Micro-culture and consumers adoption of technology: A need to re-evaluate the concept of national culture

Abstract

The impact of culture on, and cross-cultural differences in, buying behavior and purchase intentions are extensively researched in the marketing literature. The intuitive conclusion that the social influences to which one is exposed alters attitudes, beliefs and values and thus ones preferences for goods and services is borne out by that research. However, in almost all research on national culture an homogeneity of the nation is assumed through the use of single, mean values on a limited series of dimensions (Hofstede) or syndromes (Triandis). In this paper we argue that some societies are strongly multi-cultural (e.g. Malaysia) and that the assumption that all nationalities are mono-cultural is fundamentally flawed. This argument is founded on the suggestions by Steenkamp (inter alia) that there is a need within the cultural impact research to "account for within-country heterogeneity". This conceptual paper explores whether and how, in multicultural societies such as Malaysia and the United Kingdom, such intra-national heterogeneity affects technology adoption. The hypothesis of micro- or intra-national cultural impact on consumer behavior is explored through development of a conceptual framework that integrates cultural variables into a consumer intentions model, that being based on a combination of the Theory of Planned Behavior (Azjen) and the Technology Readiness construct (Parasuraman). While actual behavior might be a more robust outcome measure, a considerable body of research supports the mediating role of intention between behavioral antecedents and actual behavior, and so the selected outcome (dependent) variable in the espoused model is intention (in particular the intention to make internet purchases). Arguing from an analysis of the TPB and TR models, five antecedents of the intention to adopt a technology are identified--attitude towards the behavior, social (subjective) norms, perceived behavioral control, self-efficacy and technological innovativeness.

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