please provide references as well.

(11 marks) Question 6. Week 11 How does Jack Yun Ma (Founder/Director) shape the strategic direction of Alibaba Group? Refer to the case study information to support your discussion - (11 marks) Assignment Structure STRATEGIC FOCUS Temel GIVE Preferens este produs Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, once said that the key to the success of e-commerce in China is trust. He was likely correct and his firm garnered a fair amount of trust as it became the largest internet company in China. In fact, Alibaba.com's IPO on the Hong Kong stock exchange produced US$1.7 billion - the second-largest internet IPO behind Google. Alibaba accounts for 80 per cent of all e-commerce in China: in 2010, it had gross sales volume of almost US$60 billion. Alibaba has 57 million registered users globally, and about 14 million of them are registered on its English-language network Despite its success and Ma's emphasis on trust and values, he announced in February 2011 that an internal investigation found fraudulent practices within the company. Essentially. approximately 2300 sellers who paid Alibaba to sell their goods and services on its site had defrauded customers (e.... they obtained payments but never provided the goods to the buyers). These sellers received assistance from about 100 of the more than 5000 sales associates employed by Alibaba. Overall, the sales amounted to approximately US$6 million, only a small amount of Alibaba's total business. However, all of the buyers defrauded were from outside of China, the primary set of customers targeted by Alibaba for China's companies. Ma and Alibaba acted swiftly and forcefully when the investigation conclusively showed fraud. Alibaba's CEO, David Wei, and coo, Elvis Lee, both resigned, accepting blame for the unethical practices, even though they were not directly involved in the activities. In addition, Deng Kangming, chief of human resources, was demoted. These actions suggested the seriousness with which the firm judged these problems. Jonathan Lu, CEO of Taobao, another major company in the Alibaba group, was named CEO of Alibaba.com he was himself replaced in May 2015 by Daniel Zhangl. Eventually, Chinese police arrested 36 individuals for the Alibaba.com fraudulent activity. Alibaba worked hard to re-establish the trust that Ma felt was so important for an e-commerce company. It established In early 2011, Alibaba discovered that nearly 2300 of its sales personnel had defrauded customers. The company worked double time to regain the trust of its o-commerce customers. practices to guard against further fraudulent activities. Furthermore, it identified the customers defrauded and repaid them the money that they lost in the transactions. It worked. Alibaba now lin 2015) has sales of US$390 billion and is aiming at the US market, where a huge opportunity is to help small US firms sell into China. Jack Ma has said that "Alibaba was founded in China but it was created for the world". Sources: A. Ha, 2015, Jack Ma lays out Alibaba's USA strategy. Tech Crunch http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/09/alibabas-us-strategy/1jSyba:Hws Reuters, 2011, Chinese police arrest 36 in Alibaba.com fraud sting, http:// www.reuters.com, 30 June; T. Ortik, 2011, Alibaba's most valuable treasure still in the cave, Wall Street Journal Online, http://www.onlinews.com, 18 March: T. Culpan, 2011, Alibaba's chief Lu wants to fix mistakes, prevent detours, Bloomberg Businessweek, http://www.businessweek.com, 26 February: B. Powell, 2011, Why Alibaba's CEO had to go. Fortune, http://tech fortune.cnn.com, 22 February: K. Halle, 2011, Alibaba chiefs quit after fraud cases, Financial Times, 22 February, 18: D. Barboza, 2011, 2 executives quit Alibaba.com amid fraud inquiry, New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com, 21 February