Comparing the impacts of Internet technology and national culture on online usage and purchase from a four-country perspective |
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Authors: | Eric C C Shiu John A Dawson |
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Institution: | a Birmingham Business School, The University of Birmingham, Winterbourne, 58 Edgbaston Park Road, Birmingham B15 2RT, UK;b Edinburgh Management School, The University of Edinburgh, William Robertson Building, 50 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9JY, UK |
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Abstract: | The Internet has successfully generated an ever-expanding cohort of users for all its major concomitant activities, including information gathering, communications and transactions. So far no attempt has been made to validate whether such a success is so deep as to transcend national cultures. Nor any work has been conducted to compare the internationalisation1 performances between online usage activities. The current study addresses these two research gaps from the perspective of four countries, i.e. Britain, Germany, Japan and Taiwan. Results show that although the technological forces have been quite successful in internationalising overall online usage activities, they succumb to the cultural forces as far as only the transactions activity, or more colloquially online purchase, is concerned. This indicates the relative difficulty in internationalising online purchase vis-à-vis other online usage activities. Further research on locating a series of step functions or kick-off time points regarding the development of online purchase is suggested. |
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Keywords: | Internet Technology Culture Online usage Online purchase |
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