How Cultural Dimensions Affect Purchase Intention on Social Commerce

It is well documented that customers with different cultural backgrounds react differently to the same content on social commerce, but researchers seem to overlook how customers’ cultural characteristics impact customer behavior on this emerging channel. This study in progress explores the influence of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions on customer behavior, including trust and purchase intention, in social commerce contexts. Based on state-of-the-art literature on the topic, we built a conceptual model to test the relationship between cultural dimensions: high-low power distance and individualism-collectivism, trust, and purchase intention. A preliminary study was conducted to collect data from Instagram users in the Netherlands and Vietnam, measuring their purchase intention towards four different advertising concepts. The initial results of this research support the argument that cultural dimensions play a role in customer behavior on social commerce, and therefore call for more attention towards the influence of cultural dimensions on trust and purchase intention on social commerce environments.