A Cross-Continent Analysis of the Invariance of Product Information in Cross-Border Electronic Commerce

Abstract

Cross-border electronic-commerce (CBEC) is growing. However, due to differences in culture, habits, history and language among other factors, consumers in different regions may have different perception towards the same product information on CBEC platforms, which may lead to differences in their cognition of the product with implications for purchase intentions. Presently, little research has attempted to understand whether there are such differences between global consumers through the examination of measurement invariance (MI) in CBEC environments. By using multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis (MG-CFA), this study explored the invariance of two product information cognitions on CBEC platforms, namely product description and product awareness, among consumers in North America, Europe, Latin America and Oceania. Data was collected from users of a popular CBEC platform in China. We find no significant differences in understandings and levels of awareness of product information across the four groups of consumers.

Regional Culture and Digital Financial Inclusion in China

“…American financiers, Merton and Bodie (2005), introduced the concept of "New Institutional Finance", which sheds light on how non-economic factors such as national history, corporate culture, and trust environment influence corporate performance and finance development (Ali et al, 2021;Meso et al, 2021;Zhu et al, 2021). Culture, especially, as an informal institution, has also been demonstrated to have an indisputable influence (Khan et al, 2022).…”