 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
|
 |
•
•
•
Industry concentration
These structural conditions vary from country to country and even within
country.²
They are not fully captured in measures of national culture (Hofstede,
1983, 1991), and they may not co-vary with measures of national culture. In other
words, while the cultural orientations of people in Beijing and Singapore might be
similar, the structural conditions in these two locales differ considerably—and so
does electronic commerce activity. Therefore, while Hofstede’s cultural measures
capture to some extent the differences between eastern and western business
practices (Davison, 1996), they do not provide adequate insight into how
(in what
ways and the processes by which) and
why
e-commerce activity differs in various
parts of the world. For that one also needs an understanding of structural factors.
Just how important it is to look beyond broad characterizations of national
culture is amply demonstrated by a study of organizational control practices in
Chinese joint ventures: Robins and Zhiang (2000) found significant differences
between Sino-American and Sino-Japanese joint ventures, indicating that the
multinational parent, not just the local culture, is an important explanatory factor.
The conclusion is that national culture alone does not make a satisfying
explanation of e-commerce activity. Further, an accurate understanding of cross-
country (and cross-location within countries) electronic commerce behavior
requires careful attention to local structural factors. These observations have
several implications for future global information management research.
First, the line of argument presented in this paper suggests the value of
systematic research on the relationship between structural factors and various
measures of e-commerce activity. Further, one wants to know to what extent do
structural factors exert an effect independent of cultural dimensions
on e-
commerce activity. One type of study addressing such issues would be a multivari-
ate analysis of individual e-commerce purchasing behavior in different locales with
average home size, home Internet access, credit card penetration rates, taxation
benefits and cultural dimensions as dependent variables. Another would be a quasi-
experimental design in which locales are selected for cultural homogeneity but
variation on structural factors—hypotheses about effects of structural factors
would be tested by pattern matching.