Strategic insights into localizing web communications: Evidence from South Korea

The objectives of this study are firstly, to explore cultural values of South Korean websites; secondly, to investigate whether multinational companies take a standardized global web strategy or culturally localize website contents for foreign markets; and lastly, to examine whether a regionalized web strategy can be used for countries that have low cultural distance. Content analysis was conducted to measure and explore website localization efforts by South Korean local companies, and U.S. and Japanese multinational enterprises in their home markets as well as in their host markets when localizing web content for South Korean B-to-C e-commerce markets. The findings from the study revealed that Korean cultural values are reflected on their local websites, that U.S. multinational firms are not culturally adapting their websites for Korean consumers, and that Japanese multinational corporations follow a standardized website strategy for Korean online shoppers.