Master’s degree Project in International Business and Trade
Onboarding and Culture
A multiple case study on the effect of culture in user-onboarding
Graduate School
Authors:
Karl Derehag
Babak Mahjouri
Date: Spring 2022
Supervisor: Niklas Åkerman
School of Business Economics and Law at University of Gothenburg
Acknowledgements
Throughout this paper we have been fortunate enough to have been given a lot of support.
First of all, we would like to thank our supervisor Niklas Åkerman. Åkerman helped us to
align our paper and aided us into pinpointing the track of this study. His insightful feedback
allowed us to push for a deeper and more focused paper.
Secondly we would like to thank all participants of this study. Thus, we thank Henrik
Vallentin, Olle Josarp, Gustaf Terning, Harry Forsman and Tehrie Tyrie for their participation
and for taking time out of their schedules to be a part of this study.
Thirdly, we would like to thank our fellow students who have helped us with feedback
throughout this paper, a special thanks to Ivan Kalami and Skander Sriha who have been
giving us continuous feedback throughout this project.
Fourthly, we would like to thank the School of Business, Economics, and Law at the
University of Gothenburg for five years of study as well as the knowledge and the memories
that came with those five years.
School of Business Economics and Law at University of Gothenburg
Abstract
This study investigates how digital platforms handle cultural aspects during the onboarding
process. The goal was to better understand the role culture has during the onboarding process
to increase the likelihood of a successful internationalisation of digital platforms. The data
gathered was mainly done through conducting interviews with employees at different
companies which could be described as being digital platforms. These companies all had
prior experience with onboarding new users on new markets. The study showed that culture
plays an important role in the onboarding process and it needs to be taken into consideration
to succeed when internationalising. When there were larger differences in culture, more
actions needed to be taken by digital platforms to succeed. Trust was the key factor that
contributed to success and trust is mainly built through the cultural factors of shared
language, common heritage and religious beliefs. These factors all contribute to personal
values and beliefs. When humans feel more similar to each other, trust is being built more
easily.
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1. Introduction 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Background 2
1.3 Problem Discussion 8
1.4 Problem question and purpose 9
2. Theoretical framework 10
2.1 User Onboarding 10
2.1.1. Different Onboarding strategies 11
2.2 Network Effects 13
2.2.1 Lock-in effect 15
2.3 Culture 18
2.3.1 Cultural Distance 18
2.3.1 Cultural effects on human behaviour 19
2.3.2 Trust and personal engagement 20
2.3.3  Cultural differences in humour and games 21
2.3.4 Cultural differences in learning and education 22
2.3.4 Cultural differences in sustainability 24
2.3.7. How culture can have an effect on law making 25
2.4. Theory Synopsis 25
3. Methodology 28
3.1. Research Approach 28
3.1.1. Abductive Research 28
3.1.2. Qualitative Research 29
3.2. Research Design 30
3.2.1. Multiple Case Study 30
3.3. Data Collection 31
3.3.1. Data Sources 31
3.3.2. Selection of companies and Candidates 31
3.3.3 Interviews 33
3.3.4 Secondary data 35
3.3.5 Data Analytical Process 36
3.5. Trustworthiness and Quality of Research 36
3.6. Literature Review 37
3.7. Ethical aspects 38
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4. Empirical data 41
4.1 mResell 41
4.1.1. Onboarding 41
4.1.2. Cultural aspects 43
4.2 Terhi Tyrie 45
4.2.1 Onboarding 45
4.2.2 Cultural Aspects 45
4.3 Event Logic 48
4.3.1. Onboarding 48
4.3.2. Cultural Aspects 49
4.4. Bokio 51
4.4.1 Onboarding 51
4.4.2. Cultural Aspects 52
4.5 Case WeChat 53
4.5.1. Onboarding 53
4.5.2. Cultural Aspects 53
5. Analysis 54
5.1. Cultural Distance 54
5.2 Trust and Onboarding 56
5.3. Product Value and Cultures 58
5.4. Learning across Cultures 62
6. Conclusions 63
7. Recommendations for future research 65
References 66
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1. Introduction
1.1 Introduction
Since the end of the 20th century the world has changed quickly, a lot of these changes can be
correlated to the emergence of the internet. With that major new invention, many industries
have faced changes. Meanwhile new business opportunities have arrived on a great scale. One
of these newer types of business are digital platforms (Reuver et. al, 2018). Digital platforms
have challenged many old industries, where for example the travelling industry is a notable
one. Digital platforms such as Hotels.com and Booking.com have changed the industry as a
whole. The change followed by the internet revolution has created challenges for most
businesses. Digital platforms, since being built entirely on the internet are in theory quite easy
to move and establish in a new market. However, this is not always the case since digital
platforms create their value from users and without users, the business does not generate
value for anyone (Stallkamp & Schotter, 2019). No one would use Facebook if there were no
friends to interact with and no one would use Airbnb if there were no rooms to book.
Therefore the main objective for a digital platform is to acquire users and get them to use the
platform. The challenge when moving to a new market is that the plattform starts all over,
given that the network effects are location bound. Therefore this dilemma is very interesting
from an International Business perspective.
A big part of user acquisition is user onboarding, and user onboarding can in short be
described as education. The term onboarding refers to how you educate a user and how you
get them accustomed to the platform. While acquisition is solely the process of acquiring a
user, getting the user to sign up to your platform. Within this paper however, the term user
onboarding will include both these definitions. Therefore it will include both the acquisition
part and also the user onboarding part. Since education in some form always involves a
human perspective this will be influenced by culture. Culture can affect many different
aspects of behaviour and therefore influence how a user perceives a digital plattform. The
effect that culture has on acquiring users is therefore the purpose of this study. In order to
fully understand how to onboard users in an international context it is important to understand
how culture comes into play since culture affects several behavioural aspects of humans, and
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therefore users. In order to fully understand the way culture impacts the onboarding process,
it is important to first understand digital platforms, the importance of users (i.e. the network
effect), user onboarding, and culture.
1.2 Background
1.2.1 Background to Digital Platforms
How the term digital platform is defined can differ quite drastically depending on the source.
There are several different definitions of the term depending on who you ask and from which
context it is being used in. It is therefore important to clarify how a ‘digital platform’ is
defined in this thesis.
This thesis will take on the ‘non-technical’ definition of digital platforms. The non-technical
view, views the digital platform as a platform where users can make transactions with one
another (Abdelkafi et al., 2019; Asadullah et al., 2018). Basically the function is to create a
‘room’ where different actors can interact, most commonly a supplier and a customer. For
example, on Facebook the normal user can be seen as the ‘supplier’ as the data the user
generates are used to generate personalised ads, which is then sold to the ‘customer’,
normally a company (Facebook, 2022). The groups, or actors present on the app or website
are then interdependent on each other (Abdelkafi et al., 2019; Gawer, 2014; Hagiu and
Wright, 2015; Ye et al., 2011).
The customers and suppliers are then a bit more unclear than in a traditional company. For
example in the case of Hotel.com, the suppliers are the hotels and the customers are the users.
However, it is the hotel that pays the kickback fee back to Hotels.com and could therefore
also be seen as a customer, exemplifying the complication of it. Regardless, the digital
platforms all share the same function, even if it is a social media platform selling views and
data to advertisers or if it is eBay where the transaction is very clear and the suppliers and
customers are clear. In many cases the users are both suppliers and customers, eBay being an
example, Airbnb another and Uber as a third. However in the Netflix case, the supplier is for
example not a user since the supplier is the production company.
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1.2.2 Background to Network Effects
Since the actors within a digital platform are interdependent on each other network effects
occur. Network effects are the effect that explains that the value of a digital platform increases
as more users, customers and suppliers join the network. For example, the value of Facebook
increases every time a new user joins. The value of Facebook lies in the fact that you can
reconnect with old friends, and add new friends as they enter your life. If none of your friends
use Facebook the value significantly drops. The same goes for other digital platforms, you
would not use Airbnb if it only had one apartment in Amsterdam, nor would you go through
the effort of taking nice pictures of your apartment if there were only a few active customers.
In summary the network effect is that more users attract more users, and not in the way of the
traditional aspects such as word of mouth but rather in increasing the value of the product and
therefore, according to traditional business strategy such as Barney (1991) the competitive
advantage of a company grows when the value of the product/service sold increases (Aals et.
al, 2019; Zhu and Iansiti, 2019; Stallkamp and Schotter, 2019).
According to Aals et al. (2019) and Zhu and Iansiti (2019) the ‘network effect’ is a reason
why some platforms gain traction and get new users at a rapid pace while others fail.
However, many authors express the egg and the chicken issue that comes with the network
effects. As mentioned earlier with Airbnb, travellers only use it since it has wide offers, and
renters only use it since it has travellers. Therefore Airbnb needs travellers to attract renters
and vice versa, thus a chicken and the egg problem. Many authors have mentioned this issue
in regards to digital platforms (Evans, 2003; Stallkamp and Schotter, 2019; Caillaud and
Jullien, 2003).
Network effects can according to Stallkamp and Schotter (2019) be either nationally bound or
cross-border effects. A cross-border effect can for example be Airbnb, if they have several
apartments in Spain, and only Spain, then users from for example the Nordic Region will still
be attracted to using the platform since Spain is such a popular vacation spot for them.
Another example of a cross-border network effect is Netflix, being an American company and
having the majority of their content in English they can establish themselves in all countries
where English is being taught. A national bound network effect could for example be a food
delivery service, one would not care if a food delivery service has all restaurants in Belgium
registered on their app if you live in Italy, the same goes with for example Uber, the drivers
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still need to be present in the country of the user and vice versa. Stallkamp and Schotter
(2019) then explains that a digital platform with only national bound network effects
practically needs to start over when entering a new market, meaning that if deploy your
platform in a new country the entry will almost be identical as the actual start of the platform.
1.2.3. Background to User Onboarding
In this study the term onboarding will refer to how a company attracts a user, gets them
accustomed to the platform, and educates the user in order to make them a recurring user. The
approach for this can be different, and different authors have different views on how this can
be done the most effectively. Most of the research has been made in regards to UX design, the
actual design of the plattform. However, many companies use other types of onboarding tools
such as seminars, webinars and other types of methods that would fall outside of the UX
design  (Megyeri and Szabó, 2021).
The term ‘Onboarding’ was originally a term used within human resource management. The
term aims to describe the process of assimilating new team members. The aim is to align the
organisation and employee with each other. According to Bradt and Vonnegut (2009)
onboarding is “the process of acquiring, accommodating, assimilating and accelerating new
team members.” There are several positive aspects of a successful employee onboarding, one
of them being higher talent retention according to Bradt and Vonnegut (2009).
The term has since been translated and used to describe how users of a digital platform can be
onboarded. The core aim is to have as successful users as possible and to minimise the
turnover of customers. Thus, increasing user retention. According to Hullick the primary
objective with customer onboarding is to increase the amount of activated customers, as well
as increasing the amount of satisfied customers. An activated customer is a recurring user that
uses the digital platform on a regular basis. An activated customer can be measured in many
different ways (Strahm, 2017). According to Renz et. al (2014) the term onboarding can be
translated into a ‘user perspective’. The term ‘user perspective’ is used to describe a sum of
methods that aids the new user to become accustomed to a new digital product.
The main research lies within the IT-development area and UX design aspect of user
onboarding. For example a study by Strahm (2017) investigates the relationship between user
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onboarding and minimalistic UX design. Strahm (2017) gives some insights into how a
company can create an onboarding strategy and how the design of the application can
generate a higher customer retention rate. A similar study was also conducted at Chalmers,
where a case study of the bookkeeping plattform, Bokio was made where the researcher
looked at how different onboarding strategies made users more engaged and how to increase
user retention. However this study by Carlén (2017) also has a more technical approach with
more focus on the Computer Science aspect of onboarding and customer retention than on the
business aspect.
1.2.4. Background to Internationalisation
Internationalisation within this study mostly offers a context. Internationalisation in this study
is defined broadly in order to give a broad context, therefore internationalisation is viewed as
the process of leaving the home market and expanding into a new market. The entry mode
into a new market is not specified. Within this context, if the digital-platform company offers
their platform in another market than their home country they are viewed as international. The
clarifications and description of the term does not need to be deeper than such. Some aspects
from the IB-literature will be discussed and touched upon, however not discussed very
deeply. Market knowledge will be discussed but with a major focus on culture. According to
Johanson and Vahlne (1977) knowledge of business climate and cultural patterns makes up
market knowledge. Thus, understanding the culture of a country when internationalising is a
form of market knowledge.
The process of internationalisation includes several aspects. Such as mode of entry as
discussed by Hill et al., (1990), Morschett et al., (2010) and also the timing of entry as
mentioned by Gaba et al., (2002). The actual process of internationalisation is described by
several authors such as Johanson and Vahlne (2009) that describes how expanding into
markets with less cultural distance is beneficial since it increases the market knowledge.
Another aspect of the internationalisation process is described by Cavusgil and Knight (2015)
that describes born global firms. Firms that in their nature are global, these firms are most
often run by entrepreneurs that rapidly try to internationalise the company, these companies
also view their customer base as global. The processes will not be analysed in this paper since
it lies outside of the scope of the research. However, since the context is international it is
important to understand these aspects.
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1.2.5. Background to Culture
Culture is a hard term to define into a single term. In 1952, a pair of American
anthropologists named Kroeber and Kluckholn tried to do so. They ended up with 164
different definitions. However, it is needed to define the meaning of culture within this study,
the definition will thus not be universal and will apply to the context of this study.
This paper will define culture in a similar fashion as to how Tata and Prashad (2015) defines
culture. Culture is defined as beliefs and values that are widely shared in a society as shared
behaviour patterns, as values, ideas and other symbolic behaviour-shaping systems visible in
a society. However this paper will also consider laws and regulations which according to Jing
and Graham (2008) affects regulations and policy makings.
Culture can be seen as a society’s personality according to Solomon (2004). This then means
that members of a culture share the same beliefs, values, norms and traditions. Since these
aspects influence so many minor decisions in every person's everyday life, consumer
behaviour is hard to fully grasp without considering the cultural aspect.
Culture is one of the most influential components of human behaviour. This is due to the fact
that many parts of human behaviour are governed by values which are highly connected to
the culture in which we act according to Spencer-Oatey (2012). Those same values also affect
the norm in our society and therefore guide our behaviour even in smaller ways such as styles
of greeting each other. The second thing that according to Spencer-Oatey (2012) influences
our human behaviour are underlying assumptions, underlying assumptions are assumptions
that the majority of the people within the culture take for granted and assumptions that they
make without considering it. These assumptions will determine how the members of the
culture feel, think and perceive. These taken-for granted assumptions are very powerful since
they are not debatable within the culture. These assumptions are for example that the school
should educate, business should make profits and medicine should cure. These assumptions
are so strong that one could be considered stupid or ignorant for questioneing them.
According to Mironenko and Sorokin (2018) culture includes both material objects as well as
non-tangible components. The material objects being artefacts, jewellery etc. The
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non-material components being languages, literature, art, science, etc. Furthermore they
elaborates and explains that culture also involves processes such as collective modes of
behaviour that are heavily influenced by customs and traditions.
One case of showing the importance and effect of culture is Walmart’s expansion into
Germany. Walmart, is not a digital platform as described earlier however, they still exemplify
how culture can create issues when internationalising. The lessons learnt from Walmarts
internationalisation process could therefore also be applicable on digital platforms. Why
Walmart is chosen as an example is that they famously failed to establish themself on the
German market. They entered the German market in 1997 but after only nine years in 2006
they decided to shut-down their German branch completely, the reason for the withdrawal
was in large part due to Walmart’s failure to adapt to the local German culture (McDonald,
2017). The Walmart case in Germany is therefore very interesting to analyse as its a prime
example of the importance of culture in the internationalisation process.
Figure I
Note.  Figure I is sourced from: Consumer acceptance and market success WalMart in the UK and Germany. By
Pioch, E. et al. (2009). International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 37(3), 205-225.
As seen in the figure above the market share of Walmart in Würzburg 2002 was far behind its
competitors. The German legislation limits the amount of time a store can be open to 80 hours
per week, the practice of Walmart having its stores open all day was therefore not possible in
Germany (Hunt et al., 2018). According to Shurrab (2014) another cultural difference was the
practice of Walmart employees smiling and greeting customers. This practice is appreciated
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in the US, but in Germany it is perceived as strange and could be interpreted as flirting.
Walmart also appointed Americans in executive positions which did not understand German
and made English as the official company language. This caused a divide between workers at
the lower levels and executives as employees felt like ‘outsiders’. Germans put great pride
into communicating in German, even though English is well-known among the population
(Shurrab, 2014). The German labour force is heavily unionised while Walmart is known for
its resistance to unions, this also created conflicts when operating in Germany as workers are
used to representation at higher company levels (Landler and Barbaro, 2006). These cultural
aspects all contributed to the failure of Walmart on the German market therefore stressing the
importance of understanding the cultural differences between countries when
internationalising.
1.3 Problem Discussion
The majority of newly founded digital platforms fail and never get into the public knowledge.
We tend to focus on the great successful ones but forget how many failures there are to one
AirBnb or Uber (Parker et al., 2016). There are many reasons why a digital platform fails, but
as mentioned earlier the onboarding process is crucial when companies seek to grow their
user base. The onboarding process is an interaction between a company and its customers and
users therefore, when putting this in an international perspective (i.e. when a digital platform
established themselves in a market outside of their home market) the cultural aspect comes
into play as it is dependent on human interaction. The cultural factor therefore makes the
onboarding process different depending on in which culture or nation it's being employed in.
When companies internationalise they face the challenge to adopt the onboarding process to
the local market to succeed. This very challenge can therefore be crucial to whether the entire
internationalisation process of a company succeeds or not. Many researchers view the
customers or users as a single entity neglecting the cultural differences, therefore also
affecting the onboarding process. This is then the main problem when putting onboarding in
an international perspective, that the users are different since they are affected by the culture.
Acquiring users has been researched earlier, and the main focus has been on networking
effects, i.e. the network of users and how they create value for the digital platform. However
these studies, such as Stollkamp and Schotter (2019) who only mentions culture aspects in the
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aspects of networking effects. They then described how countries with for example similar
languages can have cross-border network effects. Onboarding itself since it involves users
and the obvious fact that humans are being onboarded human behaviour plays a major role. A
big part of human culture is culture, since culture forms underlying assumptions that in turn
shapes human behaviour. Thus, to achieve these network effects and to actually acquire users
it can be important to understand cultural aspects.
Evans (2003) also has conducted research within the importance of users without mentioning
cultural aspects. According to Brouther et. al (2016) the cultural aspect is a limitation to
their study and actively chose not to include this factor. Finding these aspects in other studies
were also not done. The research within onboarded is already restricted, and how the cultural
aspects plays a role is not discussed or researched. Therefore, a gap has been identified, this
gap is interesting enough also apparent in blog posts, websites and other non-academic
sources. The gap identified is that the cultural aspects of onboarding (including user
acquisition) is not appropriately examined in the existing literature.
1.4 Problem question and purpose
The purpose of this study is to deepen the understanding of cultural aspects within the
onboarding process (within onboarding user acquisition, user retention and educating users
will be included) and how it affects the internationalisation of digital platforms. This study
will therefore address this issue and integrate the cultural aspect into the onboarding process
and its importance to a successful internationalisation process.
How do digital platforms manage cultural aspects in order to facilitate the
onboarding process during internationalisation?
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2. Theoretical framework
The theoretical framework discusses 2 different subjects. First of all is User Onboarding, in
this chapter a clarification of the term is described as well as a clarification of some of the
more popular onboarding strategies complemented with psychology theory in order to explain
why certains strategies work. Furthermore Network Effects are presented in order to explain
how users affect the product of a digital platform and the different types of Network Effects
that exist. Finally culture is explained and how it interacts with the other factors to connect
the theory with the research question. Culture is a broad subject and a selection of sections of
culture is presented such as, trust, cultural differences in learning and education, humour and
overall cultural distance.
2.1 User Onboarding
User onboarding is as mentioned earlier a process where a user goes from not knowing about
a digital platform to becoming proficient in using it and using it regularly, in this process the
user needs to learn about the platform in order to obtain all its value. According to Megyeri
and Szabó (2021) user onboarding contains three stages. The first stage being the information
seeking process. Where a potential user sees a platform as a potential solution to their issue,
information search is also mentioned by Kotler (2000) as the second step of the buying
process (of any product or service). Information search can also come from external sources,
such as through seeking advertisement information or by consulting friends and family, or
from internal sources like the consumer’s own knowledge and experience (Assael, 1987).
According to Megyeri and Szabó (2021) the second step of user onboarding is the realisation
of the value of the platform by the user. The “aha-moment” was according to Strahm (2017)
coined by Hullick and the importance of the “aha-moment” is for the user to realise the value
and create engagement. The other important factor in Hullicks onboarding strategy is to
quickly reach a quick win. The “aha-moment” is what can be seen as a cue from a
psychological standpoint and the quick win then being the reward. According to (2019) cues
that signal a reward, in this example the ‘aha-moment’ signalling the value of the product and
the reward being attaining that value and hopefully solving a problem for the user, can create
a very powerful motivation in acquiring that reward. Rewards can function as a reinforcement
to a Pavlovian motivational learning (Ostlund, 2019). This can therefore explain why Hullick
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stresses the importance of a quick win in order to motivate the user to continue to explore and
learn about the function. According to Megyeri and Szabó (2021) it is important to encourage
the frequent use of the digital platform. This can be done with tutorial videos, tooltips, or
interactive product tours.
The third step is when the customer continues to gain perceived gains and becomes a frequent
user and highly values the services offered by the platform (Megyeri and Szabó, 2021). This
can be seen as the end goal of the user onboarding journey.
2.1.1. Different Onboarding strategies
There are a couple of different onboarding strategies that companies can employ, two of these
are one by Hullick, and one by Higgins (Strahm, 2017). Both Higgins and Hullick can be seen
as well-renowned experts within the field of onboarding and in growing digital platforms.
Other ways of onboarding users are the ‘gamification method’ as described by (Zichermann
and Cunningham, 2011).
Hullicks strategy is quite easy and builds on the ‘aha-moment’. Hullicks strategy is to quickly
get the user to see the ‘aha-moment’. The reasoning behind this is that the user, if spending
too much time on the platform before realising the value, will choose to abandon the
platform. The most important aspect for a user to determine if a platform will generate value
for them is if it ‘improves the life of the user’ and if it ‘is easy to use’ (Tiongson, 2015).
When the user understands the value of the product and sees how the platform can create
value for the user, the amount of time the user is willing to invest in order to obtain that value
is increased (Appboy, 2016; Yardley, 2009). Therefore, this is the underlying reasoning as to
why the “aha-moment” needs to be reached as soon as possible. The next step in Hullicks
strategy is then to reach the value as soon as possible. Hullick calls this a quick win (Strahm,
2017). For example, a small win could be when you start following a few accounts on Twitter
and your timeline is no longer just an empty space. Basically it gets the user quickly engaged
into the platform and keeps you engaged as you learn the platform's different functionalities.
However as explained earlier the quick realisation of value and quick win might aid the
digital platform in their onboarding efforts on a psychological level.
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According to Higgins (2021) one way to successfully onboard is to use guided interactions
and a more tutorial way of introducing the user to the platform. He proposes using free
samples and teaching the user by doing. Free samples also build trust between the digital
platform firm and the user. This goodwill can reward the platform with lower throwaway trial
accounts as it builds trust between the parties. By keeping the onboarding journey personal
this will lead the platform to serve the user and not the other way around. The onboarding
journey needs to be viewed as a personal experience that users go through continuously as
they learn and gain new experiences through interactions with the platform, as each person is
unique (Hassenzahl, 2010). In 1998 Costigan, Ilter and Berman conducted a research
examining how trust among employees can affect the motivation of employees within their
work. They examined several different types of trust and found that all types of trust had a
positive correlation with how motivated the employees were at their job. The same could be
translated to onboarding, that trust builds motivation. This can explain why Higgins (2021)
stresses the importance of personalised experiences and trust.
Another onboarding strategy that has become more popular in the last few years is
gamification. According to Zichermann and Cunningham (2011) gamification is basically to
use different elements that have been used in games for non gaming contexts. Gamification is
described to provide the user with a fun experience and a reward. They exemplify this with
the case of feeding broccoli to a child. The fun is pretending the fork to be an aeroplane and
the reward is to provide the child with a reward such as a cheese sauce after the broccoli has
been eaten. According to Duhigg (2012) in psychology this is known as a cue and a reward,
the que being the fun part, the child wants to play, and the reward being the cheese. This
system drives several aspects of a human's behaviour and habits are what enables us to do
fairly complex tasks such as driving out of our garage while simultaneously turning on the
radio, being on the phone and fastening our seatbelts with a very limited focus. Forming a
habit is something that many digital products have used in order to keep us as loyal users.
Thus gamification can provide two very important factors into the onboarding journey, firstly
while creating a fun experience for the user they are engaged longer, and by later on
providing a reward it creates a habit for the user to use the product. The cues however do not
need to be a game, it can also be a push notification on your phone, an email with a text such
as “We haven’t seen you in a while” etc.
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However, the main idea of using gamification elements is to motivate the user to keep being
engaged and basically is a way to support and motivate users in order to complete one or
several tasks. This can be used in the onboarding process so that the user completes several
tasks and has fun as they are learning about the product and understanding the ins and outs of
the product (Toscani et al., 2018). According to Zichermann and Cunningham (2011)
‘everything has the potential to be fun’, they base this notion on extremely popular games that
are in fact boring tasks made into a game, they mention Farmville, a game where you plant
and harvest crops, Diner Dash where you wait tables, Diaper Dash, a game where you change
diapers and Sally’s Salon where you do peoples nails and hair. They explain that the task that
players complete in a game is not necessarily what makes the game fun, rather it is the
mechanics of the game. Given this notion anything can be fun, if disguised with good
mechanics. They further explain how the ‘fun’ part needs to be primary, not a secondary
priority. According to their research, when the fun comes second the learning will be harmed
since the users lose interest and motivation.
An important part of gamification is the flow, this is being defined as being ‘in the zone’
(Zichermann and Cunningham, 2011). This is basically a state between anxiety and boredom.
Game developers strive to create this flow in their games, it provides the user with a state of
mind where they lose track of the outside world and time and is calm and focused in the
game. How to achieve this is to test different functions until you find the sweet spot between
boredom and anxiety.
All theories regarding onboarding agree, however in different words, that the user needs to be
engaged in what Megyeri and Szabó (2021) calls the second step of the onboarding journey.
Either by creating small wins quickly, building trust or by simply making the process as fun
as possible. All three of these aspects are heavily influenced by the behaviour of the user
being onboarded.
2.2 Network Effects
Earlier in this paper it is explained how network effects can benefit the users as it helps to
show the value of the plattform. However, those network effects can help the digital plattform
to grow. This is a point mentioned by several authors and studies and can be defined as the
chicken and egg problem which is the problem of acquiring users without any users (Evans,
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2003; Stallkamp and Schotter, 2019; Caillaud and Jullien, 2003). According to Jullien (2003)
in order to attract buyers the plattform needs sellers and vice versa. This problem is one of the
toughest challenges a digital platform business has to overcome (Evans, 2003).
Brouthers et al. (2016) also discusses this aspect of digital platforms. As to where they are in
nature, they are easy to scale but are very dependent on their network of users. Further
mentions that these types of business needs a large enough network to generate value on the
plattform. Thus, these businesses can avoid encountering liabilities of foreignness but instead
can encounter liabilities of outsidership if they do not have enough users. The first term can
be defined as the additional operating cost endured by foreign businesses compared to local
firms (Nachum, 2015). The latter is more focused on being ‘outside’ the relevant people
network that the firm operates in, rather than psychic distance which the first is concerned
with (Johanson and Vahlne, 2009). Thus highlighting the importance of active users on digital
platforms as this is the main value adding function in an already developed digital platform.
Stallkamp and Schotter (2018) further elaborates on the network effects and stresses that
companies need to examine whether their network effects are geographically bound, or if they
are international. For example, Netflix can without having Swedish shows enter the Swedish
market and just provide the Swedish users with American movies and series. This as the
Swedish market is already familiar with American films and culture, which makes them
potential customers. When they have the Swedish users the Swedish suppliers will come as
well (suppliers in this case being production companies). This can be seen with Netflix as
they nowadays offer domestic productions to the Swedish market as well. Stallkamp and
Schotter (2018) then mentions that if the platform's network is geographically bound then the
platform will encounter the same chicken and egg problem that they did when they initially
started in their home country. They say this is the case for most companies, the other type
could be regarded as ‘born globals’ as their global network effects makes them able to deploy
their platform globally as for example Youtube. They then further elaborates this and explains
that if the network effects are location-bound then so are also the firm specific advantages.
Meaning that if a platform without any type of non-location-bound network effects establish
themselves in a new market then the firm-specific advantages are non-transferable.
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2.2.1 Lock-in effect
Customer loyalty in the digital realm could be seen as more dependent on the ‘lock-in effect’
compared to traditional firms which rely on such things as brand recognition, relationship,
value, service, status etc. However, the ‘lock-in effect’ can be seen as especially noticeable on
digital platforms. The ‘lock-in’ effect is mostly affected by two factors, network effects and
switching costs (Prud’homme, 2019). The ‘lock-in’ effect can create loyalty by simply
making it harder for users to switch platforms, therefore creating a kind of forced loyalty
more apparent on digital platforms.
A platform with a large number of users often attracts other companies to join their system.
For example, many business systems or platforms today have a built-in integration to
Hubspot (a well renowned CRM system), and also to the most popular accounting platforms.
This adds value for both the business system and the CRM system/accounting platform and
thus they are enhancing eachothers lock-in effects. It makes it hard for you to change from
Hubspot to another CRM system since this would equate to you losing your connection to
your overall business system (Srinivasan and Venkatraman, 2010). According to Prud’homme
(2019) all network effects are not equal and do not generate the same value. He also
highlights the fact that these network effects differ from the network effects found in a
physical-world since they are not tied to any piece of hardware. He then also mentions that
the costs of switching products within the digital world are different from the costs of
switching in the physical world. To understand these different types of costs associated with
switching platforms the The Digital Lock-in/VEIF-model is presented (Prud’homme, 2019).
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Figure II, The Digital Lock-in/VEIF-model
Note. Figure II is from ‘How Digital businesses can leverage the high cost for consumers to switch platforms’
By: Prud’homme, D. (2019). LSE Business Review: London
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The above model explains two different types of switching costs, firstly valuable data
embeddedness and secondly, data switching barriers. According to Prud’homme (2019) these
two costs need to be incorporated together in order to properly lock-in the customer.
The “V” shown in the model could for example be the memories that you receive on
Facebook, if you were to switch platforms from Facebook, all those memories will be erased.
The “E” is the personal data that is embedded in the plattform, for example if your playing a
video game then the, ‘E’ will be your save progress, for music streaming platforms this would
be your playlists, the data they have gathered in order to get their automatically generated
playlists personalised for the user based on what they usually listen to.
The “I” in this model is an informal barrier to switching platforms. This could cause
difficulties in downloading your data and switching it from one platform to the other. For
example, you cannot download your Facebook timeline and move it to another social media
plattform.
The “F” mechanism of the model is the formal barriers, such as contract and other barriers.
For example, you are not available to download your data from every platform.
An example of a type of platform that has difficulties incorporating this VEIF model are
taxi-services like Uber; the data a user saves there is not particularly valuable. Mostly it is
payment related data and previously saved trips. Therefore it is easy for a user to try several
of these services and switch platforms (Prud’homme, 2019). Another example of these types
of services are platforms where you order home food, electric scooters and other smaller
transactions. Harder switches are for example music streaming services and business systems.
Changing business systems for example is a rather costly procedure since it takes time to
learn a new system, educate all employees and transport all the data necessary.
The lock-in effect exemplifies how digital platforms can create long-term customers and how
an onboarded user can be transformed to a lifelong customer where they hardly can change
platforms. Therefore powerful lock-in effects can be viewed as a compliment to
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2.3 Culture
According to Spencer-Oatey (2012) which explains that culture should be regarded as
separate from universal human nature and from individual personality. It should be separated
from human nature since it is not inherited, it is learned. We are not born with values, beliefs
or any other cultural aspects, those are thought. Human nature could be regarded as our
operational system, that grants us the ability to feel joy, pain, fear, anger and other emotions,
however what we do with these feelings and what makes us feel these feelings are modified
by culture. Overall, culture affects our behaviour in several different aspects as it influences
our behaviour and feelings.
2.3.1 Cultural Distance
Cultural distance is a term used by several authors and according to Shenkar et al. (2022) was
coined by Kogut and Singh (1988). According to Cho and Padmanabhan (2005) almost no
international business studies can be complete without considering cultural aspects. Hofstede
(2001) defines cultural distance as the degree to which the shared norms and values differ
from one another. The basic and essential differences in regards to culture are language,
ethnicity, religion, social networks and social norms. Cultural differences then create a
distance on culture resulting in how countries differ from one another. However, the distance
point of view represents only a narrow part of cross-cultural interaction and they argue that
there needs to be a paradigm shift in the approach to cross-culture research (Shenkar et al.,
2022). Instead of viewing entities as unitary and independent they should be viewed as
relational and dependent on the mutual relationship that they develop. There needs to be a
paradigm shift in international business research with focus on what happens during
cross-cultural interactions and how it affects international business rather than just accepting
old frameworks (Ibid.).
Another measure of cultural distance can be language. This as according to West and Graham
(2004) language is heavily linked to both cultural boundaries as well as national boundaries.
Furthermore they explain that language and values are connected with each other due to
language being an antecedent to various cognitive processes, which in turn is an antecedent of
values. An article by Nisbett (2003) explained that the language spoken influences the way
we think. Therefore sharing a language will most likely lead to sharing of values.
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2.3.1 Cultural effects on human behaviour
According to Hofstede (1991) certain parts of culture are in fact visible however, their
meanings are invisible. Since the meaning lies only in the interpretation of their insiders. This
is being exemplified by Spencer-Oatey (2012) with the exempel of the ‘ring gesture’ where
one would put their thumb and index finger together in order to create a ring. In the USA, the
UK and Canada this would be interpreted as conveying agreement, approval or acceptance,
however in several Mediterranean countries this is regarded as an insult. Thus, the meaning
lies within the interpreters of the insiders, the insiders being the ones within the culture.
Hofstede (1991) famously described 5 dimensions of culture. (1) Power Distance, which is
the acceptance of power being distributed unequally. (2) Individualism and collectivism, a
individualistic society is a society where the ties between individuals are loos, and a
collective society is where the individuals are integrated into strong, cohesive groups that
protect individuals. According to Walsh et al. (2008) a clear divide between
Eastern/collectivistic and Western/individualistic cultures can be seen in how service is
perceived. Western consumers are harder to ‘please’ as they are more individualistic and are
more likely to express dissatisfaction compared to eastern consumers (ibid). (3) Masculinity
vs. Femininity, a masculine culture is a culture where social gender roles are distinct, and in a
feminine culture the roles are not as clear and overlap. (4) Uncertainty avoidance, which is
how threatened people of a culture feel in regards to uncertain or unknown situations. (5)
Confucian dynamism, which is in regards to the orientation of a culture, defined as a
continuum with long and short term orientation. Values associated with long-term association
are thrift and perseverance, and for short-term are respect for tradition, fulfilling social
obligations, and protecting one's ‘face’.
These dimensions affect how people act and behave in societies. However, there is criticism
against Hofstede’s model including that it generalises with regards to gender roles and that his
survey method has a narrow selection mostly focused on middle class men (Moulettes, 2007).
Other criticisms against Hofstede’s arguments are that there are contradictions in his models.
For example, Sweden is identified as being the most fenimist culture in by its ‘Masculinity vs
Femininity’ dimension as well as being ranked highly democratic and modern in the ‘power
distance’ dimension, still Sweden has yet to have a female prime minister (Moulettes, 2007).
It can be noted though that in 2021, Magdalena Andersson was appointed the first female
prime minister in Sweden (Regeringskansliet, 2022).
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2.3.2 Trust and personal engagement
Trust can be defined as the expectation of one party that another party will behave favourably
towards other parties or to the own party (Barber, 1983). According to Couch and Jones
(1997), trust can be a generalised expectancy or a trait or it can be described as something
that can change depending on the situation. According to the Hullicks strategy described
above, one way of creating engagement is by providing personal engagement and building
trust. In regards to personal engagement and the digital platform being personal with the user,
culture needs to be accounted for as shown in the case with Walmart in the background of this
study. Personal engagement could be seen as the emotional level to which the user feels
connected to the platform. The Walmart case shows that what is acceptable in one culture,
might not be seen as acceptable in another.
The Scandinavian countries are known for their degree of trust between both individuals and
the government. According to Mathiasen (2020) this is rooted in the common Lutheran faith.
During the 16th century Gustav Wasa broke with the catholic church and placed himself as
God representative on earth, this can be seen as the beginning of this interconnection between
religion and government and has implications to this day (ibid.). Even though secularism is
more common nowadays, this integration between state and society still exists which
contributes to the high level of trust in the Scandinavian countries (Thue, 2020). This can be
directly traced to the Lutherian heritage of the Scandinavian countries (ibid.).
A basic requirement to build trust and engage with a customer is communication. The
common language for cross-border communication is English. However, the use of English
might not be as effective in all cultures. For example, in Italy, Germany, Spain and France
where English is not as common as in other European countries, which is a big reason as to
why they have dubbed movies (Truchot, 2002). For example when doing business in France it
would be advisable to know the language due to two primary reasons; firstly since not
everyone in France speaks English, secondly since it can be regarded as rude or obnoxious to
only speak English when doing business in France. This is due to the fact that France has a
language preservation policy rooted in both their culture and legal system. For example, the
Toubon Law is a law that mandates the use of French in official government publication,
advertisements, all workplaces etc. (The law does not concern private, non-commercial
communications, for example non-commercial web publications by private bodies nor does it
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concern films, books and other types of communication beyond commercial activity. France
might be the country in Europe that best exemplifies the issues of not speaking the native
language, however similar issues are also apparent in Germany, albeit to a lesser extent
(Takhtorva et al. 2015).
2.3.3  Cultural differences in humour and games
The way people look at humour is also something that differs across cultures, therefore it
needs to be taken into consideration when building onboarding strategies based on humour
and games. As mentioned earlier, one pretty populair onboarding strategy within UX-design
is gamification that builds on making the onboarding journey as fun as possible in order to
increase engagement and lower the appondement-rate of users. As mentioned in the
beginning of this chapter, our culture affects our emotions. Thus, it is important to understand
how culture can affect our perception of fun and humour in order to appropriately understand
how culture and onboarding are correlated. The importance of fun is also different between
cultures, some cultures regard it as more important than others.
According to Apte (1995) westerners are more prone to believing that humour is a natural
feature of life and will use it wherever and whenever possible. In Western society, humour is
important enough for us in order to be a requirement when choosing a life-partner. People that
engage in humour are often seen as positive and attractive people (Bressler et al, 2006).
However, according to Chen and Martin (2005) this is not the case in China, due to
Confucianism, during the Qing dynasty between 1644-1911, the way of a gentleman required
restraint from laughter in order to demonstrate dignity and social formality. Even though the
Qing dynasty has fallen and humour has seen a rise within Chinese society these cultural
aspects still live on and Chinese people still feel uncomfortable when encountering loud
laughter. A Chinese student mentioned that they rarely use humour as a coping mechanism
for laughter when comparing themselves to Canadian students. According to Martin (2007)
all humans use laughter and humour, however the time and place is strongly influenced by
cultural norms, beliefs, attitudes and values.
According to Khaled (2016) which describes gamification more specifically, the issue of
mixing it with culture quite nicely by using the Scandinavian “Janteloven”. Janteloven is a
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cultural concept in Scandinavian countries where you never should stick out, since by doing
so you are stating that you are better than others which is something you should never say.
Thus, gamification based on achievement and competition might not be adequate in such a
culture. Since games in fact reward some behaviour and in some cases discourage others,
what it rewards and discourages should align with what the person playing the game values.
If they are not aligned with the game world we are in, the game world being a sort of culture,
the game world can have aspects that we view as socially or culturally unacceptable
(Huizinga, 1950). However, this may not always be applicable in gamification since
gamification operates in a non-game context, thus a separate world is not created, a world
where killing for example is accepted will most hardly be the case within gamification.
Therefore, according to Khaled (2016) the culture world of the game becomes the same as the
material world that the person playing the game is in. This creates issues, exemplified through
if a Japanese worker beats his superior in a game this can create a socially strained scenario
since hierarchy and respect for elders is very characteristic for the Japanese culture (Ibid.).
The same problem might occur in egalitarian societies where certain applications make users
“show-off” their achievements. For example, fitness apps have these types of functions where
in some societies users become motivated by seeing others achievements and in some
societies it is seen as bragging.
In conclusion, it is hard to determine what is viewed as “fun” globally, and to what degree fun
can be used when the context is rather serious. For example in professional apps, meant to be
used in the workspace, too much emphasis on the fun-part as gamification theory advocates
can be seen as inappropriate in for example Chinese culture. Also when the game is designed
it is important to make sure that it aligns with the values of the society as a whole. According
to Khaled (2016) it is hard to examine how gamification affects non-western societies since it
has not been used to the same extent outside western societies.
2.3.4 Cultural differences in learning and education
According to Simy and Kolb (2009) culture was the second largest factor regarding
differences in learning style. The learning styles are abstract and concrete learning styles.
Whether the student learns by doing or by watching each of the learning styles gains two
other learning styles. In total there are four learning styles represented in the matrix below.
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Figure III
Figure III, Learning styles. (Based on Simy and Kolb, 2009)
Thus there are two preferences that together create the four different learning styles. Simy and
Kolb (2009) argues that thinking and feeling are two separate entities and that a person is
unable to think and feel at the same time. Watching and doing are also two separate entities.
Important to note, is that all people can learn from all learning styles. However, the most
optimal approach can be different.
Diverging learning styles are for people that are able to view concrete situations from several
different angles. They tend to collect information and use their imagination to solve problems.
Assimilating learning styles are for people that prefer information to be given clear
explanations rather than practical examples. These types of people prefer to learn by reading,
or through analytical models. People with a converging learning prefer to experiment new
ideas, and to work with practical applications. Accommodating learning styles is more
hands-on and relies on intuition rather than logic. Thus, the student learns by feeling and
doing.
The biggest factor being educational specialisation, followed by culture and then gender,
educational level and lastly age. For example they found that countries that are high in
uncertainty avoidance, future orientation, performance orientation and institutional
collectivism had more of an abstract learning. They saw that countries such as Germany and
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Singapore have more abstract learning styles and that countries such as Italy and Brazil had
the most concrete learning styles (Simy and Kolb, 2009).
The difference between abstract and concrete learning styles is that abstract learners rely on
logical, analytical and theoretical ideas, while concrete learners rely on people for
information gathering and are more likely to base judgements on feelings. Differences
between countries in regards to active and reflective learning styles was also found (Simy and
Kolb, 2009).
The ideas and results presented by Simy and Kolb (2009) are not unique and have been
discussed before. Nisbett (2003) presented a new perspective on learning where he challenged
the thought that everyone perceives and reason the same way. He mentions that westerners
(Europeans and Americans) are more categorical since they focus more on particular objects
in isolation from their context and believe that by understanding the rules of something they
can control that thing. In contrast East Asians put things in more of a context and believe that
things are so complex that they need to be put in a context in order to understand it. This can
be correlated into East Asian societies being influenced by Taoism, Buddhism and
Confucianism, in order words they are influenced by the culture, beliefs and values. He also
mentions that individualism vs. collectivism also influences how different cultures learn and
perceive information. In regards to these aspects, when trying to educate a consumer/user to
use a certain product or service, or to educate them on the value of a product these
dimensions can apply.
2.3.4 Cultural differences in sustainability
According to Tata and Prasad (2015) the national culture heavily affects the beliefs and
attitudes of people and this in turn affects how sustainability issues are met. As the cultural
aspects play such a role in how likely we are to engage in sustainability oriented actions, it
can explain why some countries take this question a lot more seriously than others. According
to McCarty and Shrum (2001) there are two aspects which act as a mediator between national
culture and sustainability initiatives. Those aspects are Importance and Inconvenience.
Importance is determined by how our perceived benefits of engaging in sustainability
initiatives, and inconvenience is regarding the perceived cost of those initiatives, both
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considering time and resources. Thus beliefs and values of a society can affect how a culture
views sustainability oriented actions.
2.3.7. How culture can have an effect on law making
As mentioned in the background of this study, law making is viewed as a part of culture
within this study.
Varner and Varner (2014) discusses how culture and laws are interconnected. It is mentioned
how culture affects laws and how laws affect culture. One example mentioned is how
agricultural societies can make laws that respect the rights of individuals and make guarantees
that those laws will be followed and those rights preserved. Another example is how laws can
be made for ensuring the equal value between men and women, those laws are dependent on
the cultures view on men and women and their equality. However, they also acknowledge that
culture does in fact change, however it happens very slowly. Historical events are another
example of something that can affect the making of laws (Thatcher, 2000). The laws then
have an effect on the business landscape in a country (Varner and Varner, 2014). Another
argument by Kocbek (2008) is that legal language is not a universal language and therefore
there are several legal languages and every legal language reflects the history from which it
derives. One example mentioned by Varner and Varner (2014) is the term of force majeure. In
French this term refers to an event that happened outside of the control of the company such
as acts of God, natural disasters etc. While in the US there is no clear definition of the term.
2.4. Theory Synopsis
The theoretical framework of this study involves three parts; Onboarding, Network effects
and culture.
The onboarding section describes different onboarding strategies. These strategies are
complemented with different studies from other study fields since the underlying mechanisms
behind these strategies are not declared. Therefore, an effort for describing these mechanisms
have been done by complementing these strategies. The strategies presented were, Hullicks
strategy that focuses on quick wins and quickly realising the value of the platforms (Strahm,
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2017). Secondly it was Higgins strategy that focuses on personalised experiences and service
and lastly gamification that focuses on creating a game-like onboarding experience (Higgins,
2021, Zichermann and Cunningham, 2011). Hullicks strategy was further explained by using
maslovian theory and by using the cue-and-reward theory of habits in order to explain why
this is important rather than just stating it (Strahm, 2017). The small wins create small
rewards, the rewards encourage us to go on. The cues are then what Hullick calls the
“aha-moment” (Ibid.). Higgins strategy needed to be further explained with how trust and
motivation correlates, for this HRM-studies needed to be used. Gamification differs in this
sense and is more researched than other strategies, gamification focuses on the fun part and
focuses on keeping the user engaged by entertaining the users (Zichermann and Cunningham,
2011). All these strategies however agree that keeping the user engaged is the main objective
of the onboarding strategy, however the means in order to engage the users differ from,
small-wins and cues, to personalised experiences and trust building to game-like experiences.
An efficient onboarding leads to more users, which is the main goal of onboarding. More
users equals more value for the platforms and this phenomenon is known as ‘network effects’.
The important aspect of network effects is that by increasing the number of users on the
platform the value of the platform is increased through this effect. This increases the product
value. Secondly, how these network effects are in an international context, are they regional
or if they are international. Lastly, the digital lock-in effects were explained. The digital
lock-in effect is one part of user management as it locks the users into the plattform and
creates exit barriers for the users to leave the platforms. Onboarding and network effects
shows the importance of acquiring users. Onboarding being such a subject correlated with
human behaviour culture becomes important when put into an international context. Thus the
first section of the culture part of this chapter looks at how culture changes and influences the
human behaviour of the members of the culture. Hofstede's (1991) five cultural dimensions
were used in this regard. Then, the subchapter ‘Trust and personal engagement’ was used in
order to see how trust is built in different cultures. This is to be connected with Higgins
(2021) onboarding strategy where trust is an important part. Therefore, when onboarding is
put in an international context the theories explained in that subchapter can help to show that
trust is gained and viewed differently in different cultures. In order to explain how
gamification theory might differ in different cultures the subchapter ‘Cultural differences in
humour and games’ shows how humour is viewed differently among cultures. For example
Chen and Martin (2005) explains how loud laughter and jokes are uncomfortable in Chinese
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culture. Khaled (2016) explains how the Scandinavian ‘Janteloven’ might interfere with
gamification elements such as leaderboards and ‘showing off’ progress. Huizinga (1950)
explains how gamification elements need to be representing the physical cultures aspects in
order to relate with the user. In the subchapter ‘Cultural differences in learning and education’
it is explained how different learning styles are affected by culture. Since onboarding
primarily is about teaching a platform these elements can affect how efficient onboarding is
between cultures. Cultural differences in sustainability explains how different cultures values
sustainability efforts. This is correlated with Hullicks strategy since a sustainability oriented
‘quick win’ might not be triggering a reward in some cultures. How culture affects the
lawmaking in a country is also important in regards to product value and Hullicks strategy
since a platform needs to follow the law within it operates in order to be valuable.
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3. Methodology
This chapter, methodology, includes a description of how this study was conducted. The
chapter also describes why the research was conducted the way it was conducted, as well as
limitations and critical aspects of the methodology. The aim of this chapter is to grant the
reader a transparent view into the methodology used, so that the results of this study can be
interpreted correctly by the reader. This chapter includes, research approach, research
design, data collection, quality of research as well as ethical considerations.
3.1. Research Approach
3.1.1. Abductive Research
In the beginning of the planning process of this research, both inductive and deductive
research was considered. Simplified, an inductive research approach is when researchers
build new theories based on new empirical findings, and deductive research is when empirical
findings are tested on already established theories (Merriam, 2002). Since prior onboarding
theories are often lacking in the cultural aspect, they needed to be complemented with other
studies in order to explain why for example, the strategies work. This as the cultural factor
could play a big role in if a specific onboarding strategy works or not. There is therefore a
need for combining theories with empirical findings to answer the research question.
According to Dubois and Gadde (2002) abductive research has the possibility of taking
advantage of the systemic character of theories as well as the systemic character of empirical
findings. Therefore yielding a more complete match between the two, this being important as
our empirical findings are culturally focused, while the theories are more based on the
onboarding process. Thus, an abductive research method was chosen. In this sense the
theoretical framework was created by systematic combining, which is an abductive research
approach where the theoretical framework is constantly changed during the writing process as
empirical data is collected (Dubois and Gadde, 2002). In this case, an abductive research
approach was used in order to maximise the use of data collected.
The initial motivation behind this study came from Babak Mahjouris work, since he is
working with a digital platform highly involved in developing an onboarding strategy as well
as the international expansion of the firm he works for. When trying to research these topics
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for his work he found that the prior research was lacking, even though several people he
talked with, even in other digital platform firms, mentioned onboarding as such an important
factor for these types of firms. He later on discussed this with Karl Derehag who also became
interested in the subject. Thus, the broad scope of the study was determined. The first step
was then to conduct a literature review, deep-diving into the research on digital platforms,
their expansions and all things related to user acquisition, user retention and education of
users. This was important in order to identify a research gap. In order to identify the gap,
“neglect spotting” was used (Sandberg and Alvesson, 2011). Neglect spotting was apparent in
several studies where it was apparent or stated that culture was neglected and that users were
seen as constant regardless of their country or culture. When the gap was identified and the
need for further research was apparent a purpose, research questions and theoretical
framework was identified. These three aspects served as a basis for the research design.
3.1.2. Qualitative Research
As earlier stated, the research purpose of this study is to deepen the understanding how
culture aspects affect onboarding of users for digital platforms. Research can be divided into
two different types or streams of methods, those being qualitative and quantitative research.
The main difference is that data in qualitative research is based on words and in quantitative
research it is mainly based on numbers (Bell et al., 2019). As our research question is
connected with culture and culture is a highly ‘human’ factor, we decided to make our
research based on the qualitative approach. This as qualitative research seeks to view the
world through ‘someone else’s eyes’ and this is crucial to answer the cultural aspects of our
research question. The onboarding process is measured differently between companies and
onboarding can be hard to quantify which further makes the quantitative approach unsuitable
for this thesis. Our limited access to ‘hard numbers’ and with most of our empirical findings
being generated through interviews which generated words also strengthen the decision to
base our research on the qualitative approach. This allowed the research to gain a deep
understanding of how interactions with users differ between cultures. In some cases the
differences were very subtle, meaning that it would be hard to catch those aspects without
having a conversation with the participants of this study.
A quantitative research approach would not be able to gather information and insight in the
same way as qualitative research. For example, the differences found in the learning process
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in regards to the hierarchy aspects between workers and management could be harder to spot
by conducting research through the quantitative approach, as the differences are hard to put
into numbers.
3.2. Research Design
3.2.1. Multiple Case Study
A case study is a study where the researchers conduct an empirical investigation of a
contemporary phenomena (Saunders et al., 2016). What is being researched in this paper is an
ongoing phenomena regarding how digital platforms manage cultural aspects within their
work, thus a case study felt appropriate. According to Ghauri and Grönhaug (2005) case
studies are especially suited to answer questions that begin with ‘why’ and ‘how’ such as the
problem question in this thesis. It is also suited for answering questions about current events
and filling knowledge-gaps (Ibid.). This study fits well into both of the above characteristics.
However, since this research seeks to deepen the cultural perspective in the onboarding
process of digital platforms several cases needed to be used. This as one case simply would
not generate enough data or reach the required level of trustworthiness in the study. Primarily
since digital firms have several different onboarding processes depending on several different
aspects such as; strategy, complexity of the product, and whether the platform targets
businesses or consumers etc. As we wanted to also capture differences between companies
and some companies were only present in certain areas a multiple case study was chosen.
When having a ‘multiple case study’ there is an ability to observe cross case differences and
similarities, therefore decreasing the risk of false conclusions (Eisenhardt, 1989). Having
several cases offers the researchers an opportunity to examine the results between the cases.
In this particular research it offers another very important factor, it offers the opportunity to
examine how different cultures affect different types of onboarding. Since several cases
means insight into different markets this offers a greater insight into different markets. This
could be solved with one case of a company acting in several cultures, however that would
not enable the research to examine cultural effects between different types of digital
platforms. The choice of conducting a ‘multiple-case study’ is therefore a means to broaden
the perspective and to better facilitate answering the research question. The digital platforms
studied were chosen by both the accessibility of the companies themself and they had to
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operate across cultures to some degree to make it possible to generate data for answering of
the research question.
3.3. Data Collection
3.3.1. Data Sources
Within this study both primary data and secondary data was used. Primary data is data
collected by the researchers during the time of the research, secondary data on the other hand
is data collected by others during other studies or data collected for other reasons. (Bell et al..
2019). The reasoning behind using secondary data lies in the issues finding companies to
interview in Asia or outside of Europe as well as earlier mentioned the struggles in finding a
social media platform to interview. Thus, a secondary source of data was the only viable
option in order to gain insight outside of Europe as well as gaining insight into how culture
affects the onboarding process for social media platforms. To gain some insight in culture
outside Europe was important as the likely differences in the cultural aspects would be larger
across large geographical distances. In a perfect world, this research would have been
conducted by using a primary data source for all of the empirical findings. However, the tight
schedule this research was under as well as the limited network of the authors made it not a
possibility. There were some efforts to find primary data sources outside of Europe but they
failed, therefore it was resorted to use secondary data sources instead. Lastly, secondary data
was used in the background to exemplify how culture is an important issue in IB studies on a
general basis.
3.3.2. Selection of companies and Candidates
This research required empirical data such as cases as earlier described. As cases could
through conducting interviews generate primary data. However, there was also some use of
secondary data in cases when interview’s could not be conducted. The selection process
followed a technique called judgement sampling (also known as purposive sampling), the
technique means that the researchers selects specific participants based on certain
qualifications and traits (Suen et al., 2014). Within this study, the first requirement was of
course that the respondent worked for a digital platform that has active users. This was a very
basic and rather broad requirement but was necessary in order to fully examine how culture
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affects onboarding, since onboarding is quite specific to a digital plattform, given this
researcher definition of the term. Onboarding, the second requirement was that the company
had some level of cross culture interactions. The objective was to examine several digital
platforms that operated in somewhat similar geographical areas, this to better capture specific
cultural differences. There was some interference with the possibility to cross-examine modes
of onboarding since some platforms are more complicated than others meaning that the
modes of onboarding (how to acquire users, the training of users etc.) differs depending on
how complicated the plattform actually is. However, how cultural aspects affect different
types of onboarding is greatly benefitted from using different types of onboarding. The
requirements amount to a very broad range of companies to investigate, however not all
companies are willing to answer questions regarding their onboarding since it can be viewed
as quite sensitive. Therefore, after several attempts to contact respondents outside of the
author's personal and professional networks the only companies and interview objects willing
to participate were those that had some kind of relationship with the authors. Thus, all
interview objects have a personal or professional relationship with Babak Mahjouri (the
complications of this matter are discussed below).
The purposive sampling method comes with some limitations. The main one is that the
samples are not random, meaning that important representatives of the population can be left
out within the sample. The generalisability of this study would therefore be higher since if the
sample was completely random (Dubois and Gadde, 2002). A low number of interviews also
gives the research a lower degree of generalizability. However, the subjects were not selected
depending on whether the authors believed that the respondents would give favourable
answers or based on any biases.
When choosing who to interview the selections were different. When interviewing Event
Logic, the CEO seemed to be the most suitable choice since the CEO has a strategic
overview. Since Event Logic was used to examine the preparation of an internationalisation
into a new culture the CEO seemed to be the person who could give us the best answers. The
CEO of any company is responsible for the general management, therefore the CEO should
be suitable to answer questions regarding the internationalisation process. This as the choice
of internationalisation is a highly strategic one and would involve senior management.
Mahjouri works at Event Logic and knows the organisation well and confirmed the CEOs
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suitability to participate in the questioning. Event Logic was chosen both as the company was
easily accessible through Mahjouri and they were known to have prior experience in areas
connected with the research question. When interviewing mResell, the selection of candidates
was based on both recommendations from mResell as well as Mahjouris own experience from
working at mResell. Harry Forsman was first contacted due to his broad role and long
experience at the company, at the end of the interview with Forsman the researchers asked if
any other employee at mResell should be interviewed and Forsman recommended the CMO
Gustaf Terning. For Bokio, Olle Josarp was chosen since he is the team manager for the
support team at Bokio, thus he has a very good understanding and deep insight into the
onboarding procedure at Bokio. Lastly, Tehri Tyrie was selected due to her long experience in
different companies and within onboarding. Tyrie offered the research broad insight from
different companies, something that was greatly appreciated since this study does not take
industry or company specifics into consideration.
3.3.3 Interviews
The interview with the respondent being based in Gothenburg was conducted face-to-face.
This was the interview with Henrik Vallentin, the CEO of Event Logic. The rest of the
interviews were conducted over Zoom since respondents were based in Doha, Helsinki, and
Stockholm. Using Zoom offered the opportunity to record all interviews and left the
researchers free to actively listen and think through all the answers and ask correct follow-up
questions. A recording could also have been done in face-to-face interviews, however after
testing the recording devices available for the researchers it was determined not to be suitable
since the audio was not clear. In this case notes were written manually and the automatic
transcription program was not used. The biggest disadvantage of Zoom interviews (or any
other video-communication system) is according to Bell et al., (2019) that it is hard to fully
read and interpret facial expressions and body language.
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Figure IV Interview map
Name Company Position
Gustaf Terning mResell Chief Marketing Officer
Harry Forsman mResell Director, Business Development
Terhi Tyrie Best Western & STR Various
Global
Henrik Vallentin Event Logic Chief Executive Officer
Olle Josarp Bokio Banking Operations Associate
After each interview, the summary of the empirical findings was sent to each respondent in
order to confirm that the findings were correctly gaterherd. All interview respondents agreed
to be recorded and all subjects agreed to have their name and company mentioned in the
report.
There are multiple strategies to choose from when conducting interviews, for this study it was
decided that the interviews would be conducted in the ‘semi-structured’ way. According to
Bell et al. (2019) it both enables specific questions to be answered and gives room for the
participants to express their own views. The semi-structured approach allows for predefined
questions that are complimented with follow-up questions. This allows for the interview to be
fluent and have a natural flow to it. The ‘semi-structured’ interview style facilitated the
answer of the research question, while still keeping the perspective of the interviewee. The
interview questions were written for each company specifically, a lot of questions were reused
such as questions regarding background, how they work with onboarding, some minor
questions were altered to make them fit each company individually. For example, when
questioning mResell sustainability aspects were included in questions regarding the cultural
aspects, this as mResell were the only company that could incorporate this perspective in its
cultural aspects as they are a company selling hardware products and use sustainability in
their marketing to some degree. The other companies being software companies and therefore
sustainability were not deemed important in these companies. Thus, before every interview a
research of the company, their website, UX-design and other information publicly available
was gathered in order to create an interview appropriate for each company and respondent.
Some respondents also requested to see the questions beforehand.
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According to Adams (2015), the semi-structured interview style comes with a number of
drawbacks, including that they are time consuming, labour-intensive and require
sophistication. The work of transcribing the interview can take hours and therefore use up
limited labour resources that could better be used elsewhere (Ibid.). For this reason it was
determined to use the Microsoft Automatic Transcription service to automatically transcribe
all but one interview, which were done manually due to lack of a reliable recording device.
The use of this automated system resulted in large time savings, the drawbacks being as it is
automated, some smaller errors in translation could be present. The transcription was
therefore gone through and errors adjusted to make it as accurate as possible.
The interviews were conducted by Karl Derehag, with Babak Mahjouri being present. The
reasoning behind this was that by doing this more thoroughly answers could be obtained.
Mahjouri has an inside view of the companies and personal relationships with all participants
and that might affect the answers given as the participants might ‘assume’ prior knowledge.
An example of this was that some interview subjects said things such as “as Babak already
knows”, thus it was important for the sake of this thesis for Karl to interrupt them at these
occurrences and ask them to clarify.
3.3.4 Secondary data
The secondary data was collected through findings presented in a case study conducted by
Millward in 2016. In which he analyses the Chinese digital platform ‘We Chat’ and their
attempts to internationalise. The use of secondary data enabled us to get some insight into
why ‘We Chat’ failed to internationalise, in this case it would be hard to obtain primary data.
This as neither of the author’s has any connections with the company ‘We Chat’ or any
connections in China. The usage of Secondary data presents some benefits such as, it is time
saving compared to obtaining primary data, it offers access to data otherwise inaccessible, it
can be of good quality if published in a renowned magazine (Emerald, 2022). Drawbacks are
that the data might not be complete, require a fee to acquire, it might not match the research
question and there is lack of control over the quality of the data by the researcher (Ibid.).
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3.3.5 Data Analytical Process
The importance of having a systematic approach to analyse the data gathered is expressed by
Bell et al. (2019). Step one was to gather the data according to the previous sub-chapter. The
second step was to summarise all the findings first per interview and company and lastly for
all subjects. The interviews were summarised based on background information, onboarding
and cultural aspects, the same structure was used for all companies and subjects in order to
keep it structured.
After the findings were summarised and structured appropriately the analysis was conducted.
First based on an intra-firm level, how every company was affected by culture, and then on an
inter-firm level how the aspects of culture differ between the companies. Mainly the culture
was used to analyse how it affects the onboarding process. How different cultural aspects
affect different aspects of onboarding is the main objective of the analysis given the research
question. Connecting these aspects together with the internationalisation then creates a proper
answer to the research question.
3.5. Trustworthiness and Quality of Research
According to Bell et al., (2019) when conducting research three basic criteria must be
fulfilled in order to make the research ‘trustworthy’ and ‘truthful’. These are reliability,
replicability and validity. Reliability is if the results generated by the study are repeatable if
the study is conducted again. The nature of qualitative research with a higher degree of
subjectiveness makes repeatable results harder to achieve therefore, reliability is most
important when conducting quantitative research. Replication is if a study can be done again
by another researcher, this is connected to reliability as replication is necessary to be able to
see if the same results are being generated again. For replication to be possible it must be
described in the study how it has been conducted, this shows the importance of the method
chapter in the research papers. The last criterion Validity is about the integrity of the
conclusions created by a research study. Validity can be simply explained as how well the
results generated represent the real world (Bell et al., 2019). As qualitative research is more
subjective than quantitative research, different criterias to determine the quality of the study
can be used. In this study to increase the validity of the study a couple of measuring criterias
has been used. These include the following: during the interviews answers were followed up
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by ‘control questions’, that served the purpose of ‘double-checking’ the answers given and
increasing the likelihood of detecting deceiving statements. By doing this we ‘challenge’ the
interviewee, this strategy is especially good when the person being interviewed is familiar
with the setting as was the case in this study (Tanggaard, 2008). The interviewees were also
presented with the results from the interviews to give them the opportunity for feedback, and
to clarify statements after the interview or correct statements.
When conducting qualitative research consideration must be taken that there could be a
higher degree of subjectiveness in the study compared to quantitative research. As noted
above qualitative research tends to view the world through someone else’s eyes, this can
make it hard to fulfil the criteria of reliability, replicability and validity. For example, the
results could depend on who is interviewed and therefore be hard to replicate. Because of this
strategies must be developed to ensure the quality of the results generated. According to
Lincoln and Guba (1985), the three criteria mentioned above could be adopted to
‘trustworthiness’ to better suit qualitative research.
According to Bell et al. (2019) this practice is called ‘respondent validation’ and serves to
increase the credibility of the study and is a part of the concept ‘trustworthiness’. Another
way of increasing the trustworthiness of the study was to gather the data from multiple
sources, this has been done by holding interviews with different people and with people
holding different positions within the companies (Ibid.). By ensuring a high level of
trustworthiness the level of ‘reliability’ and ‘validity’ of the study is increased.
3.6. Literature Review
When conducting the literature review a couple of strategies were used to make sure the
sources were trustworthy and reliable. In the example of using articles as a source the practice
of ‘peer-reviewing’ is a way to increase the reliability of an article. According to Bell et al.
(2019) an article is ‘peer-reviewed’ when it has been reviewed by other scholars in the same
field of research, during this process neither party has any knowledge of the identity of the
other. The outcome of these reviews will later determine if the article will be published. The
purpose of this is to increase the quality of the articles and their credibility. The results of
these reviews are later used by the journal editor to determine if it should be published or not.
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In prestigious journals only 10 percent of all articles submitted are published and often only
after several attempts, ‘peer-reviewed’ articles are therefore associated with a lengthy
feedback record (Bell et al., 2019). The literature review in this study mostly contains articles
that have gone through this process, this to increase the level of confidence that the data
collected is of high quality and trustworthy. Articles were obtained by using the tool
‘Supersök’ that is provided by the University of Gothenburg. “Supersök” offers access to
articles that otherwise are inaccessible. This as some articles are published in journals that
require subscription fees. “Supersök” also shows if the specific article has gone through the
‘peer-review’ process or not and in which journal it's been published, therefore simplifying
the selection process. During this study the main mission has been to use articles that are
peer-reviewed and published in well-renowned journals. However, studies within the fields of
user-onboarding are quite new and there have been some issues in regards to obtaining any
credible studies for the literature review, therefore some exceptions were made. However,
when trying to explain underlying mechanisms in the onboarding strategies, studies from
other fields of studies where used and connected to onboarding strategies, and those studies
followed the criteria set out for the theoretical framework.
3.7. Ethical aspects
Ethical dilemmas exist in all kinds of research but how to face the ethical dilemma differs
between individual researchers. In order to be a credible study ethical factors need to be taken
into consideration. The person being interviewed has been informed about the nature of the
study and how their answers will be used, this to fulfil the criteria of ‘informed consent’.
According to Bell et al. (2019), the principle of ‘informed consent’ is that of ensuring the
participants gain enough information about the study and how its being conducted, before
they decide whether to participate or not.
The Swedish Research Council (2017) has published a few points in order to have ethical
studies. According to their paper you should tell the truth within your research. Something
highly valued by the writers of this study. However, one issue is to ensure that interview
subjects are telling the truths. Some measures mentioned above in this chapter were taken in
order to ensure the truthfulness of the interviews, however it is impossible to ensure the
truthfulness in the same way as the writers can control themselves. Another point mentioned
by the Swedish Research Council (2017) you should openly account for methods and results.
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In regards to the method of this study full transparency has been the main goal. This to ensure
that readers can fully understand how the research has been conducted and for readers to
properly evaluate the study upon reading it. In regards to the results of this study, the same
goal and mission has been set. By presenting the results without interpretations and by having
all interviews except one, transcribed with audio recordings the raw data can be presented as
objectively as possible. Due to the organising of the empirical data during this study this
research follows another point raised by the same paper, that you should keep your research
organised through for example documentation and filling. Another point raised by the
Swedish Research Council (2017) is that all commercial or other types of interest should be
clearly stated. Since one of the authors of this study, Babak Mahjouri, has a either
professional or private relationship with all interview subjects and has a history of working
with mResell as well as currently working for Event Logic in regards to internationalisation
and onboarding one could argue that he gains professional advantages by doing this research
and that the insight gained most likely will be used within his work. The fact that Babak
Mahjouri is working for Event Logic and also that his work involves many of the aspects
being research is something known to all interview subjects and for his thesis partner Karl
Derehag. However, this has not created any issues in regards to this study, but instead has
acted as an extra piece of information and background knowledge going into this research.
Thus, it can be viewed as if Mahjouri has a different motivation for this study than pure
academical, this issue has been handled by discussions with Derehag in order to ensure that
the research answers the research question and no other alternative motives.
Other aspects of research ethics have been raised by Patel and Davidsson (2019), they have
outlined 4 requirements to follow for ethics within research; the information requirement, the
consent requirement, the confidentiality requirement and the utilisation requirement.
All four of these requirements have been followed during this entire research. The
information requirement means that the authors should inform all participants of the study of
what the use of this information will be used for. The authors have told all participants that
the interviews are conducted in order to write a master's thesis, the topic and scope of the
study has also been clarified after the interview, by doing so the information requirement is
fulfilled. The consent requirement means that all participants of the study shall give consent
to be participating, since all participants have agreed to interviews this requirement is also
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fulfilled. The confidentiality requirement means that all participants should be protected in
regards to confidentiality, this requirement has been fulfilled by asking all participants if we
are allowed to write their name and company. However, all participants' full names and
companies have been stated since no one opted for an anonymous solution, thus every
participant can be found. However, this is done in full consent of all participants (the consent
was given verbally and is recorded for all interviews. The utilisation requirement is a
requirement stating that the information gathered should only be used to the stated purpose
towards the participants, this is also fulfilled since the only use of this information is in
regards to this study.
By following recommendations from several sources, the authors of this study strongly feel
that the ethical aspects of this study are in accordance with good research practice.
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4. Empirical data
The Data collected in this study is done by conducting interviews with three companies,
mResell, Bokio and Event Logic as well as with Tehri Tyrie who has several years of
experience in onboarding users across Europe. These case studies will be divided and
presented individually. The cases in this study is primarily focused on the personal experience
of the respondents in order to gain insight into how culture affects onbaording. The focus of
the interviews has been how the companies are affected by cultural differences when
internationalising and in correlation with user-onboarding specifically. Lastly, the case of
WeChat is presented.
4.1 mResell
mResell is a company that refurbishes and resell smartphones and computers, focused on
Apple products (mResell, 2021). To get insight in their operations two interviews were
conducted with employees at mResell, these being Harry Forsman and Gustaf Terning.
mResell operates in a total of 10 countries including Sweden, Finland, Spain and Australia
among others. According to Forsman their business model is to buy used products from
people and then examine the products in their central warehouse to check the functionality.
They will also clean the device externally and erase the files if present. If deemed satisfactory
it can be resold directly, otherwise reparations are needed. These can be a change of battery or
a screen replacement. After going through this process the device can be resold to a customer
on the mResell platform. They also offer the customer 12 months warranty and 14 days free
returns. The business model is therefore to offer customers a middle ground between buying
used products from a private individual or buying a new product, offering some guarantees
otherwise not available on the second-hand market. There is also no direct interaction
between the seller and the buyer as compared to traditional second-hand purchases.
4.1.1. Onboarding
mResell uses different strategies with regards to onboarding. Forsman uses the terms user
acquisition and user retention as interchangeable to the term onboarding of users. To acquire
users they primarily use google ads for advertisements, but some other social media channels
such as Instagram are also used. During the last year mResell encountered challenges in the
user acquisition, this as a competitor aggressively tried to penetrate the market backed by a
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€100 million capital investment. This raised mResells ‘cost per customer’ for user acquisition
on average by 70 percent. mResell has therefore reacted to this by shifting to other channels
and investing in marketing automation. As the cost of acquiring new customers increased the
importance of keeping old customers on the platform. When a new customer enters mResell’s
webpage they are required to enter their email address before being presented with an offer.
This is an example of how mResell works with ‘onboarding’. As the customer has entered her
or his email address, they can send an email to a potential customer if they detect that they
had attempted a purchase but not completed it. This being an example of automation in the
onboarding process. Another example of how mResell works with automation is that they
contact customers through email, when a product they previously showed interest in gets
available in stock. This is used alot for devices with a high ‘rotation time’, such as the iPhone
13 which is usually sold within a day getting in stock. Terning identified mResell as being a
‘product driven’ company instead of being a ‘brand driven’ company. This can be attributed
to the fact that mResell sells Apple products which have an extremely strong brand. Even
though it would be preferable that customer’s buy from mResell because they identify with
mResell as a brand, it's simply unrealistic to achieve this as Apple is so strong as a brand. The
main focus for mResell is to position themself as the premium alternative to buying
refurbished Apple products. A way to increase the ‘premium feel’ of mResell is that they
work with the whole experience when making a purchase. This is manifesten everywhere
from how it feels when the customer opens the box with the product, to the way customers
interact with the support if something goes wrong. Employees that work with customer
service go through a lengthy training process which makes them not only ‘support agents’ but
can take decisions of their own. For example they have the authority to negotiate prices with
the customers. All customer service agents also speak the local language when they interact
with the customers as Terning believes that it increases the trustlevel of the customer towards
mResell when communicating in their native language. Terning also identifies the importance
to have correct translation on each nation's web-site, it needs to be translated professionally.
According to Forsman it would basically be impossible to conduct business in Italy and Spain
without having the support team speaking the local language.
mResell did not educate the market in regards to buying second-hand products or educating
the users in regards to circular solutions. Terning and Forsman mentioned that they entered
markets where their competitors already were present in order to minimise the cost of
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advertising. Forsman mentioned that he did not perceive any difference in how their
competitors educated their users in these regards between cultures. This type of education is
done through marketing and showing customers that buying second-hand products are “safe”
and secure.
4.1.2. Cultural aspects
Forsman said in the interview that during the past mResell used to run each country as a
separate entity, with a service partner in each country being responsible for the
refurbishments. However, during the last three years the refurbishment centre and
management have been consolidated to Stockholm in Sweden. The reasons behind this
according to Forsman was that it was easier to find qualified personnel and people with
multiple language skills. Having everything under the same roof also made communication
easier and with less friction. The exception to this is the operation in Australia which is still
run locally with a third-part actor being responsible for refurbishments. The goal is to bring
the Australian business in-house in the near future. The operation in Australia is similar to
how mResell operated before they consolidated their operations to Stockholm.
Forsman at mResell identifies that customers behave differently across countries. For
example, in the Spanish and Italian markets customers tend to be more suspicious and have
lower ‘conversion rates’ than the nordic markets. ‘Conversion rates’ being the percentage of
customers completing the process from first interaction to a purchase as described by
Forsman. Forsman found a correlation of the conversion rates depending on where the
marketing agency was located, when it was moved from Finland to Sweden the conversion
rates increased in Sweden while it decreased in Finland. He would also prefer to have a
custom made web-page tailored for each market. In Italy there is a preference of ‘cash on
delivery’, where the customer pays when receiving the product. This as there is more
suspicion towards using credit cards or other online payments options on an unknown site.
Both Terning and Forsman identified the importance of using the right method of payments
adopted to the local market. A current challenge for mResell is that they currently do not offer
cash as a payment option, which is a prefered method of payment in Italy. In the case of
Spanish customers they tend to ask more questions and spend more time on the website
before making a purchase. This despite having a lower conversion rate compared to the
Nordic markets or Germany. The average shopper in the Nordics or Germany are therefore
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more efficient in their shopping process compared to the southern Europeans. Another
cultural difference was that on the Swedish site an Asian man was on the frontpage, this was
recognised by Spanish management as problematic. This as Spanish customers perceived the
Asian man representing products with lower quality. This led to a change on the Spanish
website to a local person. This made mResell more aware of the importance of listening to
local customs and cultures. There are also differences to how much customers value the
sustainability aspect when buying refurbished products. The sustainability aspect is more
important in Sweden than in Finland, and Sweden is identified by Forsman as the most
‘eco-conscious’ market. While in Italy and Spain this is not really a big deal when a customer
makes a purchase decision. However, in all markets the price factor is the most important, the
difference seems to be more how people justify the purchase of a used device instead of a
new one. As Terning said: ‘It is easier to tell people at a party that you bought a used phone
for the climate instead of saying you are just cheap’.
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4.2 Terhi Tyrie
Terhi Tyrie has worked at two different digital platforms, one of them being the booking
platform for Best Westerns booking platform and the other being STR Global, a statistics
platform. She has worked with the onboarding process in Finland, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia,
Denmark, Estonia and the UK.
4.2.1 Onboarding
According to Tyrie who has worked at several different digital platforms including Best
Western and STR Global, it's not common to use any specific measurements with regards to
onboarding. If not, special circumstances require it. The onboarding process was done both
through webinars and training ‘on-site’. The ‘on-site’ training was prefered as it was easier to
show the system and was more successful with regards to training new users. However, when
geographical distance did not allow ‘on-site’ training it was done online through Teams or
similar services.
4.2.2 Cultural Aspects
With regards to the cultural aspect some differences were identified mainly between the
Scandinavian countries, the Baltics and especially Poland. For example, Poland has a much
higher degree of hierarchy in their work culture compared to Scandinavia. This manifested
itself in that managers in Poland want to go through training before their employees so that
they can have understanding prior. Even though the training was identical they prefered to
split up into training management and employees separately. Management in Poland do not
want to ‘show’ their employees that they are lacking in knowledge during training, this can be
attributed to a more hierarchical organisation style compared to Scandinavia according to
Tyrie. The importance of learning through the use of each native language was also identified,
so translators were used during training. However, this created another problem that
information could be distorted or changed when passing through the translator and would be
hard to spot. Learning through the use of each native language was important in all regions
but even more so in the Baltics and Poland where knowledge in English is lower compared to
Scandinavia. Tyrie also made the point that the population of Scandinavia is more
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‘tech-savvy’ compared to Poland and the Baltics, ‘tech-savvy’ can be explained as the level
of prior knowledge and experience of users with information technology systems. Being more
‘tech-savvy’ actually presented a challenge with the learning process, as people in
Scandinavia had the approach ‘ok I already know this’ and did not listen as carefully to the
given instructions. They also raised more criticism to how the system was built and this in
contrast to users that had lesser prior tech knowledge, as was common in the Baltics and
Poland. There people tended to listen more carefully to instructions and accepted the system
without questioning. Tyrie preferred to give instructions to people who were less ‘tech-savvy’
even though they might struggle more with the initial learning. However, Tyrie mentioned
that since they are more ‘tech-savvy’ it was easier to show the more complicated platform, in
her case STR Global being the more complicated platform, in those cases she did not need to
put as much effort on the setup portion (such as log-in, creating an account etc.). Therefore it
was easier to get the Finnish users more proficient users as they more easily could grasp the
more complicated functions of the platform. She furthermore mentions that the more
‘tech-savvy’ users in Finland were educated slightly differently in the platform. For those
users she could let them scroll around the page and explore for themselves and then they
could ask if they ran into any problems. She mentions that this is because they are more used
to using digital platforms and that if you know one platform it is quite easy to learn a new
one. Furthermore she mentioned that the language barriers also played a role, she could not
use ‘techy’ words when describing the platform since their knowledge in English is lower, in
some instances they also needed to use a translator. As mentioned earlier, the Finnish user's
prior knowledge could also act as an obstacle since they do not listen as carefully since they
feel as if they do not need to listen as carefully.
Tyrie identified that as a native Finn she could more easily identify and ‘connect’ with people
from the Baltics than an executive from Britain. She attributed this to the common historical
heritage of both Finland and the Baltics, with these nations sharing borders and fighting wars
against Russia throughout history. For example, Finland fought a war over their existence
during the 1940s and managed to remain independent, the Baltic countries can relate to this as
they gained their independence from Russia as late as in the 1990s. This creates a special
bond between these countries that an Englishman cannot relate to according to Tyrie. In the
case of Estonia they also share a similar language with Finland and have a tradition of
watching Finnish television which has given Estonians knowledge of the Finnish language
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that contributed even more to the common understanding between these nations. Tyrie said
this common heritage was a great asset when doing business in the Baltics compared to
officials coming from for example England. She mentioned that some of her executives in the
UK had accompanied her in Lithuania and that the cultural barriers had made the recipients of
the training not understanding anything and they were too shy to say something so when she
reached out to them later she understood that they needed to retake the training.
Furthermore, Tyrie mentioned that she currently works at a school in Doha and she mentioned
that her belief is that people learn in the same way. She mentions that Doha is very
international and the kids she teaches are from all over the world, and she does not perceive
any differences in learning outside of prior education and that some children have been a part
of a better educational system prior to joining her classes. She also mentioned that she
experienced that all the users she educated learned in the same way as well. 4.3 Event Logic
Event Logic is a digital platform that delivers a tool for planning, procuring and managing
events, meetings and conferences. The platform mainly targets companies for their needs
within events, meetings and conferences. The tool is a SaaS solution and is currently active in
Sweden and recently began its operations in Finland. The platform is an intermediary service
where customers (event bookers) can make bookings at different suppliers (such as hotels,
bus companies, performers etc.). Both user types communicate within the platform and use
the platform.
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4.3 Event Logic
At Event Logic Henrik Vallentin was interviewed. Vallentin works as the CEO of the
company and has the overall responsibility of the company. He further mentions that the
board sets his framework and that he works within these frames. Since the company is rather
small he also explained that he is involved in sales, marketing, customer success, the finances
of the company as well as product development.
4.3.1. Onboarding
Vallentin mentions that the onboarding needs to be divided into two parts. Vallentin mentions
that since events and conferences are a complicated matter with several parts involved, thus
the platform itself is also quite complex. Therefore, the users need to be educated regarding
the platform, the functions and everything else that is needed to use the tool. Furthermore, he
says that the mission is to build the flow of the platform in a way that makes it intuitive and
simple for the users, this to get rid of other types of onboarding as webinars used today. The
first part of the onboarding process is the implementation phase. During this time Vallentin
mentions that when they sign a new customer, a company, they implement the company as a
whole. After that process they turn towards the actual users themselves. They then conduct an
education for the users, either on-site or through a webinar. They then demonstrate the whole
platform, all the functionalities and how to create an event all the way to after the event has
been completed. They also do Q&As in order to clarify anything that might have been missed
or unclear during the presentation. Vallentin mentions that after the general introduction for a
new company, some users might need some extra attention, either to try and use the platform
and then return with questions towards the Customer Success team or by having one-on-one
seminars and educations with certain users. There is also a chat function within the platform
that enables users to ask questions as they are working within the tool. Furthermore, Vallentin
mentions that the site has a knowledgebank with several commonly asked questions and
where all the functions are described. This knowledge bank also includes 12 films that show
and describe the platform. Vallentin also describes that they measure onboarding with several
reports and that they consider a user to be onboarded when they have booked 3 events.
According to Vallentin, Event Logic doesn't actively employ measures to keep users within
the platform, as they do not have any direct competitors offering similar services. This
compared to for example, a CRM system where measures to limit users exporting their data
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might be employed to keep them within the platform. Vallentin also mentions that they try to
generate the most value for the customer in order to retain the users within the digital
platform. This as there are some traditional competitors that aren’t digital platforms that
might still pose a threat. He also says that he feels that the “lock-in” approach feels outdated
since people want to be able to export their data and gather their progress. Thus, Event Logic
tries to keep their users by being the best option for the user instead of using a different type
of approach.
4.3.2. Cultural Aspects
Vallentin explained that the newly started internationalisation process was customer driven.
Since several of the companies they have signed in Sweden also have employees and offices
in the rest of the Nordic region they requested that the platform also could be used in Norway,
Denmark and Finland. According to Vallentin, they made the assumption that it would be
easier to grow into the Nordic countries with their existing customer portfolio and then
gradually add new customers when they are already present in those countries. Vallentin also
states that a big reason as to why this was deemed as possible was the language. In Denmark
and Norway, Swedish can be used and in Finland, English works well when signing
customers. However, he mentions that it makes it easier if you have a Finnish speaking
support member in order to take care of the users and suppliers within the platform. He
explained that the prioritisation of which country to enter first was solely based on customer
needs.
In preparation of entering new markets Vallentin explained that the language was the biggest
factor. Event Logic put a lot of resources into translating the website, the email that goes out
from the company. Vallentin states that it was very important to make sure that the language
was correctly translated as the user would notice if it is poorly translated and that can harm
the trustworthiness of the product. Event Logic also felt the need to hire a customer success
team member who was Finnish speaking in order to properly support the finnish market.
When asked about his biggest concerns about entering a new market Vallentin commented
that the biggest concern was that they were not as well-known in the other Nordic countries
as they are in Sweden. This creates an issue when an offer comes from the platform to the
hotels or other types of suppliers. Hotels are not very keen on cooperating with these types of
services from the get go since they need to pay commission, therefore there is a need to create
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a relationship with the suppliers and show that they will gain more bookings by cooperating.
Another issue he mentioned is that Event Logic does not know very much regarding the
event, meetings and conference market in the other Nordic countries. He assumes that the
difference is quite small since they often classify the region into one class in different global
reports. When asked regarding if they have perceived any differences in regards to
onboarding or user acquisition it was deemed too early to tell and that the fourth wave of the
Covid-19 pandemic has postponed many of their efforts.
Suspicions regarding the challenges of acquiring users in new markets was that it was
suspected hard to reach through the noise and establish a stable foothold in the new market.
However, as they went through the process of acquiring users when establishing in Sweden
they already possess some knowledge in this field. It was also easier to gain suppliers in new
markets as they already have brokers present there, which creates an incentive for the
suppliers to use the platform. Vallentin expressed that ‘business is local’ and having good
local market knowledge is important within each local market.
Vallentin expresses that he does not believe that it is not possible to launch the website only in
English and have that as the only language when entering a new market. This as their biggest
customer stressed the importance of good local language support when entering new markets.
As the users of the platform are traditional bookers such as executive assistants etc. The
average age is a bit higher and their tech-savviness and proficiency in English is lower than
the younger generation, thus English would not work as well. When asked if Event Logic
would have a designated support team in Norway, Denmark and Finland, Vallentin stated that
they will only have it in Finland. This as Norwegians and Danes are more used to speaking
Swedish and English, however their experience in Finland tells them that they need to be
more “local” in Finland.
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4.4. Bokio
Bokio is an accounting platform used by primarily smaller companies. They offer a basic
package for free and then sell additional functions. Bokio is a SaaS (Software-as-a-service)
company and they have around 60 000 users in Sweden and around 6 000 users in the UK.
This is currently the only two countries where Bokio are active. The interview respondent
representing Bokio is Olle Josarp who works with ‘Bokio corporate accounts' and is also a
team leader for the support team.
4.4.1 Onboarding
At Bokio the primary onboarding process is conducted through the flow of the website. This
through UX-design and the process that users go through in order to conduct their accounting.
First all users get a two-month trial where all functions are available and they can test all
functions before deciding what package they need. This gives the users an opportunity to test
all functions before deciding which package they are interested in subscribing to. Bokio also
has a comprehensive knowledge bank on their website. This knowledgebank does not only
contain information regarding functions on the platforms but it also contains general
information regarding accounting and how to post different business events. This has the
effect of attracting new users to the platforms since they can be Googling a general
accounting solution and end up at Bokios platform. They also use email in the onboarding
process. When a user creates an account without setting up a firm within the platform they
email the user a reminder and try to get those users started with the platform. Josarp holds
regular webinars with users, where he shows the users functions of the platform and answers
general questions regarding accounting. These seminars are designed to make sure that the
users are successful at using the platform, but the users attending these seminars are already
active users and can be considered onboarded, at least to Josarps definition. Bokio considers a
user onboarded when they have created their account and set up their business on the
platform.
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4.4.2. Cultural Aspects
The reason as to why Bokio began their internationalisation journey in the UK is due to the
fact that it is a very large market with similar accounting laws. This meant that their product
already fitted the market rather well and they did not need to change the platform as much as
they might have needed in another market. Furthermore the way Bokio acquired users in the
UK was similar to the approach they had in Sweden, this mainly through marketing on social
media and by organic growth (word of mouth). They have a bit more physical presence in
Sweden with banners on trams and advertising on fairs etc. However, this is something that
Josarp will attend in London, a fair to present the product so they are planning to increase that
type of marketing as well. Accounting is a rather slow moving object since users usually have
their data at one place and it can be a bit of a hassle to move it to a new platform. Therefore,
there is a pretty strong lock-in effect within these types of platforms since you often have
strong integrations already established with your bank for example. According to Josarp all
platforms offer an opportunity to export your data out of the platform and that almost all
platforms have an import option for new users. To eliminate the option of exporting data is
not an option since this is a used feeture in other functions throughout the accounting process.
The option to export data is not actively advertised but is not hidden in any way.
The onboarding process as such does not differ between Sweden and the UK. However, the
knowledge bank and the functionalities are not the same between the two countries. The
platform needed to be complemented in order to fit the market needs and the accounting laws
of the UK. Questions from various suppliers are quite similar in both markets. Bokio has a
dedicated support staff that only works with the UK users. This as there is a need for specific
knowledge only applicable to the UK market as there are legislative and platform functional
differences between the countries. Therefore motivating the decision to have dedicated
support experts serving the UK market. A difference in user interaction with the support staff
is that in the UK customers use live-chat more compared to in Sweden. However, the
customer expectations in the relationship with the support staff and how it works is similar in
both countries.
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4.5 Case WeChat
4.5.1. Onboarding
One example of a digital platform not succeeding in their internationalisation plans are the
Chinese chat program WeChat. WeChat is extremely popular in China and tried to expand
their success globally. However, they were not able to do so successfully (Millward, 2016).
There are several reasons to explain why they did not succeed. According to Millward (2016)
the most obvious one could be the very strong network effects of their competitors, for
example Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp. According to Cluster (2016) WeChat tried to
make up for this by making expensive marketing campaigns, however since users only use
chat applications if their friends are on them it is hard to convince users to switch from
Whatsapp or Facebook Messenger (or whatever application they might use).
4.5.2. Cultural Aspects
Another reason, besides tough competition, explaining why they failed is that they did not
offer the same functionalities abroad as they did in their home-country, taking away unique
functions such as ordering food or ordering a taxi (Cluster, 2016). Having fewer functions
lowered the incentives for people to use WeChat instead of keeping to already established
digital platforms.
However, another reason for why WeChat never gained traction abroad could be due to the
lack of customization for these new markets. According to Vodanovich et al (2017) the reason
as to why WeChat had issues abroad is due to the fact that it is a representation of Chinese
values. Vodanovic et al. (2017) mentions that there are two features within the app that clearly
shows Chinese culture. First one being how the subscribe function works. A user can
subscribe to a celebrity or newspaper but the owner of the account has full power of what
comments are visible or not within the app, a clear representation of the respect for authority
within Chinese culture. Secondly, you can only message people you are friends with and you
can only see comments that your friends have made. This is according to Vodanovich et al.
(2017) a clear representation of Chinese culture and ‘well-mannered politeness’ by not
allowing acquaintances to necessarily see each other's comments.
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5. Analysis
This chapter aims to analyse the findings and connect the findings with the theoretical
framework presented in chapter two. The method for how the analysis is conducted is
described in chapter three. The analysis section analyses 4 different factors in regards to
culture and onboarding; Language and Cultural Distance, Trust and Onboarding, Product
Value and Onboarding, and lastly Learning across cultures. These four factors have been
identified from the empirical findings and theoretical framework.
5.1. Cultural Distance
Language is something all respondents of the primary data sources have mentioned. Sharing a
common language decreases the cultural distance between two cultures. As explained by
West and Graham (2004), language affects our personal values. Therefore, different languages
should imply for a cultural distance. Cultural distance is the degree to which shared norms
and values differ from one culture to another (Hofstede, 2001). Therefore, by sharing a
language, values become more similar and thus decrease the cultural distance between two
cultures. This type of reasoning has not been described by any of the respondents but
Forsman, Terning and Vallentin have uttered the sentence “business is local'' and all of them
have expressed an importance of speaking the local language. Forsman for example
mentioned that it would basically be impossible to conduct their business in Spain and Italy if
the language used was to be English. Vallentin also stresses the importance of language and
that this has been communicated to Event Logic by Swedish customers with operations in
Finland. Vallentin also states that it is important to have a correct translation between
languages. Something that Forsman and Terning at mResell also confirms, that it is necessary
to have native speakers handling customers in each country. Tyrie also expresses the
importance of sharing a language, according to Tyrie, the fact that she was a native Finn was
one of the reasons as to why she was made responsible for those areas. The cultural distance
decreased and it was easier for them to understand each other. Tyrie furthermore mentioned
that she could easily connect with the users in Estonia since they understand Finnish,
something that made it easier for her to conduct her training. Thus by sharing a language the
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cultural distance decreased and allowed for a deeper relationship to develop. The common
language also aided the trust creating process between the users and, in this case Tyrie.
Tyrie also identified cultural differences, for example in Poland the work culture is much
more hierarchical. While training people there she needed to divide employees and
management in different groups. This was since the managers did not feel comfortable
learning the same things as the employees and the managers felt the need to learn it
beforehand so the employees were not able to see them lacking knowledge. The reason
behind why Poland is more hierarchical is not clearly understood but it could be because
Poland is catholic and does not share the Lutheran cultural heritage as Estonia or Finland does
(Thue, 2020). According to Tyrie, sharing this heritage creates more common ground and thus
builds trust. Another reason as to why this specific scenario is apparent in some countries but
not in others can be due to what Hofstede (1991) called Power Distance. In Poland the
accepted power distance is probably much greater than in Sweden and Finland for example.
For that reason, the managers feel that they should assert their power by not being present in
the training of the other employees. Similar behaviour would not be necessary or accepted in
Finland or Sweden. One could also argue that the catholic value of Poland where the religion
already makes the believers accept a higher power controlling them (the church) more
accepting to a greater power distance in other areas, such as in the workplace. Therefore,
these two factors can in fact affect each other. In Lutheran societies the culture is more
swayed towards equal value, and that everyone is equal in front of God, this might be one
explanation as to why power distances are less likely to be accepted in cultures that follow the
Lutheran path of cristianity.
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5.2 Trust and Onboarding
Mutual trust is identified as important during the onboarding process as it makes the customer
more willing to buy a product or create an account on a digital platform. Trust can also act as
a way of motivation for users to learn a platform (Higgins, 2021). Trust is hard to define, but
according to Tyrie both common language and similar culture seems to increase the level of
trust between actors. This is also central in the theories of West and Graham (2004), which
puts great emphasis on the importance of language in the interactions between peoples as
mentioned above.
Tyrie, who has worked on several digital platforms, identified trust as important when
building relations, this because she could easier build trust with people from the Baltics than
her colleague from England. Tyrie contributed this to the fact that people from the Baltics
could more easily identify with Tyrie because she is a Finn, which is a country that shares
many characteristics with the Baltics nations and Estonia in particular, compared to England.
Both Finland and Estonia share the Lutheran heritage and this can also be a factor for easier
understanding between the peoples. This since religion is a basis for common values and
beliefs. The historical factor as well cannot be understated with both the Baltic countries and
Finland sharing Russia as a neighbour and faced its aggression throughout history. This
contributes to lowering the cultural distance and facilitates the building of trust. Choosing an
employee with closer cultural background to the customers was therefore a strategy employed
by the company Tyrie worked for, to facilitate the building of trust from the customers.
mResell integrates the trust factor in some ways as well, including making their ‘customer
support agents’ more than just a hotline to answer questions, they have authority to make
independent decisions. mResell have separate customer service offices in each country,
speaking the native language therefore adopting to the local market to build trust in their
platform. This makes their business more local, something expressed by both Terning and
Forsman as important. By showing that the local employees have authority within their
market the users might not even notice that the company is not local. By using the local
language mResell increases its trustworthiness in the eyes of the users according to Terning at
mResell. This goes in line with the strategy outlined by Higgins (2021), where trust and
personal relations are being identified as important in succeeding in the onboarding process.
Both Tyrie and mResells work with personal relations but in different ways.
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According to Higgins (2021) free-trials can be a way to increase trust as well, something used
by Bokio. The primary goal of the free-trial was to show the users what functions are
available since you can still use the Bokio platform for free, you would just be more restricted
and forced to do more tasks manually. The trial's purpose is then to show the platform's
functions that require a paid-plan but can also act as a trust builder between users and Bokio.
Forsman mentions that the checkout process at mResell is more simple in Finland and
Sweden than in Spain. In Spain they need to fill in more information. He mentions that he
personally would view this as a tedious process if he was the shopper, but explains that the
Spanish users feel comfortable with this process. He also sees that they have a longer decision
making process when purchasing a product. This might be correlated with a lower trust of
purchasing products online in Southern Europe. According to Thue (2020) the Lutheran
heritage in Northern Europe has contributed to a higher degree of trust between people and
governments, while countries that are catholic have a lower degree of trust. This can be an
explanation of why mResell finds Southern European customers more sceptical than
customers in the north, this as both Spain and Italy are mostly catholic countries. With time
the trust for governments applies for all types of institutions and companies can be seen as an
institution similar to governments as well and therefore could also be affected by this theory.
The theories by Mathiasen (2020); Thue (2020), therefore seems to be viable as both Italy and
Spain are catholic countries and they both have a lower degree of trust towards institutions
and need to have a more careful approach to shopping online. This carefulness is also visible
in the prefered payment method of Italian which is cash-on-delivery. Paying in full only when
the product is in the customer's hand. This type of carefulness can also be due to a higher
uncertainty avoidance. Uncertainty avoidance describes how threatened people of a particular
culture feel towards an uncertain and unknown situation (Hofstede, 1991). It might be due to
their religious heritage that the uncertainty avoidance is what it is.
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5.3. Product Value and Cultures
Showing the value of the platform is discussed in all onboarding strategies which are
described in this study. The strategies actually mainly differ when it comes to the motivation
that users need in order to either obtain or understand that value. For gamification theory it is
done by having a “fun” experience, for Hullicks strategy it is by creating trust and being
personal towards the user, for Higgins strategy (Strahm, 2017) it is by providing small wins
and showing the value quickly through the “aha-moment”. Product value is discussed in the
theoretical framework with network effects. Network effects increase the value of the
product, the platform.
For some platforms however, cultural aspects can change the value of the platform. For
example, as with the case of Bokio, the accounting laws in the UK creates a new demand for
functionality in comparison to Sweden. When users are using Bokio they can quite quickly
account for their taxes in Sweden, however if this is not apparent in the UK accounting
system as well then a part of the value of the actual product is lost. Thus, it needs to uphold
the same value even in the UK. Laws and culture are affected by each other and the legal
system is affected by historical events that have happened within that particular culture
(Varner and Varner, 2014; Kocbeck, 2008). Varner and Varner (2014) also recommends that it
is important to understand why some laws are apparent in a country and one could learn that
by learning about the culture. How laws affect the value of a digital platform is quite apparent
in the case of Bokio. One of the reasons as to why Bokio chose to enter the UK was due to
their similarities in accounting laws and the system they use for accounting. Thus, the cultural
proximity in that regard can be viewed as one reason as to why the culture was beneficial in
the case of Bokio. The similarities within the law making can be one of the more important
reasons as to why Bokio could enter the UK without making huge amounts of modifications
to their product. In conclusion, it is important to understand the laws and regulations of a
country in certain digital platforms, and to understand the legal system one needs to
understand the culture.
According to Cluster (2015) WeChat failed to launch some functionalities outside of China,
making the value of the platform less, creating less of an incentive to make the shift for
potential users. In that case the switching cost, as described by Prud’homme (2019) could be
time (the I in the VEIF model) therefore if you are already using one of WeChat competitors
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such as Whatsapp or Messenger you do not have the incentive to switch platform. Even if the
rest of the costs of VEIF model are low, such as you can easily import all your contacts from
one platform to another, the time it takes for the user (even if it is just 10 minutes) without a
proper incentive, such as higher value, users can be reluctant to make that switch. Thus, the
cost-benefit equation in the eyes of the user does not add up. In the case of WeChat there
were also other types of cultural barriers that were evident. According to Vodanovic (2017)
the subscribe function was designed per the chinese culture and therefore not as appreciated
in other cultures, the second thing he states is the messaging function which also was tailored
to the chinese culture. This shows how certain features of a function can be appreciated
within one culture and not appreciated within another. By evaluating the value of a platform
in the context of the new culture the platform will be launched in, the platform company can
evaluate their product and see if the product is still valuable in another market. Even though a
digital platform is easy to transfer, different types of cultural aspects such as the Chinese
traditions or UK accounting laws can still mean that the value of the platform decreases in a
new market.
Vallentin at Event Logic explained that one of his concerns when entering a new market is to
specifically onboard suppliers. This concern might only concern suppliers for Event Logic at
the moment since they already have bookers from in the countries outside of their
home-market, as a result of their existing customer portfolio. Having suppliers in an
intermediary platform is of course important because without a supplier there is nothing to
book. This can be connected to the networking effects discussed in chapter two, since more
buyers equals more value for the supplier-users and vice versa. However, since the customer
with global employees and a global need for events, meetings and conferences can be
classified as non-geographically bound, as described by Stallkamp and Schotter (2018), since
the customers in Sweden can be carried over into Finland, Denmark and Norway (at least
some customers). Thus Event Logic can leverage these customers when trying to acquire
suppliers. However, by having a native Finn addressing the Finnish market for example (a
country where, according to Vallentin, knowing the native language is important) can make
the onboarding of the suppliers easier since it can more easily create trust (as mentioned
above how common culture and language can create trust). This would then make the
geographically bound assets (in this case the suppliers) more easy to obtain and thus creating
higher value for the Finnish users. By paying attention to cultural differences it is viable to
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assume that it can be easier to create a new network of users in a new country, as mentioned
by Tyrie, this was the reason as to why she was given the responsibility of Finland and the
Baltic countries.
Showing the value of a digital plattform can also be different in different cultures. As
mentioned by Forsman he believes that it would be optimal to have a marketing agency
specifically for each country. So one agency in Italy covering Italy and one in Spain covering
Spain etc. He mentioned that when they had a Finnish agency the conversion rates were the
highest in Finland and when they switched to a agency based in Stockholm the conversion
rates in Sweden became the highest. Forsman therefore believes that there might be a
difference in what value proposition works best in each country. Furthermore he mentions
that in an optimal world with unlimited funds a landing page designed for each country and
thus “pushing” on different points based on each country. A correct value proposition on a
landing page can create motivation for users to further explore the platform and thus generate
more onboarded users, as explained by Strahm (2018) in regards to Hullicks strategy.
One of mResells value proposition is the fact that their business model is sustainability
oriented since it reuses devices and is a circular solution. According to McCarty and Schrum
(2001) and Tata and Prasad (2015) different cultures view sustainability actions differently.
One could assume that more sustainability oriented countries should value those value
propositions higher. However, Terning mentioned that he does not believe that the
sustainability factor plays a major role in the decision making process of the users on their
platform. He believes that more focus lies on the price. However, sustainability factors could
still play a role in the decision making of the users and therefore it could be beneficial to push
on the sustainability oriented value proposition in those countries where the importance of
sustainability actions are higher. This would be in line with what Forsman believes would be
more beneficial, to have different websites with different value propositions for each market.
Another important thing for the platform of mResell when opening business in a new country
is having the proper and most popular payment options on the site, as mentioned by Forsman.
As consumers on a website it is fair to assume that most of us enjoy having our preferred
payment method available at the site. An unknown payment method can both make us feel
uncomfortable and unsafe when making online purchases. Thus, correct payment terms can
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be seen as a part of the value of the platform. Correct payment methods can also increase
trust, and a website can feel unserious if the payment methods the users are comfortable with
are not present. This can then lead to apondendments at the check-out stage.
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5.4. Learning across Cultures
In regards to learning across cultures a few of the interview subjects interviewed brought
insight to this subject. The theory regarding the subject suggests that there should be some
differences in both learning style (Simy and Kolb, 2009) and cognitive function (Nisbett,
2003). That learning should be affected by culture such as East Asian societies are affected by
Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism sounds reasonable. The empirical findings fail to show
us any of the sort. Forsman mentions that the markets they entered were already educated in
regards to circular solutions and buying second-hand products, he also explained that he did
not experience any difference in how the users were educated by their competitor. Tyrie
however is currently working as a teacher in Doha where she educates children from all over
the world. She mentions that all people learn in the same way and that was also her
experience when educating users on a platform. Both Tyrie and Forsmans statements in this
regard contradicts the theories outlined by both Simy and Kolb (2009) and Nisbett (2003),
however the empirical data is not sufficient enough in order to test this appropriately. The
platforms and companies used in this research are active in several countries however every
platform, except mResell who are active in Australia, in this research are only active in
Europe. The differences in learning described by Nisbett (2003) were between western
societies and asian societies. Thus, the cultures examined in this research failed to examine
those differences. This research failed to examine Nisbett (2003) and Simy and Kolbs (2009)
theory, however one can assume that users within Europe learn in very similar ways. Even
though according to Simy and Kolb (2009) Germany differs from Italy in learning style, both
cultures were included in this research and no real difference was found. However, it might be
more optimal to actually pay attention to those learning styles but it seems to be working with
a universal learning strategy as well.
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6. Conclusions
This paper evaluates How do digital platforms manage cultural aspects in order to facilitate
the onboarding process during internationalisation?.
The most important aspect regarding culture when facilitating the onboarding process is the
building of trust between the users and the digital platform. To facilitate the building of trust
the language aspect is of high importance, not only to have a correct translation but to make
sure that the translation is of high quality. Language in relation to the customer success team
is also important. Local employees also help to build the trust between users and the company
since the local employees already know the manners, values and beliefs of that culture. Thus,
a local customer-success team eradicates almost all culture barriers. Having both language
support for all cultures as well as having a local customer-success team is something all
digital platforms can benefit from.
How then the onboarding aids the internationalisation process is mainly in regards to network
effects. By listening and adjusting to the culture, by for example modifying the platform for
the market, more users can be generated and onboarded in the platform. According to the
network effects theory more users increase the value of the product. Higher product value can
then generate organic growth with users being attracted to the platform due to its higher
value. Thus, understanding the culture can lead to correct functions being implemented in
correct cultures, generating higher product value for the users and thus easing the onboarding
process. Then it compounds as more users create higher value and higher value creates more
users. By adjusting for the culture trust can be built between the users and the digital
platform. That trust can act as a source of motivation for the user being onboarded and thus
can lead to lower levels of abandonment during the onboarding journey. An understanding for
the culture can also help with the actual education between user and educator since the
cultural barriers are lower. Thus, this thesis shows that within user acquisition, user education
and user retention (what is called onboarding within this thesis) can in fact benefit from
having culture taken into consideration. However, this paper is not comprehensive on the
matter, therefore further research is recommended.
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This thesis successfully fills in the knowledge-gaps identified within the problem discussion
of this thesis. Since it shows how culture needs to be accounted for when developing an
onboarding strategy. It also complements Brouther et al. (2016) with cultural aspects in
regards to network effects.
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7. Recommendations for future research
The two main limitations of this study is that no culture outside of western societies were
examined as well as no companies with gamifications were examined. The fact that no other
societies were examined was not planned within this thesis, as well as excluding gamification
was not planned. However, no clear focus was made in regards to which cultures to examine
and which onboarding strategies to examine. Another limitation of this study is that it does
not examine how successful an onboarding strategy is when accounting for culture and when
it does not account for culture.
Thus, a recommendation would be to examine how culture affects onboarding in more distant
cultures, a recommendation would be to examine western societies and asian societies or
african societies. This would most likely account for larger differences in culture and thus
show more vivid examples of how culture needs to be accounted for in regards to onboarding.
Another recommendation would be to focus on gamification as an onboarding strategy in
order to see how gamification aspects differ between cultures. Presumably, the most
interesting results would be found by making an in depth case study following one company
deploying a platform in two different cultures with gamification aspects in their onboarding.
Lastly, a recommendation for future research would be to examine how well digital platforms
that account for cultural aspects onboard users in contrast to platforms that do not. In order to
gain insightful results one company needs to be examined since different platforms are in
nature different in regards to onboarding, some are easier to understand, some are more
similar to already established platforms, some are more intuitive in their design etc. Thus one
company would probably be the best to examine in order to make sure that the cultural factors
is the only factor changing and everything else is constant.
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