CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISONS OF INTERACTIVITY ON CORPORATE WEB SITES: The United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and South Korea

This study is a cross-cultural examination of interactivity on U.S., U.K., Japanese, and South Korean corporate Web sites. Each Web site was content-analyzed for use of various interactivity functions. Using cultural difference criteria of high versus low context, power distance, and individualism-collectivism, this study compares three dimensions of interactivity on the Web sites of each country's top 50 advertisers. Twenty-five interactivity functions/indicators, classified into three interactivity dimensions, were used in the final data analysis to test three research hypotheses. Our findings indicate that Western Web sites tend to emphasize consumer-message (H1) and consumer-marketer interactivity (H2), whereas Eastern Web sites highlight consumer-consumer interactivity (H3). Implications of the findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.