You are here: UK Essays » Essays » Cultural Studies » Internet Shopping Individualism

Cookie Information

Privacy Information

Internet Shopping Individualism

The paper explores the affect of two national culture dimensions, as proposed by Hofstede (1980) , individualism-collectivism and uncertainty avoidance on internet shopping rates in different regions over a wide range of countries using explained variance and combined variance by factors like national income level, educational level, economic growth rate, unemployment rate and crime rate. Also the relationship between these two factors and whether / how they have an affect on each other as well shall be studied. Lastly the implications for national and internet firm-level web design strategies are also looked into.

Research Objective

Ignoring the set of contextual factors it is seen that the afore mentioned cultural dimensions i.e. individualism-collectivism and uncertainty avoidance affect the internet shopping behavior and the resultant usage rate in various countries primarily because of the immense role trust plays in the readiness to have faith in the invisible online suppliers. The objectives of this study are:

• Find the rates for different countries with different levels of uncertainty avoidance.

• Find the rates of countries on different levels of individualism / collectivism as opposed to each other

• Analysis of how national income in relation with national culture and educational level affects affects internet shopping rates across countries.

• Find how when combined, which resultant possible combination leads to the highest internet adoption rate i.e high uncertainty avoidance-individualist, high uncertainty avoidance-collectivist, low uncertainty avoidance-individualist or low uncertainty avoidance-collectivist.

Problem Statement

To what extent do conceptual and contextual dimensions, co relate with cultural variances? To further substantiate the argument we can analyze why the countries with high national income have low internet shopping rates.

Benefits of study

• The results of the study could be used to formulate national and firma level internet strategies which would be targeted to attract more internet shopping.

• This study could help tap the markets with high income groups more effectively.

• Through the use of individual level logic in this study, marketers can make predictions about how people's online shaping behavior are shaped by norms and values and can better understand and formulate a marketing strategy accordingly and try to bring about a change in perceptions.

• This study will also provide implications for firm level web-design strategies; using the right combination of web platform, content, colors and language for a specific segment of customers.

Research Design

The first step would be regarding the collection of the related data for Independent Variables which are Individualism Index (IDV) and Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI) which are obtained from Hofstede (1991) data of 50 countries. Data from Taylor Nelson Sofre's report of 36 countries will be merged with 33 countries' data of Hofstede and therefore this research paper will be on the basis of these 33 countries in total.

Five control variables are present; per capita GDP, educational level, unemployment rate, economic growth rate and crime rate. The data on GDP, economic growth rate and unemployment rate will be gathered from World Factbook, The International Monetary Fund (2001)

The data for educational level will be gathered in terms of school enrollment rate which will be obtained from United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture, Institute for Statistics' online data base (UNESCO, 2002)

Crime rate will be analyzed in terms of Internet crime which will be collected from the Interpol's website (Interpol, 2003) which has been set up to facilitate cross-border criminal police cooperation and has a number of 181 countries as members. Crime rate will also be analyzed by country and will be taken as the sum of total number of offences contained in national crime statistics in addition to major categories of crime in each of the member countries.

The next step will be the investigation of Dependent Variables which is the Internet shopping adoption rate by country. This variable is defined in terms of internet users who have bought goods or services online during the last month. The population base used is Internet users.

The Quantitative Methods used will be the Linear Regression Model which is used because of the rationale that the effect of Income on Internet percentage rate, both being numerical and quantitative figures, can be reflected accurately through this model. Also scatter plots will be used to reflect the relationship between IDV, UAI and internet shopping rates.

The Qualitative Methods include Document Analysis in which a grant from Research Grants Council, China will be used effectively in addition to many secondary sources of information.

Data Analysis

As mentioned above, linear regression model will be used to test our research objectives. This method will be controlled by a set of contextual factors which will help in controlling and understanding the related factors for analysis purpose, regarding the effects of the two cultural dimensions effectively. A four step hierarchical linear regression model will be put to use to facilitate in the results. This process is four stepped, with each new step a new independent variable shall be combined with the previous ones. The first step consists of income alone, second will consist of educational level, economic growth rate, unemployment rate and crime rate. In the third step, the two dimensions will be added IDV and UAI, and the fourth step will include the interaction term.

As the table illustrates we will first of all analyze the income effect on internet adoption rate and than we will move step by step analyzing the effect and its influences on internet penetration rate in various countries.

Limitations of the study

Following are some of the limitations are research might be facing

• Small number of countries selected. 33 out of the 50 are being included. However the effect should not be to a large extent since most of the countries excluded are the ones with a very low internet usage.

• The population is restricted to internet users in which many will be those who have skill sets on a very initial level and do not completely understand the pros and cons of e-commerce.

• Main source of research is just secondary data which could at times could be less adequate than primary sources of data like surveys.

Nature and Form of Results:

Finally, once the collection of the data is complete and regression analysis has been performed the results of the research are to be presented graphically, so as to clearly present the results and findings in the shape of tables and graphs. These tables and graphs shall also be explained theoretically for a better explanation of the research. Some examples (dummy) are given below

Figure # 1 - Dummy table

Budget

The following is a hypothetical budget for the preparation of the research paper:

Schedule

Bibliography

Williamson, O.E. (1985) The Economic Institutions of Capitalism, Free Press: New York.

Hirschey, M. and Pappas , L. (1993) Managerial Economics, 7^th edition, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers: Orlando, FL.

Nielsen/Netratings (2001) ‘Global Internet trends: Europe/ Middle East/Africa/Latin America.

Hofstede, G.H. (1980) Culture's Consequences, Sage: Beverly Hills, CA

Kai H Lim et al, (2004) Journal of International Business Studies 35, 545-559

Sign up and be the first to receive our latest offers: