A Comparative Study Of Chinese And American Consumers' Perception Of Online Retailers' Ethics

In the last two decades,as the popularity of Internet has risen rapidly,Internetbased business processes have been adopted by many retailers.However,this rapid development led to serious concerns about the ethical problems.And according to the previous studies,consumers' perceptions regarding the ethics of online retailers(CPEOR)would affect consumers' loyalty,word of mouth and long-term relationship with the retailer,which is crucial to the development of an online retailer.Meanwhile,consumers' perception of online retailer's ethics is different from that of traditional consumers,given its unique characteristics.Hence,researches about online consumer's perception of ethics are of vital importance.However in the current studies about CPEOR,there are not many about cultural influence on CPEOR,which can be a crucial factor influencing online market.So this thesis chooses to study the cultural influence on consumer's perception of online retailer's ethics.Based on the empirical study of Chinese and American consumers,this thesis focuses on studying the cultural influences on consumers' perception of online retailer's ethics.By combining Hofstede's theory of cultural dimensions and Román's theory of CPEOR,this research starts with comparing the results of cultural dimensions through the Individual Cultural Value Scale(CVSCALE)proposed by Yoo and Lenatowicz,and then combines the updated cultural differences to explain the differences in CPEOR between Chinese and American consumers by using the independent-samples T-test,single sample t-test and multivariate analysis of variance.The conclusions of this thesis are as follows:Firstly,according to the empirical study,the Chinese and American respondents have shown significant differences in the cultural dimensions of collectivism,uncertainty avoidance,time orientation and power distance;however the disparities are smaller than the findings made by Hofstede.Secondly,Chinese consumers' rank of perceived importance of the online retailers' ethics is security>privacy> fulfillment > non-deception,while American consumers' rank of perceived importance of online retailers' ethics is fulfillment > privacy > security > non-deception.Thirdly,there are significant differences in security,fulfillment and nondeception between Chinese and American consumers' perception of online retailers' ethics,which can be explained by differences in cultures.Meanwhile,the demographic factors,like gender,would also affect consumer's perception of online retailer's ethics.Finally,the difference in privacy between Chinese and American consumers' CPEOR is not significant,which can be explained by the fact that the cultural differences between China and America are not as huge as before,and that most of the respondents are young people who are more interested in their own benefit and would be cautious about their privacy.The research is important for both scholars and enterprises.On one hand,it provides an analytical framework of cross-cultural study in consumers' perception of online retailers' ethic.On the other hand,international online transactions can benefit from the results.Retailers can realize culture diversity and the cultural influences on consumers' perception of online ethic,and then design effective marketing strategies to cater to cultures.