Word of Mouth on The Internet - Cross-Cultural Analysis

„Word of mouth” na internetu – analiza kroskulturnih razlika

Sanja Mitić

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Issue:

51/2

DOI number:

UDK: 004.738.5:005.316.7

JEL classification:

M16, M31

Abstract

Development of the Internet and the technology of user generated content, allowed informal online communication between consumers (word of mouth). As the intensity of word of mouth on the Internet is growing, in terms of customers‘ comments, reviews on the products and services, and its potential influence on customer behaviour, this has become a contemporary topic in the literature. The topic of this paper is cross-cultural differences in generating word of mouth on the Internet. This paper aims to reveal main national cultural dimensions, in regard to Hofstede’s and Globe project’s methodology, that influence generating electronic word of mouth, on the sample of 15 European countries. The Western Balkans’ and the East Europe’s countries are included in the research, which was hard to find in different cross-cultural studies. The results show that members of individualistic cultures, where there is high uncertainty avoidance, as well as the members of cultures with high institutional collectivism, more often generate eWOM, in comparison to the members of collectivistic cultures, especially those with high in-group collectivism.

Apstrakt

Sa razvojem interneta i tehnologije generisanja sadržaja od strane korisnika neformalna komunikacija („word of mouth“) se pojavila i u onlajn okruženju. Zbog sve većeg intenziteta „word of mouth-a“ na internetu u vidu komentar, recenzija i ocena koji potrošači objavljuju o proizvodima i uslugama, kao i potencijalnog uticaja koji ova komunikacija ima na ponašanje potrošača, ova tema je postala aktuelna u akademskoj literaturi. Tema ovog rada su kroskulturne razlike u generisanju word of mouth-a na internetu. Cilj rada je pokazati na koji način dimenzije nacionalnih kultura, prema metodologiji Hofstede-a i projekta Globe, utiču na generisanje elektronskog word of mouth-a, na primeru 15 zemalja Evrope. Među analiziranim zemljama se nalaze i zemlje Zapadnog Balkana i istočne Evrope, koje nisu bile obuhvaćene kroskulturnim studijama. Rezultati pokuzuju da pripadnici individualističkih kultura, sa visokim stepenom izbegavanja neizvesnosti, kao i visokog institucionalnog kolektivizma u većem stepenu generišu eWOM, u odnosu na pripadnike kolektivističkih kultura, a posebno u slučaju visokog kolektivizma unutar grupe.

References

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