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Given the explosive popularity and growth of microblogging worldwide and its potential use in the areas of public policy, civic activism, as well as marketing and advertising, the questions of why and how individuals use these services warrant a comprehensive research. While some studies addressing motivations to join and continue using Twitter have been published, no research to date has investigated these issues in the context of developing economies. This exploratory study seeks to build an understanding of Twitter usage and continuance motivations in Ukraine, and compares them to those of the US users. The findings of the study suggest that participants in both countries use Twitter for professional development, entertainment, status maintenance, and social interaction and exchange. The Ukrainian participants, however, emphasize Twitter use for identity negotiation and self-expression, as well as for news updates and sharing. The study also examines how different motivations of joining Twitter affect current Twitter usage and continuance intentions, and provides implications for public policy and advertising.

This study examines the impacts of message valence (positive/ negative/sided) and perceived source similarity on user attitudes towards mobile restaurant reviews and review persuasiveness in low-and high-context cultures. Two experiments were conducted in the USA and Ukraine. The results reveal significant differences in consumer paths to adopting mobile digital reviews in low-context vs. high-context cultures. They indicate that in low-context cultures positive reviews are perceived as more trustworthy, credible, and helpful than negative or two-sided reviews. The same relationships are observed in high-context cultures only under conditions of perceived source similarity. Review helpfulness and credibility, in turn, positively impact its persuasiveness in both high-and low-context communication traditions. Based on the findings, future research avenues and managerial implications are proposed.

This study explores the ethical ideology of students in order to find if ethical ideology is influenced by their academic studies. We use an ethical ideology concept that distinguishes between idealism and relativism, and we surveyed 228 Ukrainian students from two universities, engaged in one Business & Economics programme and one Translation & Interpreting programme. We found that a major is a significant predictor of ethical ideology. Moreover, we identified that students specializing in the Business & Economics programme showed differences in Idealism on a year by year basis compared to students of the Translation & Interpreting programme. We also discovered the presence of an interactive effect between years of study and educational programme, indicating a change of ethical ideology over the years. Additionally, we found that ethical ideology is related to gender and the individual’s well-being. Our conclusion is that university training in business studies appears to influence the ethical ideology of students.

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