National cultures and their impact on electronic word of mouth: a systematic review

Abstract

PurposeThis paper aims to summarize peer-reviewed journal articles on national cultures and electronic word of mouth (eWOM) behavior, identify the main findings and patterns among those studies and discuss research gaps that need to be addressed in the future.Design/methodology/approachA systematic review process was utilized to analyze peer-reviewed journal articles on both eWOM and national cultures. The main research questions were defined, then proceeded by the identification of exclusive and inclusive criteria to search for relevant articles, which were further filtered based on abstracts and full texts, and then scrutinized for main findings and major variables such as countries, cultural variables and data collection methods.FindingsAn analysis of 52 papers shows that national cultures, primarily Hofstede's dimensions, influence the willingness of individuals to share eWOM, how they write eWOM and the extent to which they use eWOM to make decisions. Although the reviewed studies have provided insightful implications for marketing theory and practice, the present paper has identified a number of important questions that warrant future research attention.Originality/valueeWOM is continually being employed as a popular source of information for consumers throughout different countries to make their purchase decisions. However, eWOM behavior differs from country to country due to national cultures, and managers' eWOM strategies that work in one country may not be applicable in another. Therefore, there has been an increasing interest in this topic. Nevertheless, it remains unclear which subjects have been addressed and what areas are yet to be investigated. This paper presents a comprehensive review of how national cultures affect eWOM behavior by drawing upon prior research and provides directions for future research contributions.