WEB STRATEGIES TO PROMOTE INTERNET SHOPPING: IS CULTURAL-CUSTOMIZATION NEEDED?

Author List: Sia, Choon Ling; Lim, Kia H.; Leung, Kwok; Lee, Matthew K.O.; Huang, Wayne Wei; Benbasat, Izak;
MIS Quarterly, 2009, Volume 33, Issue 3, Page 491-512.
Building consumer trust is important for new or unknown Internet businesses seeking to extend their customer reach globally. This study explores the question: Should website designers take into account the cultural characteristics of prospective customers to increase trust, given that different trust-building web strategies have different cost implications? In this study, we focused on two theoretically grounded practical web strategies of customer endorsement, which evokes unit grouping, and portal affiliation, which evokes reputation categorization, and compared them across two research sites: Australia (individualistic culture) and Hong Kong (collectivistic culture). The results of the laboratory experiment we conducted, on the website of an online bookstore, revealed that the impact of peer customer endorsements on trust perceptions was stronger for subjects in Hong Kong than Australia and that portal (Yahoo) affiliation was effective only in the Australian site. A follow-up study was conducted as a conceptual replication, and provided additional insights on the effects of customer endorsement versus firm affiliation on trust-building. Together, these findings highlight the need to consider cultural differences when identifying the mix of web strategies to employ in Internet store websites.
Keywords: cross-cultural study; Internet Shopping; trust; web strategies
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#28 0.154 cultural culture differences cross-cultural states united status national cultures japanese studies japan influence comparison versus china participants country singapore diverse
#51 0.136 results study research experiment experiments influence implications conducted laboratory field different indicate impact effectiveness future participants evidence test controlled involving
#118 0.132 online consumers consumer product purchase shopping e-commerce products commerce website electronic results study behavior experience b2c impact internet purchases websites
#190 0.106 new licensing license open comparison type affiliation perpetual prior address peer question greater compared explore competing crowdsourcing provide choice place
#10 0.095 strategies strategy based effort paper different findings approach suggest useful choice specific attributes explain effective affect employ particular online control
#33 0.086 web site sites content usability page status pages metrics browsing design use web-based guidelines results implications portal loyalty navigability addition
#172 0.066 trust trusting study online perceived beliefs e-commerce intention trustworthiness relationships benevolence initial importance trust-building examines discussed building future context transactions
#132 0.062 likelihood multiple test survival promotion reputation increase actions run term likely legitimacy important rates findings long short higher argue prior
#288 0.062 customer customers crm relationship study loyalty marketing management profitability service offer retention it-enabled web-based interactions operations sales strategy channels set