E-commerce between a European and a Chinese company

With the rapid development of the Chinese economy in general, and the Internet in China in particular, the scope for international business cooperation is increasing. This paper presents an e-commerce case study between a listed Chinese Internet service provider (ISP) company and a small Dutch IT company. The analysis employs a "fit" model that addresses the following five fits: strategic, resource, cultural, organizational and technological. In this case, it was mainly the strategic misfit that caused problems, which were aggravated by cultural issues.