Uber, the controversial service, has made virtue out of disrupting the established taxi business. From a standing start in 2009, the company has spread across the globe like wildfire. Uber's strategy has been to focus on major metropolitan areas around the world. By early 2016, this strategy had taken Uber into 375 cities in 68 countries. The privately held company rumored to be generating annual revenues of around $10 billion. At the core of Uber's business is a smartphone app that allows customers to hail a ride from the comfort of their own home, a restaurant, or a bar stool. The app shows cars in the area, notifles the rider when a car is on the way, and tracks the progress of the car on screen using GPS mapping tech- nology. The rider pays percent of the fee and Uber 20 percent. The price for the ride is determined by Uber using an algo- rithm that sets prices in order to match the demand for rides with the supply of cars on the road. Thus if demand exceeds supply, the price for a ride will rise, inducing drivers to get on the road. Uber does not own any cars. Its drivers are independent contractors with their own vehicles. The company is in effect a twenty-first century version of an old-style radio taxi dispatch company. Interestingly, Uber's founders got their idea for the app-based service one snowy night in Paris when they were unable to find a taxi. the app using a credit card, so no cash changes hands. The driver takes 80 Historically, taxi markets around the globe have been tightly regulated by metropolitan authorities. The stated purpose of these regulations has often included (1) limiting the supply of taxis in order to boost demand for other forms of public transportation, (2) limiting the supply of taxis in order to reduce traffic congestion, (3) ensuring the safety of riders by only allowing licensed taxis to offer rides, (4) ensuring that the prices charged are "fair," and (5) guaranteeing a reasonable rate of return to the owners of taxi licenses. In practice, widespread restrictions on the supply of taxi licenses have created shortages in many cities, making it difficult to find a taxis, particularly at busy periods. In New York, the number of licenses barely increased from 11,787 in 1945 to 13,437 in 2014, even though the population expanded significantly. In Paris, the number of licenses was 14,000 in 1937, and had only increased to 15,900 by 2014, even though both the population and the number of visitors to the city had surged. The number of taxis in Milan was frozen between 1974 and 2014, despite Milan having a ratios of taxis to inhabitants that was one of the lowest for any major city. Whenever metropolitan authorities have tried to increase the number of taxis in a city, they have often been meet by strong resistance from established taxi companies. When the French -continued tried to increase the number of taxis in Paris in 2007, a strike among transportation workers shut down the city and forced the government to back off. Uber's strategy has been to break these regulations, establishing its service first, and then fighting at- tempts by regulators to shut the service down. In pursuing this strategy, Uber has often used social net- works to enlisted the support of its riders, getting them to pressure local governments to change their regulations and allow Uber to continue offering its service. In many cities, the strategy has worked, even in the face of protests from established taxi companies and their drivers. In London, for example, when taxi drivers went on strike to pressure the government to restrict Uber, Uber reported a surge in downloads for its app and thousands of new riders. However, this confrontational strategy has not always worked well. The government of Vancouver, Canada, reacted to the unauthorized entry of Uber by banning it outright. So did the local authorities in Brussels in Belgium, Delhi in India, and a host of other cities around the globe. In Paris, the government has tried to limit Uber by imposing several restrictions that make it harder for Uber to do business there. To complicate matters, Uber drivers in Paris have unionized-something that they cannot do in the United States due to their status as independent contractors. They went on strike when Uber tried to lower fares. Similar protests by Uber drivers have occurred in other cities. Overall, there is a sense that Uber's abrasive strategy has not always worked well, particularly outside of the United States where locals see Uber as a brash American startup that pays scant attention to local laws, customs, and culture. also witnessing the emergence of local rivals in some countries, such as India and China, where startups using a smartphone app and a business model similar to Uber are gaining traction. In China, local rival Didi Kuaidi has raised $4 billion in venture capital and claims that by mid-2016, it will be operating in Uber over 400 cities in China. Didi already has a 90 percent market share in Beijing where the company fields over 1 million daily ride requests. 1.Refer to the given story of UBER, what are the factors that force the company to go for globalization? 2. "Culture is a complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and other capabilities acquired by man as a member of society", Edward Taylor. Explain briefly how values and norms of cross-culture reflect the international business.