The Effects of National Culture Values on Consumer Acceptance of E- commerce

64 Pages·2015·1.31 MB·English

The Effects of National Culture Values
on Consumer Acceptance of E-
commerce: The Swedish Case

ARVID WAHLBERG

Master of Science Thesis
Stockholm, Sweden 2015
The Effects of National Culture Values on
Consumer Acceptance of E-commerce: The
Swedish Case

Arvid Wahlberg

Master of Science Thesis INDEK 2015:10
KTH Industrial Engineering and Management
Industrial Management
SE-100 44 STOCKHOLM
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Master of Science Thesis INDEK 2015:10

The Effects of National Culture Values on
Consumer Acceptance of E-commerce: The
Swedish Case

Arvid Wahlberg

Approved Examiner Supervisor
2015-03-26 Kristina Nyström Terrence Brown
Commissioner Contact person
Terrence Brown Arvid Wahlberg

Abstract
A large amount of research has been conducted in order to seek explanations that clarify e-
commerce acceptance throughout the world; however, there is a gap in the research as to
how e-commerce acceptance is attributable to national culture. Two previous studies (Yoon,
2009), (Capece, et al., 2013) used Hofstede’s five dimensions of national culture in
conjunction with the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as a means to filling this gap with
perspectives on low-acceptance populations (China in 2008 and Italy in 2013). The study
presented in this paper is a continuation of the previous work, offering a perspective on a
high-acceptance population (Sweden).
The main research question is about investigating how Swedish e-commerce acceptance is
related to national culture, and the answer is sought by probing on the Swedish perspective
of e-commerce in the light of the TAM, e-commerce trust, and Hofstede’s five dimensions of
national culture in an online survey. The data is analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling
(SEM), and compared to the findings of the Chinese and Italian precursors. Furthermore, an
attempt is made to explain the contrast between the comparably high e-commerce
acceptance in Sweden to the lower degrees of acceptance in China and Italy.
Key-words
E-commerce, National Culture, E-commerce penetration, E-commerce acceptance, Sweden,
TAM, Technology Acceptance Model, Hofstede’s dimensions of national culture, Trust, SEM,
PLS-Graph
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Professor Terrence Brown at Royal Institute of Technology for his
continued support and advice, his unfailing patience and persistence.
I would also like to thank Guendalina Capece of the University of Rome, author of the Italian
precursor of this thesis, for being helpful beyond all expectation, and providing the original
work, together with its survey. Having the Italian version significantly improved the
prospects of repeating the survey, and thus better improved the relevance of the
comparison between the Swedish and the Italian results. Thanks are due to Coelho Yoon,
creator of the original study, for providing helpful insights into his methodology, and Dr.
Wynne Chin of the University of Houston, Texas for so generously granting license to her
software PLS-Graph, which was used for vital parts of the analysis.
Finally, I would like to thank Muriel and Claes Henning, my mother and my father, and all the
people that shared personal information, thoughts, and opinions by completing the survey
and by otherwise helping me along the road.

Thank You,
Arvid

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List of acronyms
Abbreviation Explanation
PDI Hofstede’s Power Distance Index
IDV Hofstede’s Individualism Index
MAS Hofstede’s masculinity index
UAI Hofstede’s Uncertainty Avoidance Index
LTO Hofstede’s Long-Term Orientation Index
TAM Technology Acceptance Model
PU Perceived Usefulness factor in TAM
PEOU Perceived Ease Of Use factor in TAM
IUSE Intention to Use factor in TAM
AVE Average Variance Extracted
IS Information System
ICT Information and communications technology

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Table of figures
Table 1 E-commerce classes ..................................................................................................... 15
Table 2 E-commerce acceptance; Antecedents and Consequences ........................................ 17
Table 3 Selected key differences between small and large power distance societies ............ 23
Table 4 Selected key differences between collectivist and individualist societies .................. 24
Table 5 Selected key differences between Feminine and Masculine societies ....................... 26
Table 6 Selected key differences between weak and strong uncertainty avoidance societies
.................................................................................................................................................. 26
Table 7 Selected key differences between Short-term and long-term orientation societies . 27
Table 8 Descriptive statistics of the respondents .................................................................... 34
Table 9 Loadings of remaining items onto latent constructs, showing discriminant validity . 40
Table 10 Comparison between square root of AVE of each latent construct and correlation
with every other latent construct, and CCR. ............................................................................ 41
Table 11 Hofstede’s five dimensions; scores for Sweden, Italy and China .............................. 45
Table 12 Survey scores for Hofstede’s dimensions for Sweden and China. Italian scores were
not available. ............................................................................................................................ 45
Table 13 Descriptive statistics of survey data .......................................................................... 46
Table 14 Evaluation of hypotheses H1 – H6; path coefficients and t-values ........................... 46
Table 15 Evaluation of Hypotheses H7 – H12; comparison of Main Effects Model with
Interaction Model ..................................................................................................................... 47
Table 16 Pearson Correlation between constructs (standardized) ......................................... 48
Table 17 Historical evaluations of Hypoteses H1 – H6 ............................................................ 51
Table 18 Historical evaluations of Hypotheses H7 – H13 ........................................................ 52

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Table of content
Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... 4
List of acronyms ......................................................................................................................... 5
Table of figures ........................................................................................................................... 6
Table of content ......................................................................................................................... 7
1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 11
1.1 Overview of the area ...................................................................................................... 11
1.2 Background ..................................................................................................................... 11
1.2.1 The Swedish case ..................................................................................................... 12
1.2.2 Previous work ........................................................................................................... 13
1.3 Research question .......................................................................................................... 13
1.4 Purpose ........................................................................................................................... 13
1.5 Scope/delimitation ......................................................................................................... 14
2 Theoretical Frameworks ........................................................................................................ 15
2.1 What is e-commerce? ..................................................................................................... 15
2.1.1 Consequences of e-commerce on sustainability ..................................................... 15
2.1.2 Acceptance of e-commerce ..................................................................................... 16
2.2 Motivations for shopping online .................................................................................... 17
2.2.1 Price.......................................................................................................................... 17
2.2.2 Convenience ............................................................................................................. 18
2.2.3 Selection ................................................................................................................... 18
2.3 Trust and risk .................................................................................................................. 18
2.3.1 Various perspectives on trust .................................................................................. 19
2.3.2 Online trust and trust in e-commerce ..................................................................... 19
2.4 Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) ........................................................................... 21
2.4.1 TAM and Trust .......................................................................................................... 22
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2.5 Hofstede’s five dimensions of national culture .............................................................. 23
2.5.1 Power Distance (PDI) ............................................................................................... 23
2.5.2 Individuality (IDV) ..................................................................................................... 23
2.5.3 Masculinity (MAS) .................................................................................................... 25
2.5.4 Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI) ................................................................................... 26
2.5.5 Long versus short-term orientation (LTO) ............................................................... 26
2.6 Research hypotheses and model .................................................................................... 28
2.6.1 TAM and Trust .......................................................................................................... 28
2.6.2 Impact of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions on TAM-antecedents of IUSE and Trust 29
3 Methodology ......................................................................................................................... 32
3.1 Literature Study .............................................................................................................. 32
3.2 Survey ............................................................................................................................. 32
3.2.1 Purpose .................................................................................................................... 33
3.2.2 Respondents ............................................................................................................ 33
3.2.3 Survey questions ...................................................................................................... 34
3.3 Statistical methods ......................................................................................................... 37
3.3.1 Validation and treatment of input data ................................................................... 37
3.3.2 Hypothesis evaluation .............................................................................................. 41
3.4 Limitations ...................................................................................................................... 42
3.5 Ethical considerations ..................................................................................................... 43
4 Empirical findings .................................................................................................................. 45
4.1 Survey Data ..................................................................................................................... 45
4.2 Hypotheses H1 – H6 ....................................................................................................... 46
4.3 Hypotheses H7 – H13 ..................................................................................................... 46
5 Analysis .................................................................................................................................. 49
5.1 Evaluation of the model ................................................................................................. 49
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5.1.1 Hypotheses H1- H6 .................................................................................................. 49
5.1.2 Hypotheses H7- H13 ................................................................................................ 51
6 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 52
7 Future research ..................................................................................................................... 55
8 References ............................................................................................................................. 56
8.1 Bibliography .................................................................................................................... 56
9 Appendix ................................................................................................................................ 61
9.1 Appendix A: Survey questionnaire – English translation from Swedish ........................ 61
9.1.1 Perceived usefulness (PU) ........................................................................................ 61
9.1.2 Perceived ease of use (PEOU) .................................................................................. 61
9.1.3 Trust (TRUST) ........................................................................................................... 61
9.1.4 Intention to use (IUSE) ............................................................................................. 61
9.1.5 Power Distance Index (PDI) ...................................................................................... 61
9.1.6 Individuality Index (IDV) ........................................................................................... 62
9.1.7 Masculinity Index (MAS) .......................................................................................... 62
9.1.8 Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI).......................................................................... 62
9.1.9 Long Term Orientation (LTO) ................................................................................... 62
9.2 Appendix B: Survey questionnaire – English version of original study .......................... 62
9.2.1 Perceived usefulness (PU) ........................................................................................ 63
9.2.2 Perceived ease of use (PEOU) .................................................................................. 63
9.2.3 Trust (TRUST) ........................................................................................................... 63
9.2.4 Intention to use (IUSE) ............................................................................................. 63
9.2.5 Power distance (PDI) ................................................................................................ 63
9.2.6 Individualism (IDV) ................................................................................................... 64
9.2.7 Masculinity (MAS) .................................................................................................... 64
9.2.8 Uncertainty avoidance (UAI) .................................................................................... 64
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9.2.9 Long-term orientation (LTO) .................................................................................... 64

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