United States. Therefore, the study was
postponeduntil the new agreement was
establishedat the end of 2005. All the interviewees
were able toprovide a more complete
descriptionof what happened to them
throughoutthe year of 2005 and present
more developedstrategies for the future.
The otherunique feature is that the author
is a nativeChinese speaker. All the interviews
were done inChinese. Chatting with all the
intervieweesin Chinese made all of them feel
morecomfortable and relaxed; in turn, they
were morelikely to provide in-depth, unexpected,
and realinformation.
Limitations
Onelimitation of this study is the
limitedamount of time available for
interviewsand limited personal contacts,
which makesit difficult to set up
moreinterviews. Currently, doing market
research isstill relatively hard in China.
To get anacceptable return rate, surveying
consumersrequires more effort and
resourcesthere than in the United States.
Whensurveying becomes interviewing,
whichrequires more time, the data collection
becomesharder. When the participants
change fromaverage consumers to chief
executiveofficers and vice presidents, it
becomes evenmore difficult. Some might
think thatinterviewing more vice presidents
and chiefexecutive officers in the
future, suchas this year or the next one,
can helptackle this limitation. However,
thisstrategy will not provide comparable
informationand findings to the ones
obtained inthis study, because the timing
will bedifferent and the situation and the
environmentwill be different as well.