Measurement development for cultural characteristics of mobile Internet users at the individual level

Abstract

Culture plays an important role in how an information technology is developed and used. However, few studies attempt to identify the cultural traits most relevant to the specific technology being examined. The main purpose of this study is to develop measures for cultural characteristics of individual users with a specific information technology, the mobile Internet. We propose measures for four cultural characteristics important in the context of the mobile Internet, which are expected to be widely used in the future. The proposed measures were verified empirically through online surveys conducted in seven countries. The results indicate that the measures have high validity and reliability, as well as comparability among the seven countries. The paper ends with a discussion of the study's limitations and implications. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.