Online Brand Community across Cultures: A Comparison between the US and Korea

Abstract

The study provides empirical evidence of cultural differences reflected in online brand communities. We analysed 184 consumer-generated brand communities in social networking websites across two cultures (the US and Korea) in terms of how differences in Hofstede's cultural dimensions (individualism, collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, and masculinity/femininity) are manifested. Overall, the results of the study indicate that online consumer-generated brand communities are not culturally neutral, but culture-bound. In particular, the results suggest that brand communities in Korea have significantly more indicators of individualism, collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and power distance than do brand communities in the US. However, there was no difference on the masculinity/femininity dimension between the two cultures.