Business Model and Operational Adaptation in Cross-Cultural Service Internationalization —— A Case Study of Haidilao in Europe

Sammanfattning

Despite China’s rapid outward foreign direct investment growth, existing international business research has largely focused on capital-intensive, goods-producing sectors, leaving the internationalization of service industries, particularly catering, comparatively underexplored. This study examines why and how Chinese catering firms adapt their business models and operations when entering the European markets, using Haidilao as a single case.Drawing on 12 semi-structured interviews, the findings reveals that Haidilao reconfigured its value proposition by retaining its service identity while adapting service delivery and operational practices to local cultural and institutional conditions. The study extends firm-specific advantage perspectives by showing that competitive advantage in culturally embedded service firms is not derived solely from transferable organizational capabilities but is co-constructed through customers’ cultural interpretations, requiring active reconstruction in host markets. Based on these findings, the study proposes a four-stage internationalization pathway model, challenges the assumption that cultural distance is uniformly constraining, and demonstrates that for firms whose competitive identity is grounded in cultural distinctiveness, foreignness can be reframed as a source of differentiation rather than a liability.