Revealing the effect of acculturation process on e-commerce acceptance. The case of intra-European acculturation

Published date09 July 2018
Pages1251-1265
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-11-2017-0509
Date09 July 2018
AuthorEwelina Lacka,Nick K.T. Yip
Subject MatterInformation & knowledge management,Information systems,Data management systems,Knowledge management,Knowledge sharing,Management science & operations,Supply chain management,Supply chain information systems,Logistics,Quality management/systems
Revealing the effect of
acculturation process on
e-commerce acceptance
The case of intra-European acculturation
Ewelina Lacka
Adam Smith Business School, College of Social Sciences,
University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK, and
Nick K.T. Yip
Norwich Business School, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
Abstract
Purpose The popularity of e-commerce has increased significantly overrecent years. However,this growth is
not sharedby all EuropeanUnion states.One reason for thisdiscrepancy is culturewhich impactson e-commerce
acceptance. The purposeof this paper is to revealthe effect of acculturation processon e-commerce acceptance.
Design/methodology/approach Structural equation modelling is employed to test three research models:
technology acceptance model, theory of planned behaviour model and motivational model.
Findings The findings show that attitudes towards e-commerce change in relation to the perception of
control and the influence of subjective norms, which impact intentions to use e-commerce before movement to
a host countrys culture. However, its effect diminishes after the exposure to the influence of a host culture.
Originality/value This is the first study to demonstrate the existence of the effect of acculturation process
on mingling and migrating consumers and their changing attitudes towards e-commerce acceptance.
Keywords Culture, Technology acceptance, E-commerce, Europe, Acculturation
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Online shopping or e-commerce has become a common practice for consumers. In 2015,
nearly 1.5bn consumers worldwide purchased products via e-commerce (Statista, 2017a) and
this number is forecasted to be in excess of 2bn globally by 2019. E-commerce therefore is a
vital shopping channel for consumers worldwide (Chaparro-Pelaez et al., 2016).
Furthermore, it is an important accelerator of global trade (Deng and Wang, 2016) as it
generates US$3.4tn in B2C e-commerce sales worldwide (Statista, 2017b). North America is
currently the largest regional market for online shopping, with predicted sales growth of US
$1.5tn by 2018 (Statista, 2017c). This is followed by China and Europe, where among the
28 European Union member countries (EU), one out of five businesses sell its products via
e-commerce (Eurostat, 2017).
To this end, the EU represents an interesting case study. Despite the lack of internal
borders ensured by European Single Market policy, there appears a wide variation in the
share of e-sales across its member countries. For example, while e-sales in the UK in 2016
exceeded 71.05bn, e-sales in countries such as Poland and Sweden only amounted to
6.03bn and 5.74bn respectively. Furthermore, despite the EU directive of free movement
of goods and people, it appears that cross border e-commerce has not been fully exploited by
EU businesses. Statistics show only 8 per cent of EU businesses made e-sales to other EU
countries (Eurostat, 2014). This implies that although e-commerce, being an unarguably
attractive strategy for consumers and businesses, not all EU consumers uniformly use it as
a shopping channel. There is evidence to suggest that this discrepancy is due to the effect
consumersculture has on technology acceptance.
Industrial Management & Data
Systems
Vol. 118 No. 6, 2018
pp. 1251-1265
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0263-5577
DOI 10.1108/IMDS-11-2017-0509
Received 2 November 2017
Revised 5 February 2018
Accepted 1 April 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0263-5577.htm
1251
Acculturation
process

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