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This article was downloaded by: [York University Libraries]On: 29 September 2014, At: 08:24Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Journal of Global InformationTechnology ManagementPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ugit20
International and Cross-CulturalInfluences on Online ShoppingBehaviorThomas F. Stafforda, Aykut Turanb & Mahesh S. Raisinghaniba University of Memphis, USA, .b University of Dallas, USA, .Published online: 09 Sep 2014.
To cite this article: Thomas F. Stafford, Aykut Turan & Mahesh S. Raisinghani (2004)International and Cross-Cultural Influences on Online Shopping Behavior, Journal of GlobalInformation Technology Management, 7:2, 70-87, DOI: 10.1080/1097198X.2004.10856373
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1097198X.2004.10856373
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Influences on Online Shopping Behavior
International and Cross-Cultural Influences on Online Shopping Behavior
Thomas F. Stafford, University of Memphis, USA, [email protected] Aykut Turan, University of Memphis, USA, [email protected] Mahesh S. Raisinghani, University of Dallas, USA,
ABSTRACT
This paper compares and contrasts the diflerences of gender on online shopping in three distinctive consumer markets: the United States, Finland and Turkey. These nations span the present range of cultural differences in the online world: developed nations, emerging technological niches, and emerging markets in the secular East; comparisons can also be made between free market capitalism, European centralized planning and social consciousness, and the emerging consumerism of secular Moslem society. Our intent ii to discern 1 ikely gender and age diferences between these three a reas o f t he world that m ight b e p redictive of d iffevences in online s hopping activities.
KEYWORDS
Internet, International, Online Shopping, E-Commerce, Culture, Gender
INTRODUCTION
Online shopping is becoming a global phenomenon. Today, customers can shop online any time, anywhere, and for anything. Yet, online shopping behavior is expected to vary from country to country, based on shoppers' demographic characteristics and to efficiently plan Internet strategies, organizations need to have reliable estimates of online shopping growth patterns (Lohse, Bellman & Johnson, 2000).
Cultural and demographic differences, starting with Hofstede's (1984) seminal work, have become an important construct for international studies. In fact, demographics are important indicators of who goes online to start with (Lohse, et al., 2000), let alone who is most likely to shop while they are there. Demographics also influence political and economic circumstances that determine the technological diffusion and development process n ecessary for e commerce t o succeed (cf., E in-Dor, S egev, & Orgad, 1992; Haley, 2002; Png, Tan & Wee, 2001). if researchers examine online shopping in a global context, they must try to understand the potential differences in likely consumer activity that may arise depending on cultural differences between various regions of the global market.
Based on Hofstede's (1984) and Venkatesh's (Venkatesh & Moms, 2000; Morris & Venkatesh, 2000) theoretical contributions to the understanding of key demographic variables in the use of technology, this paper develops a theoretical and practical
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perspective of influences of demographic factors on global Internet use in an effort to describe the likely differences existing in online shopping behavior between three distinct areas of the word: The United States, Finland, and Turkey. The paper proceeds as follows: first, we review theoretical background leading to an understanding of key demographic variables related to online shopping activity. Then, we provide a brief overview of the countries included in out study to provide the necessary background for understanding differences that exist at the demographic level of Internet use. Then, we specifically examine gender as a key variable contributing to differences across cultures in online shopping behavior. A set of hypotheses are offered and tested, followed by discussion and managerial implications for the results.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Prior research suggests that gender differences are instrumental in the decision making process for using new information systems innovations and in determining individuals' technology adoption decisions (Van Slyke, Communale & Belanger, 2002; Venkatesh, Moms & Ackennan, 2000). However, there is little research that defines the unique shopping behavioral patterns of individuals based on gender differences (Otnes & McGrath, 2001).
Research on Gender Roles
Psychologists have long known that men and women differ in their perceptual and judgment formation processes. Women tend to adopt information technologies based on the opinions of others (in complement to the influences of more familiar ease of use and the extent of control variables from the IT adoption research), while men, by contrast, are driven mostly by assessments of usefulness of a technology (Venkatesh et al., 2000).
Hofstede (1984) suggests that men value the potential for job advancement and the subsequent improvement in power resulting from their technology decisions more than do women; this results in men tending to be more task oriented than women when it comes to technology adoption and usage decisions (Venkatesh & Morris, 2000). However, women have traditionally b een and c ontinue to b e, despite recent egalitarian trends in developed nations, the principle buying agents for families and households; as a result, women are more likely to find greater satisfaction in shopping (Alreck & Settle, 200 1).
Online Shopping Behavior Based on Gender
Shopping on the Internet has become a common phenomenon in the last decade, leading to a great deal of research on the topic; as with any new area of inquiry, results and findings tend to be equivocal while researchers engage in the process of triangulating on key phenomena of interest. For example, Straughn and Albers-Miller (2001) found that there are differences in online shopping behaviors between man and woman, while Otnes and McGrath (2001) argue that men find shopping online more
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appealing than women - with the demographic result that more men use the Internet for shopping than do women. Yet, women are the traditional household shoppers in most cultures, and tend to have more positive attitudes towards shopping in general than do men (Alreck & Settle, 2001). With the increasing visibility of ecommerce and online shopping, it may be no accident that the number of women online is increasing steadily (Van Slyke et al., 2002).
This paper compares and contrasts the influences of gender on online shopping in three distinctive consumer markets: the United States, Finland and Turkey. These span the present range of cultural differences in the online world: developed nation, emerging technological niches, and emerging markets in the secular East; comparisons can also be made between free market capitalism, European centralized planning and social consciousness, and the emerging consumerism of secular Moslem society. Our intent is to discern likely gender and age differences between these three areas of the world that might be predictive of differences in online shopping activities.
CULTURAL DIFFERENCES THAT INFLUENCE ONLINE SHOPPING BEHAVIOR
Turkey
Turkish consumers are unexpectedly like the West in their consumer culture (McBride, 2000). Turkish shoppers are often more liberal in their tastes and preferences than might be expected for a nation bordering the Middle Eastern region. Turks are generally innovative in their consumer choices, and tend to be rather brand conscious (Uray & Dedeoglu, 1997). The Turkish government understands the value of the Internet, having enacted a regulatory environment in which Internet services and increasing consumer Internet use can transpire, and with this level of support, it would be natural to expect a certain level of subsequent e-commerce activity (Gorvett, 2000).
Finland
Finland is technologically oriented nation. About 115 of its population is online daily, and the nation has more Internet hosts per capita than many larger countries (Lyytinen & Goodman, 1999). United States citizens are not as active online, by comparison, since U.S. Internet use is concentrated in smaller groups while Finnish use is more general and broad-based in the population.
The United States
The Internet is a U.S. invention, so one expects it would be a visible and compelling medium for shopping in this technologically advanced nation. Indeed, over half of the 278 million United States population uses the Internet on at least a casual basis, while active users count for over a third of the population (CyberAtlas, 2002). Finland, as noted, has extensive Internet infrastructure, but its usage rates are 41% and 19%, casual versus active use, respectively, out of population numbering 5.2 million, while
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in Turkey, 5.56% of its population of 66.5 million use the Internet (CyberAtlas, 2002). Compared to Finland and Turkey, the sheer weight of numbers rests with the United States, in view of the raw population numbers against which the proportion of Internet users is calculated.
Gender Differences Across Nations
The duality of gender is the fundamental fact that every society, advanced, simple, rich, or poor, has to deal with; gender plays an important role in creating differences in national cultures (Hofstede, 1984). Every culture imposes special norms and expectation for gender roles, which influences online shopping behavior. Knowledge of gender differences' influence on the global markets will better inform the practice of global commerce, in general, and e-commerce, in specific. Three nations are considered here in the context of the diffusion of the Internet and related online shopping activity. These nations span wired, highly wired, and the emerging markets between the leading developing and fully industrialized nations in the world. The nations we consider tend to be different with regards to both culture and related consumer habits and tendencies, so we expect to identify and discuss potential differences in online shopping attitudes and behaviors based on gender, as geographically distributed and in accordance with global differences in culture.
A Benchmark for Gender Roles Across Nations
Though dated, H ofstede's (cf., H ofstede, 1 99 1 ; H ofstede, 1 984) extensive work o n cultural differences across more than 50 countries remains a benchmark for understanding differences between the more and less developed nations of the world. Hofstede's fourth cultural dimension regards the gender-based division of labor in a society; in a less egalitarian time, he labeled this the "masculinity factor," which speaks to the degree to which gender-role behaviors and attitudes characteristic of the stereotypical male role tend to be more dominant as a guide to behavior and action across members of a society, male and female, alike.
Hofstede (1984) suggests that there are certain broad generalities that tend to transcend national boundaries and argued that in different countries, different occupations are dominated by different genders. According to Hofstede (1984), in general, women would place more value on relationships and helping others whereas man place more value on success, careers and money. Consequently, women are more likely than men to be concerned with taking care of the home in most societies (Hofstede, 199 1).
In feminine [less masculine] cultures, there is blurring of gender roles, leading to greater degrees of cooperation, exchange, and support among members, whereas in more masculine cultures there are stereotypical sex, age, work task, role and mastery distinctions (Markus & Gould, 2000). Men, for example, are considered to be more likely to be influenced by technology use than women (Venkatesh & Moms, 2000), so a case could be made for expecting more masculine cultures to be more likely to make heavy use of online technologies than less masculine cultures, in a "Hofstedian"
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sense. Women are more passive users of technology, while men are more actively engaged in technology use (Van Slyke et al., 2002). Yet, as far as e-commerce goes, shopping is often considered to be a female activity, perhaps linked to home and family interests, so perhaps men who shop online are transcending traditional gender role characterizations (Otnes & McGrath, 2001), particularly in societies high on Hofstede's masculinity index.
Recent research revealed that women visit web sites more, but men are more likely to purchase online (Van Slyke et al., 2002). However, even in the most advanced societies, women c ontinue t o bear disproportionately higher levels of responsibility for family well being, and subsequently tend to do more of the family shopping, though the demands of the modem 2 career family may ultimately motivate more use of online shopping. Hence:
HI: Female Internet users of all nations are more likely to be psychologically involved with shopping online than men.
Hofstede's masculinity indices for specific nations could be usehl in diagnosing likely online shopping behavior across nations, particularly since there are wide differences found i n h is research for the three n ations w e c onsider here (Hofstede, 1984, p. 189). On the masculinity index (mean = 5 1, range = 5-91), out of 50 nations, the U.S. ranks 13th (score of 62), Turkey is 26th (score of 45) and Finland ranks 35th (score of 26). From this viewpoint, the U.S. is most masculine, and its citizens should be highly likely to adhere to gender-based roles, while Finland should be least likely to do so, being a more androgynous and socially oriented society. Turkey, in the middle of the distribution, might be considered egalitarian and open to new things to some extent.
In 1 ight o f H ofstede's findings ( 1984), this tends t o imply that U .S. consumers a re more likely to actually shop online than those in nations with lower masculinity indices, such as Finland or Turkey. In fact, Finland, with its low masculinity index, should demonstrate the least interest in online shopping, as compared to Turkey and the U.S.:
H2: US consumers will be more likely to visit shopping sites online regardless of gender than consumers in Finland and Turkey.
Time spent on the Internet also plays important role in probability of shopping online. Lohse et al. (2000) found that people who spend more time online are more likely to purchase online. Similarly, the degree of Internet infrastructure available in a given nation should also result in greater ease and convenience in spending time online. Hence, the sophistication of telecommunication technologies in a particular country such as the U.S. or Finland, as compared to Turkey, might affect online access frequencies and, in turn, online shopping behavior. This provides the basis to hypothesize that:
H3a: People from technologically developed countries will spend more time online than people from less technologically developed countries
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H3b: People from technologically developed countries will be more active online shoppers than people from less technologically developed counties
Online shopping research (e.g., Alreck & Settle, 2002; Bellman, Lohse & Johnson, 1999; Van Slyke, Comunale & Belanger, 2002) suggests that men spend more time online and should, hence, be more likely to buy online. However, while men might be more likely to shop online, women are more likely to shop, in general, given culturallyenforced responsibilities for the home and family. The U.S. and Finland are both technoiogically sophisticated nations, but in some cases Turkish consumers might be the more likely online shopping candidates, given consideration of cultural dynamics related to Hofstede's (1984) masculinity index and differences between the nations as measured on the index, and the propensity of men to go online at earlier stages of diffusion, as compared to women. Hence, we propose,
H4: Men in each nation of study are more likely to purchase online
Societies with lower scores on the Hofstede masculinity index tend to emphasize collective and cooperative behavior and security in actions, which would be difficult to achieve on the Internet. On the other hand, shopping activities would be perceived as social interactions rather than individual duties as in masculine society, where efficiency, effectiveness, and costs of actions are important. Hence we propose,
H5: Less masculine societies, as measured on Hofstede's Masculinity Index, are less likely to be involved with shopping online than masculine societies.
H5a: U.S. Internet users are more likely to consider online shopping important than Turkish Internet users
H5b: Turkish Internet users are more likely to consider online shopping important than Finnish Internet users.
Age Differences in Online Shopping
Age is another demographic factor that can shape online purchasing behaviors. Hofstede (1984) found that as populations age, regardless of gender, masculinity aspects that might be expected to drive online activity are diminished. Hofstede , (1984) also argued that older individuals are less likely to take risks and more likely to avoid uncertainty - all of which suggests that consumers of more advanced age will become less accepting of new and unusual ideas (Straughn & Albers-Miller, 2001). We extrapolate fiom that point to suggest that older consumers in most cultures will prefer traditional s hopping mediums, and would, a s a result, b e l ess 1 ikely t o shop online:
H6: Older consumers are less likely to shop online, regardless of country of origin
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RESEARCH METHOD
Data for this research were collected in the USA, Finland and Turkey, using a questionnaire of online shopping activity adapted from Stafford and Stem (2002), which contained measures of involvement with online shopping, frequency of Internet use, online shopping frequency, and involvement with the computer. The instrument is available by request from the authors.
The questionnaire was administered by the authors as part of business administration courses at major universities, and in the case of Turkey, the questionnaire was translated and then back- translated as a check on accuracy of language use. Translators were native speakers of Turkish. In Finland, the language of instruction was English and the instrument was not translated.
217 usable surveys were obtained, 52 from Finland, 63 from the United States and 102 from Turkey. In the sample, 63% of respondents were men and 37% were women. 43% were 18-24 years of age, 36% were 25-34, 14% were 35-44, and 5% were 45-54.
Measures and Variables
Dependent measures for hypothesis testing included Stafford and Stem's (2002) 10- item Online Involvement Inventory, designed to assess the likely involvement level of an online consumer with online shopping activities. Involvement is a critical link between motivations, behavioral intentions and decisions to act (Stafford & Stem, 2002), and is highly indicative of consumers' likely use of online shopping resources. The Inventory demonstrates excellent internal consistency in the present study (Cronbach's a = .874 I).
A nominal level measure of purchase activity was made in the form of a question that inquired, "Have you ever bought an item from an Intemet shopping site?" Assessments of Intemet use and shopping site activity were obtained through two semantic differential scales, as developed by Stafford and Stem (2002). The question, "How frequently do you visit shopping sites?'was assessed with a 5-point scale anchored by FrequentlyIInfrequently. The question, "How frequently do you surf the Web?'was assessed with a similar 5-point semantic differential. These dependent measures s erved a s the b asis for a nalysis o f v ariance b etween levels o f c ategorical variables that included Country, Gender, and Age. Country was a three level categorical variable, representing the U.S., Finnish, or Turkish origin of the respondent. Age was a categorical variable divided into 6 useful groups: under 18, 18-24,25-34,35-44,45-54, and 55 or older.
Data Analysis
Data analysis was performed in SPSS 10.0, with both parametric and nonparametric matching tests performed for each hypothesis, owing to the non-random nature of the convenience sample utilized here. This is a conservative hypothesis testing approach, useful when data normality is in question.
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RESULTS
Hypothesis 1
This hypothesis specified that women of all nations would be more involved in online shopping than men. In performing analysis of variance on the categorical Gender variable, using the Online Involvement Inventory, differences were found that were significant at p = .097 (F = 2.782), but the differences were in the opposite direction expected. A Kruskal Wallis test across gender for the involvement metric only generated a Chi Square of 1.466, with asymptotic significance of .216. No real differences can be said to exist at the traditional .05 level, in short.
As shown in Table I, a contingency table crossing gender with the dichotomous variable "have you ever bought an item fiom an Internet shopping site" demonstrates that twice as many men as women had made at least one online purchase, across the sample. However, the cross-tabulation only demonstrates a Chi Square statistic of 2.872, significant at .06, which is informative but not conclusive. Clearly, this is a marginal result, in terms of the parametric ANOVA, since significance is not reached in the nonparametric test. Hypothesis 1 is not confirmed; the expectation that women would be more involved in online shopping is contradicted by the stronger purchasing activity demonstrated by men in the sample.
Table 1. Online Purchase Activity by Gender
Purchase Status Gender
At Least One Purchase 1 8o 40
No Online Purchases
Hypothesis 2
Males Females - - 52 42
This hypothesis predicted that U.S. consumers, regardless of gender, would be more likely to visit online shopping sites than consumers in Turkey or Finland; there was an informal expectation that Finland would score lowest on this measure. The ANOVA that compared across the categorical Country variable, for differences on the measure of frequency of visits to online shopping sites, returned an F statistic of 4.188 significant at .016, so differences did exist between the nations in terms of visits to shopping sites.
In multiple comparisons testing, shown in Table 2, Turkey and Finland were not different from each other (2.4 and 2.62, respectively), while Finland and the U.S. were not different from each other (2.62 and 3.02, respectively). Hence, while Finland is clearly in the middle, statistically similar to both the U.S. and Turkey, the U.S. scores significantly higher than does Turkey for the variable measuring frequency of visits to online shopping sites.
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The nonparametric Kruskal Wallis test returned ~2 = 9.236, with asymptotic significance of .Ol, so the result of the parametric ANOVA can be considered robust. However, hypothesis 2 is not completely confirmed; the U.S. shows the highest frequency of visits to online shopping sites, as might be expected given its high masculinity index score, but Finland (which is the lowest of the group on the masculinity index) was not significantly lower than the U.S. on shopping site visits, and Turkey, which is moderate on the masculinity index, provided the lowest online shopping site frequency mean o f t he group. The basis of the hypothesis was the consideration that online activities generally tend to be initially a "male" activity in societies, so high masculinity index nations might be more likely to have high frequencies of online activities such as online shopping. This held true for U.S. consumers, but not for the others.
Table 2. Duncan Multiple Range Test Results Frequency of Online Shopping Site Visits
Country Subsets for a = .05
Turkey
Finland 2.62
U.S.
Hypothesis 3 I This hypothesis predicted two things: that consumers from more technologically advanced cultures would spend more time online, and that consumers fiom more technologically advanced cultures would be more active online shoppers than consumers in less technologically developed cultures.
In the ANOVA testing for differences in frequency of Internet use, a value of F =
16.376 was returned, significant at .000. Duncan tests, demonstrated in Table 3, show Turkey, the U.S. and Finland all significantly different from each other, with Turkey producing the lowest value (3.56), the U.S. in the middle (4.21), significantly higher than Turkey, but significantly lower then Finland, and Finland significantly higher (4.67) than both the U.S. and Turkey. The nonparametric Kruskal Wallis test returns a Chi Square value of 11.3 10, with asymptotic significance of 004, and demonstrates the same observed patterns of differences between the countries. Since both the parametric test and the nonparametric test agree, this is a robust finding.
The ANOVA on frequency of visits to online shopping sites returned an F statistic of 4.188, significant at .0 16. Duncan multiple comparisons testing (demonstrated previously in Table 2) shows Turkey and Finland are statistically the same for frequency of visits to online shopping sites (means of 2.40 and 2.62 on a scale of 1 to 5, respectively), and that Finland and the U.S. are also statistically the same, though with higher means (2.62 and 3.02, respectively). These same rankings are also found
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in the nonparametric Kruskal Wallis test, which returns a Chi Square value of 9.236, with asymptotic significance of .Ol and with both the parametric and nonparametric tests agreeing, the finding is robust. However, while H3a is confirmed in testing, H3b is generally confirmed, in the sense that Finland and the U.S. - both technologically developed nations - were statistically the same in terms of frequency of shopping site visits, and the U.S. was significantly higher than Turkey. However, Turkey and Finland were statistically the same, which is cause for some thought.
Table 3. Duncan Multiple Range Test Results Frequency of Internet Use by Country
Country Subsets for a = .05
Turkey
Finland
U.S.
Hypothesis 4
This hypothesis predicted that men in each culture would be more likely to actually make online purchases. As an initial test, frequency of visits to online shopping sites was used in an ANOVA on the categorical Gender variable, and a nonsignificant value o f F was returned ( F = .723, p = .396). There was n o reason t o expect the nonparametric test to be significant when the more sensitive parametric test did not return differences ( ~ 2 = .628, asymptotic significance = .428). Hypothesis 4 is not confirmed in testing.
Hypothesis 5
The general hypothesis predicted that the more "masculine societies," as measured by the Hofstede masculinity index, would be more involved with online shopping - with the specific expectations that U.S. c onsumers would be more involved with online shopping than Turkish consumers, and that Turkish consumers would be more involved with online shopping than Finnish consumers. Hofstede shows the U.S. as the highest of the three test nations on masculinity, at 62, with Turkey higher than Finland (45 vs. 26, respectively). As a point of perspective, the mean on the index is 5 1, and the highest score is 95 (Japan), while the lowest score is 5 (Sweden).
In the ANOVA that tested for differences between the three nations on the 10 item involvement inventory, F = 3.282, significant at .04 (Kruskal Wallis ~2 = 12.082, asymptotic significances = .002). In multiple comparisons, shown in Table 4, Finland and the U.S. were not significantly different (means of 32.98 and 34.88, respectively), and the U.S. and Turkey, while each higher than Finland, were not significantly different from each other (34.88 and 36.53, respectively). However, Turkey had a
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higher score than the U.S., even if not significantly higher, and this diverges with the expectations we derived from Hofstede's masculinity index ratings.
Table 4. Duncan Multiple Range Test Results Involvement with Online Shopping by Country
U.S.
Country
Finland
Subsets for a = .05
32.98
Sub-hypotheses were also evaluated concerning the simple importance of online shopping. Online shopping importance is the first item in the multi-item involvement inventory. I n a ssessing d ifferences between the countries for importance o f online shopping, an interesting picture emerges: differences are found (F = 4.249, p = .016; Kruskal Wallis ~2 = 10.01, asymptotic significances = .007), and the differences array in a manner exactly opposite theoretical expectations based on Hofstede (1984). As shown in Table 5, the less masculine societies consider online shopping more important and the more masculine societies consider it less important; this result is more in line with the theoretical suppositions of Hypothesis 1, if you generalize from female Internet users as a specific case to less masculine societies as the general case.
Turkey
Table 5. Duncan Multiple Range Test Results Importance of Online Shopping
36.53
Country
U.S.
Subsets for a = .05
3.22
Turkey
Although Turkey and Finland are not significantly different, individually, each is significantly higher for online shopping importance than the U.S., which has the highest masculinity index score in the sample. Turkey and Finland, each, are below the index mean, and each considers online shopping more important, which keeps with the expectations developed from Otnes & McGrath (2001), Alreck & Settle (2002) and Van Slyke et al. (2002) regarding the importance of shopping associated with the female gender role.
3.77
Finland
To the extent that the more "masculine" Turkey exhibits the highest involvement scores and is significantly higher than the relatively androgynous Finland, we consider H5 in its general form to be confirmed. However, sub-hypotheses H5a and H5b are
3.81
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clearly disconfumed, but the alternative is certainly more interesting: in the face of a body of literature that suggests that the female gender is more interested in shopping (Alreck & Settle, 2002; Otnes & McGrath, 2001; Van Slyke et al., 2002), we find that less masculine societies display a similar interest in online shopping, as measured by expressed importance scores.
Hypothesis 6
This hypothesis specified that older consumers in any culture would be less interested or likely to shop online than younger consumers. The findings for this ANOVA are significant, but do not particularly support the hypothesized expectations. Even with F = 3.975, significant at .004, the only differences found in post hoc testing of group means are between the 18-24 and 25-34 age groups. 25-34 year olds have the highest involvement mean for all age groupings (37.65)' and this is significantly different in pair wise testing with the 18-24 group mean (33.14), but all other groups means are statistically the similar to each other, with means in the low 30's.
DISCUSSION
In only a few years, business use of the Internet has grown from a cautious experiment to a significant concern and challenge for many organizations. This has involved the innovative use of digital technologies for e-business transactions, marketing, and managing customer relationships. Yet, we know relatively little about the online shopping phenomena in various parts of the world, both in terms of theory and practice. In most cases, industry developments are leading academic research in this area, as researchers struggle to synthesize a body of knowledge from the day-today experiences of business and information technology practitioners.
The key consideration in applying the masculinity index results of Hofstede (1984) is the general consideration that men tend to be early adopters of Internet technology and innovators in subsequent Internet activities. This should translate into a finding that men are the more active online shoppers, at the least, and in crosscultural comparisons. It may mean that more masculine cultures are more likely to be more active in online shopping. However, consumer behavior and Internet use literature (cf., Alreck & Settle, 2002; Otnes & McGrath, 2001; Van Slyke et al., 2002) tempers the basic gender expectations for Internet activity based on Hofstede's (1984) masculinity findings with the consideration that women in busy societies are more in need of the conveniences offered by online shopping, and that shopping, in general, has been and continues to be a female gender role behavior in the modem household.
We find a mixture of results that indicate a little of each may be the case. Across the nations, there were no differences between men and women for involvement with online shopping, although more masculine cultures were specifically less likely to consider online shopping an important Internet activity than less masculine cultures. Yet, the most masculine culture (the U.S.) did demonstrate the highest frequency of shopping site visits - a finding that is tempered by the unexpected finding that the
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least masculine culture (Finland) was in the middle of the distribution of means, as opposed to the bottom.
Implications for E-Business Practice and Research
Clearly, the cultural case of Finland as regards the Internet bears more scrutiny: it is a highly wired nation (Lyytinen & Goodman, 1999), yet it is clearly an androgynous nation with regard to any cultural or demographic expectations related to gender- based roles in Internet use and online shopping. One speculation is that the Internet is a critical aspect of the communications infrastructure in a nation that spends much of its year in restrictive winter conditions, and that the process of online shopping is simply so much less a part of the critical utility that Internet connectivity provides Finnish society than it might be in a nation where Internet access serves a convenience as opposed to necessity role.
Finland
Current demographic accounts indicate that only 17% of Finland's Internet users shop online, which is unusual in light of the degree of Internet penetration in this wired nation. Firm size seems the largest drawback to the implementation of Finnish e- business ( Turunen, 2 OOO), since e -business is n ot a practical endeavor for b usiness that are not of a certain size (OECD, 1998). E-Business managers interested in fostering more ecomrnerce activity in Finland should look to ways to enable the small-to-medium size enterprise's entrance into e-commerce.
One of the major impediments to the growth of ecommerce initiatives in Finland is related to the lack of governmental support for associated security and credibility issues (Rekola & Pohjanpalo, 2002). Networks in Finland have been legislated in the past as a public good, guaranteeing access and service to citizens throughout the nation, but only at the expense of issues important to e-business and its customers, such as digital signatures for ecommerce (Turunen, 2000). The government is currently proposing initiatives for digital security issues (Rekola and Pohjanpalo, 2002), but that's a far step from actually enacting legislation to that end. Managers and researchers, alike, would do well to look to the factors underlying the slow growth of government support for digital rights and security issues fundamental to e-business operations. The influence of governmental lobbying efforts by concerned businesses might be a positive factor in this nation.
Turkey
As to Turkey, the Internet is far more of a necessity than a convenience to its consumers. This is a modem, emerging nation, even if it is lagging behind fully technological cultures such as that of Finland or the U.S., and the Internet represents a door to the world of modem commerce for Turks who seek modem products and services not available locally, but readily accessible through the Internet. As compared to the U.S., Turkish shopping site visit frequency is significantly lower, and compared to the U.S. and Finland, Turkish Internet use is lowest. Yet, comparisons
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shopping site access is quite high in Turkey, as demonstrated in the involvement with online shopping measure and the basic importance measure.
Even so, the real challenge to improving use of e-business technologies in Turkey is simple awareness of the capabilities (OECD, 1998). The major problem is that there is an access gap; the social and economic differences between the east and west parts of the country militate against equal access and nation-wide visibility of e-business and its a ssociated networking t ethnologies ( Atakan, Kayacik, H eywood & Eren, 2 002). Ranging from infrastructure to education, eastern portions of Turkey are poorer than the western parts. E-business managers and researchers interested in the amelioration of these factors can look to issues related to telecommunications network build*ut, and the establishment of new Internet Service Provider businesses in the underserved portions of the nation.
As with Finland, there is no governmental facilitation of digital rights or security legislation. Digital signatures have no legal standing, which surely inhibits much e- business activity (Atakan, Kayacik, Heywood & Eren, 2002), hence an additional high-value research and management issue in Turkey is the facilitation of government involvement in legislation that enables the sort of security and rights provisions necessary for sophisticated e-business initiatives to flourish. United States
Although the majority of issues that would interest MIS researchers and e-business managers are the issues that prevent emerging and developing markets fiom benefiting from the usefulness of e-business, our results here also show an interesting potential trend as regards the customers of U.S. e-businesses. In much of our analysis, we noted that other nations had higher involvement or importance scores for online
I shopping issues than did the U.S. subjects, even though a vast majority of the commerce activity that takes place online between the nations studied here takes place in the U.S. Is there any danger that U.S. customers have become too accustomed to e- commerce and its conveniences? By allowing customers to take e-business functionality for granted, do U.S. e-business run the risk of losing the differential advantage that comes from being perceived as new and interesting? If Arnazon.com is perceived as being no different from Wal*Mart, what reason would there be to shop online, except for when product-specific needs arose? The useful online dynamic of browsing might dwindle in the face of a utilitarian perception of e-business hnctionality.
While this may not yet be the case, researchers and managers should look to the possibility in their studies of customer preferences and activities, in order to find ways to keep online offerings new, interesting, compelling, and - hence - more fully utilized and profitable.
I Global E-Business Issues
Companies seeking to become global players must pay close attention to and find a delicate balance between globalization, localization, customization, translation and the
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growing trend towards internationalization. Striking a winning balance between these conflicting elements is by n o means trivial. Each of these elements is fraught with pitfalls if not done correctly. In addition, if a company is serious about conducting business in a certain country, it should at a minimum consider the unique legal, geopolitical, economic and cultural landscape of that country.
While U.S. companies have started recognizing the globalization opportunity, they still have to address the hurdles of strategy, language, culture and dynamic content. With e-commerce poised to boom in Europe, Asia and Latin America, it is time to think e-globally. An implication of this is that companies intending to enter a foreign market must do a detailed assessment to determine the factors that can facilitate or retard entry into the new market. Minimally, the assessment should focus on the following elements:
E-readiness of the country of entry Language Culture Government regulation Tax laws Local business practices
Each may consist of a variety of subelements that need to be assessed. For example, a sale to France could be taxed in three ways if the company had offices in Paris, and its servers were located in London, and its distribution center was in Cologne, Germany. However, this becomes an interesting problem when you are making a sale but not delivering a product in the UK, delivering a product but not making a sale in Germany, and making a sale and delivering a product in France. When you multiply that by the number of countries the company is doing business in and it soon gets very complicated. Add to that the fact that c ertain p roducts a re procured from C hina o r Taiwan and the picture gets so clouded that accountants and tax attorneys should be part of your development cycle if you are developing global e-commerce applications.
LIMITATIONS
The results obtained from this study must be interpreted in light of the limitations of the research setting. A caveat of this study is that it might not be appropriate to assume that the culture score of the entire country under investigation is the same as the score produced by subjects in a research sample since individuals might have drastically different cultural outlooks, even within the same country. One of the limitations of this study is that the findings are based on exploratory research on a limited data set. We surveyed college students in each nation; even though these subjects are highly representative of Internet users in most nations, they may not be individually representative of their host culture, at large. However, these findings can be validated on a larger data set that expands from the traditional exploratory study employing college students; this study establishes the starting point from which to develop closer investigations of each culture.
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Another limitation is that by relying on assumptions from Hofstede's model, this study did not take i nto account the subcultures within the boundaries o f any given country. Finally, it should be noted that all of the usual methodological limitations regarding survey research are applicable to the results presented in this study and that other research methodology may be useful to substantiate the findings observed in this investigation.
CONCLUSION
We specifically consider the cases of three different nations in this paper: the United States, Finland and Turkey. Each is culturally distinct, and each is utilizing e-business techniques at varying levels. As would be expected, the results for U.S. consumers reflect the technological sophistication of that society, but when considering gender roles in individual societies, some predictable differences emerged and other expected differences were strongly disconfirmed.
Hofstede's ( 1984) seminal cultural s tudy of nations h as remained a benchmark for evaluating differences between nations on technology use and diffusion even 20 years afier the fact, but the time that has passed since its original inception has inevitably diluted some of the predictive validity of certain variables. As regards the masculinity index and gender roles across cultures, it can be said that men continue to be early adopters of the Internet and its services, but it cannot be similarly said that culturally linked gender roles are absolutely predictive in the modem global marketplace. It will remain useful to consider culturally conveyed gender values as a predictor of certain Internet activities, at a very general level, but as cultures continue to mature and evolve in technologically sophisticated nations, it will also be likely that very general expectations based on Hofstede's early work will no longer strictly apply in every circumstance.
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Thomas F. Stafford has earned doctorates in marketing (University of Georgia, 1993) and MIS (University of Texas-Arlington, 2001). He is Assistant Professor of Management Information Systems at the Fogelman College of Business and Economics, the University of Memphis, where he teaches Global Information Systems. His MIS research has appeared in journals including the Journal of Global Information Technology Management. Communications of the ACM. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, and Information Resources Management Journal.
Aykut H. Turan is a graduate student at the University of Memphis and is continuing his PhD education. His concentration is management information systems and management science. In 1997, he was listed in who is who in American colleges and awarded scholarship by Turkish government. He has several conference proceedings.
Mahesh S. Raisinghani is a Program Director of eBusiness and a faculty member at the Graduate School of Management, University of Dallas, where he teaches MBA courses in Information Systems and eBusiness. Dr. Raisinghani was the recipient of the 1999 UD Presidential Award; 2001 King/Haggar Award for excellence in teaching, research and service; 2002 research award and a finalist at the 2002 Asian Chamber of Commerce awards. He serves as an associate editor and on the editorial review board of leading information systems/e-commerce journals and on the board of directors of Sequoia, Inc. Dr. Raisinghani is included in the millennium edition of Who's Who in the World, Who's Who Among America's Teachers and Who's Who in Information Technology.
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