A Study Into A Chinese Shipping Company’s Corporate Identity (Re)Construction:A Cross-Cultural Communication Perspective

With the development of the globalization and implement of the “Belt and Road” Initiative,the shipping industry plays a more and more important role in the international transportation chain,and liner shipping is a major method in shipping industry.The Chinese container shipping company COSCO SHIPPING Lines(COSCO hereafter)is one of the biggest liner carriers in the world which ranks at the third place.China’s economic restructuring accelerates its developing pace.If Chinese corporates continue to hide themselves in the domestic market,this will lead to the possibility of losing its advantages in the traditional international market in the long run.In this scenario,Chinese enterprises began to attend various international competitions and develop its international corporate identity gradually.This thesis introduced the background and status of COSCO.Although it is successful in its marketing strategy and entry strategy,culture and language are the soft powers that should never be neglected.In this thesis,the author adopts quantitative and qualitative research methods to explore the influences of culture and language competence on identity reconstruction of COSCO.The author combined questionnaire data collected from eighty Chinese employees and interviews with five selected senior managers,aiming to investigate their attitudes to corporate identity and cross-cultural communication.The results reveal that COSCO’ employees are exposed to acculturative stress due to the challenges that they need to confront their cross-cultural communication and cultural shock.It is not surprising that COSCO has played an active part in China’s international shipping industry,and this also let this internationalized company realize that its own corporate identity has reached a turning point.The author analyzed the correlation between these employees’ language competence and its corporate identity reconstruction based on the collected data,and its results will bring practical implications for the identity reconstruction of other Chinese globalized companies.