E-Commerce and Financial Services in Asia: The Expansion and Globalization of Alibaba, Coupang and SoftBank

This book looks at the drivers in the emergence, development and internal and global expansion of Asian e-commerce businesses. It tackles the problems inherent in the globalization strategy of a Japanese financial services firm operating in the e-commerce sector.

The business world has been transformed by information technology and online companies, which benefitted during the Covid-19 pandemic, unlike the traditional retail sector of the economy. The well-known Amazon has seen the emergence of Asian alternatives, Alibaba from China and Coupang from South Korea, both of which have the transnational venture capital firm SoftBank of Japan as a large share owner. This book explores performance and potential in e-commerce and fin-tech, internationalisation strategies, governance problems associated with foreign corporations in South Korea and anti-monopoly drive aimed at China’s tech giants. Diverse topics are covered, including the results, impacts and implications of US stock exchange listings, liability of foreignness, dual-class structure and importance of corporate governance and social responsibility signalling and messaging. The chapters also cover local and global expansion ― takeovers, mergers and acquisitions, such as Lazada for the South East Asian market and levels of satisfaction and loyalty. Finally, SoftBank is used as an example of individual and collective entrepreneurial learning in the case of SoftBank Academia.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Asia Pacific Business Review.

Gerhard Kling holds a Chair in Finance at the University of Aberdeen, UK. Before joining Aberdeen, he was Professor of International Business and Management at SOAS University of London, UK, Professor of Finance at the University of Southampton, UK, and held academic posts at UWE, UK and Utrecht University, Nethderlands. He worked as Practice Specialist in Corporate Finance at McKinsey & Company. He studied Economics and Mathematics (BSc and MSc).

Ingyu Oh is Global Fellow at Ewha Womans University, Seoul, South Korea, and Professor of Business Management and Cultural Studies at Kansai Gaidai University, Hirakata, Japan. Many of his books and journal articles deal with East Asian corporate governance, knowledge management and business culture. He is the Deputy Editor of Asia Pacific Business Review.

Chris Rowley, Kellogg College, University of Oxford and Bayes Business School, City, University of London, UK, researches and publishes in the areas of Asian business and management and work. He has written over 220 articles, 270 book chapters and 50 books and provides specialist talks and masterclasses to numerous international universities and businesses as well as commentary and opinion pieces to practitioner journals and the mass media.