. Due to integrated corporate structure, the company has grown swiftly with the business expansion from china and across the world. This has been promoted by the company absorbing the diversified values and cultures during the globalization through out its global networks. The interaction all refers to the transmission of ideas, meanings, and values across the national borders that are marked by utilization of cultures diffused via the internet, popular culture, and international tour. The cultural globalization involves the configuration of shared norms and awareness with which people relate their entity and communal identities raising the interconnections among different inhabitants and cultures. Through this globalization, the company has been able to interact with many people from different societies and countries and this has assisted market the Company’s products in the global market.

The impacts of globalization on Haier’s in the future

With the concentrated research and development activities engendered by the world leading companies like the Haier, who produce home electronic appliances, it is clear that products will undergo a great revolution. This is because the relative technological innovation process will be speeded up while the product life cycle will be abridged. A product life is described in four stages which include introduction stage, growth stage, maturity stage, and decline stage. This shortened product life is as a result of over exploitation of resources from one country. As such, the Company decided to establish 18 branches from the developed countries in order to consolidate their resources. However, because of the increased research and development as well as creative technology, the product development will expected to speed up and hence the product life cycle will be reduced. This shows that globalization will affect products life cycle while on the other hand the speed of production will be increased due to the introduction of machines that perfume better than human labor (Buckley, 2009:136).

Customization in products and the blooming electronic business has been skillfully strategized by the company, which is clearly reflected in the company platform and includes the business to business functions. However, this transaction is expected to rise beyond imagination by many companies getting drawn in the online transaction. This is because the transactions involve different participants across the world and only online platforms will enable the transaction. iHaier.com platform offers good services to the suppliers as well as discounts that continue to attract more customers. This has helped the company to continue participating in the global market and more sales done online across the world. By forming a global society, globalization spreads modernity and craps time distance, referring to the way in which immediate electronic contact erodes the constraints related to distance and time on the social association and interface. This requires processes in which people from different locations or world merge to a single world society to interact (Cznkota and Ronkainen, 2005:117). This global society implies on homogenization and customers enjoy the services that on the other hand save them money mad time wastage.

Through the increased invention, the company has been able to construct costly projects that has benefited from the Haier technology. These projects include the establishment of Haier Universtity and the Haier Museum of Science and Technology. These projects are geared towards educating employees as well as the public in order to help foster awareness on the existence of technology and its function in our lives. In the museum, the company traces all the high tech history of science and technology that help it to strategize on future developments towards globalization. It is quit rare for companies in the global market to embrace the idea of educating and as well as nurturing the young innovators which is evident in the Haier corporate structure. This shows that the corporation has been greatly affected by globalization and needs fresh innovation as the time ages. Irrespective of many corporations in the age of globalization, the company has employed different mechanisms that help in continued innovation as well as keeping the pace in globalization (Wang and Gupta, 2009:125).

Conclusion

Haier Corporation has been greatly affected by globalization and has however prompted the company to engage different styles in innovation as well as organizational strategies in order to age with globalization. Through participation and introduction of online platforms the company has seen an improvement in the speed in which their electronics are made. On the other hand, this has seen home appliances life cycle shortened due to globalization brought about by advanced technology and increase in innovation. In order to continue fostering the growth in the market, the company has constructed Haier University and Museum that continue to educate their customers as well as employees and keep the records of significant history in science and technology. Apparently, this has created market networks which link countries and market positions. In addition, corporations have reduced their duties in order to favor the market as well as containing customers through favorable prices.

Bibliography

Buckley P. J. 2009. The impact of global factory and economic development. World business. 44 (2):131- 143.

Chen X., 2011. Lay Psychology of Globalization and Its Social Impact. Social issues. 67 (4): 677-695.

Cznkota M. R., Ronkainen A. I., 2005. A forecast of globalization, international business and trade: report from a Delphi study. World of business. 40 (2): 111-123.

Gareth B. 2001. China faces, debates, the contradiction of globalization. Asian survey 41 (3): 409-427.

Jacob, J. et al. 2009. Internationalization and technological catching up of emerging multinationals: a comparative case study of China's Haier group. Industrial corporate change. 18 (2):325-349.

Li P. P. 2005. Towards an integrated theory of multinational evolution: the evidence of Chinese multinational evidence as latecomers. International management. Vol 13 (3): 296-318.

Suo C., Bardhan N. 2013. Charting the Waters of Globalization: An Analysis of Haier's Strategic Organizational Discourse. Strategic communication. Vol 7 (3): 186-206.

Wang H. and Gupta, A. K. 2009. The Rise of Global Champions: Impact of Country, Industry & Company Effects. Industrial relation. Vol 45 (1): 115-126.

YI, J. J., & YE, S. X. 2002. The Haier way: the making of a Chinese business leader and a global brand. Dumont, NJ, Homa & Sekey Books.

Zhu, L. et al. 2007. Haier’s Tao of innovation: a case study of the emerging Total Innovation Management model. Technology transfer. Vol 32 (1-2): 27-47.

ChinaAbout.net. (2013). Managerial roles analysis of Haier Group. Retrieved 9th October 2013 from