The role of culture in consumer-generated content engagement:A cross-cultural examination of ‘liking’, commenting, sharing, and creating posts about brands on Facebook

Abstract

Even though the underlying factors behind engaging with Br-UGC, and consumers’ motivations to do so, appear to be similar across cultures, differences in cultural collectivism-individualism still exist and do have an effect on consumer engagement with Br-UGC. The evidence of cultural differences that has been presented in this dissertation helps to emphasize that Br-UGC engagement on SNSs does not occur in a cultural void. In particular, we should be aware that 1) consumers’ motivations for engaging with Br-UGC are not always the same between consumers in individualistic Western and collectivistic Eastern societies, 2) how consumers use Br-UGC to develop and maintain social relationships with others differs between cultures, and 3) the effect of Br-UGC characteristics on consumers’ decision to engage with the Br-UGC also differs between cultures