This study aims to explore the depiction of cultural values on global websites. There exists a research gap in terms of better understanding cross-cultural differences in web communications between the Arab and Western worlds. Thus, we conducted content analysis to examine the cultural values on websites from Arab countries and the U.S. The results suggest that local websites of Arab countries and the United States tend to differ significantly from each other on cultural contents. The proposed cultural findings can serve as a guide for creating culturally congruent international websites.

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PurposeThe objective of this article is to investigate the moderating role of national cultures in the relationship between brand value and firm value.Design/methodology/approachThis article examines the topic in the context of different national cultural attributes, including individualism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, power distance, and long-term orientation. We use brand values of the Financial Times Global 500 companies and national cultural values reported by Hofstede, GLOBE, and Schwartz.FindingsResults exhibit that brands are more value-additive to companies in highly individualistic cultures. Furthermore, a valuable brand contributes more to firm value in countries with low uncertainty avoidance, high masculine, low power distance, and short-term oriented cultures.Originality/valueThe evidence suggests that while a valuable brand contributes to firm value, the level of its effect on firm value varies by national cultures.

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The objectives of this study are firstly, to explore cultural values of South Korean websites; secondly, to investigate whether multinational companies take a standardized global web strategy or culturally localize website contents for foreign markets; and lastly, to examine whether a regionalized web strategy can be used for countries that have low cultural distance. Content analysis was conducted to measure and explore website localization efforts by South Korean local companies, and U.S. and Japanese multinational enterprises in their home markets as well as in their host markets when localizing web content for South Korean B-to-C e-commerce markets. The findings from the study revealed that Korean cultural values are reflected on their local websites, that U.S. multinational firms are not culturally adapting their websites for Korean consumers, and that Japanese multinational corporations follow a standardized website strategy for Korean online shoppers.