Cross-Cultural Differences in the Usage of Online Experts: The Influence of Power Distance and Individualism

Abstract

The manner in which consumers utilize online reviewers for a purchasing decision has increasingly become an area of interest in both marketing practice and academics. However, while most academic research in this area has taken a Western viewpoint, the majority of new online consumers have come from Eastern nations. Therefore, this article takes a cross-cultural look at how consumers from Eastern nations, such as China and India, respond to expert and non-expert online reviewers as compared to consumers from Western nations, such as the United States and Canada. Across cultures, we view the impact of online reviewer expertise on a consumer’s intention to rely on that review’s advice and the perceived risk of that reviewer. Using results from an experimental study of 134 North American respondents and 132 Asian respondents, we discover that Asians are overall more likely to rely on advice from an online reviewer than are Americans. Interestingly, further analysis reveals that North Americans are more skeptical of, and therefore less reliant on, non-expert reviewers. Meanwhile, Asians are more forgiving of non-experts and, therefore, do not necessarily distinguish between experts and non-experts when deciding on whom to rely. This article highlights a clear difference between Asian expectations of online reviewers and American expectations.