Marketing in the digital age: cultural values as agents of socially responsible marketing in the digital economy

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to determine the relationship between the characteristics of social marketing stakeholders and the degree of development of marketing systems in the digital economy. The results of the study are based on a critical analysis of the tools and processes of functioning of marketing systems in the context of digitalisation, and the changes it causes in marketing systems at basic and extended levels due to specific features inherent in the digital economy. The concept of cultural dimensions by Hofstede (2010) is applied to determine the collective behavioural characteristics of the most numerous stakeholders of social marketing, which are members of society in selected countries. A positive statistically significant correlation between the share of online shoppers against the indulgence index (R=.77) and the individualism index (R=.73) was found. There is a negative statistically significant correlation between the share of online shoppers against uncertainty avoidance (R=-.76), power distance (R=-.67), gender culture type (R=-.27) and long-term orientation (R=-.27). In general, a significant part of the expected impact of uncertainty avoidance is taken over by mechanisms that guarantee the protection of personal data from unauthorised use and security from fraud and crime committed in cyberspace.