Theorizing Intercultural Accommodation in Consumer E-Commerce

Abstract

Consumer e-commerce extends the marketplace of traditional business and brings in business opportunities in online retailing and service. As a consequence of intensive competition among online vendors, the need to capture more customers has become crucial. The consumer group is under a huge change due to demographic shift and immigration laws. Population of minorities has dramatically increased suggesting a growing buying power of ethnic groups. To effectively attract ethnic consumers into consumer e-commerce Web sites, we propose the Web-based intercultural accommodation model. Drawing upon literature in linguistic, sociology, and Web information system success, this model offers a theoretical explanation of online ethnic consumers’ behavioral intention to use e-commerce Web site. The conceptual model recognizes the potential roles of ethnicity attributes of individual consumers as well as the use of ethnic pertaining Web site designs in accommodating ethnic consumers. The theoretical model is subject to empirical validation.