Acceptability of the COVID-19 contact-tracing app – Does culture matter?

Antecedent, behaviour, and consequence (a-b-c) of deploying the contact tracing app in response to COVID-19: Evidence from Europe

“…Trust is fundamental to every human activity and citizen's trust in government is a key and necessary condition for the acceptability of government programmes, projects, and interventions including the deployment of the contact tracing app ( Dzandu et al, 2022 ). However, contrary to expectation, there was a negative relationship between citizens' trust in the government doing the right thing in introducing the contact tracing app and their voluntary acceptance of the app ( H2 ); and a negative relationship between citizens' trust in the government doing the right thing in introducing the contact tracing app and their forced acceptance of the app ( H3 ), therefore H2 , H3 were not confirmed by the study.…”

“…These notwithstanding, the findings reiterate the role of trust in the acceptability of technology ( Safi et al, 2018 ; Söllner et al, 2016 ; Vannucci and Pantano, 2019 ; Heijden et al, 2003 ), trust not in the technology but the persons or institutions deploying the technology. Thus, mistrust or low level of trust negatively affects the acceptability of technology as shown by the outcomes for H2 , H3 , therefore government or institutions deploying new technologies should positively engage users at every point of the journey to enhance user trust, and then leverage the trust to enhance the adoption of new technologies especially during pandemics such as the COVID-19 ( Dzandu et al, 2022 ).…”

“…For example, government communication on the pandemic and the contact tracing app must be clear and unambiguous to ensure public understanding and trust in the government ( Mbunge, 2020 ; Saheb et al, 2022 ) and in the technology ( Ejdys, 2020 ). Anything short of transparent and adequate communication would affect public trust in the government ( Kumagai and Iorio, 2020 ; Saheb et al, 2022 ; Dzandu et al, 2022 ), and trust in the contact tracing app ( Kaspar, 2020 ). There is a need for the government to ensure equitable access to the contact tracing app to enhance the public and individual trust in the app for acceptability.…”

How culture orientation influences the COVID-19 pandemic: An empirical analysis

“…Although there are several studies against the cultural theory of Hofstede (Gerlach and Eriksson, 2021 ; Pelham et al, 2022 ) and many other cross-culture theories, more than half of the most recently published papers related to our topic used the data from Hofstede as a reference since 2021 (e.g., Chen and Biswas, 2022 ; Duarte et al, 2022 ; Dzandu et al, 2022 ; Jiang et al, 2022 ; Lucas et al, 2022 ; Sekar et al, 2022 ). At the same time, it is acknowledged in this study that there is no single truth in cross-cultural studies, but only that it is more useful (Zhe, 2015 ).…”

“…In addition to collectivism, Duarte et al ( 2022 ) argues that citizens in countries with greater power distance seem to be more receptive to hierarchical order, and specifically that people's respect for state authorities (including health professionals) and compliance with restrictive rules may lead to a higher level of commitment to restrictive rules and ultimately to a lower level of epidemic severity. Dzandu et al ( 2022 ) found that less indulgent countries (e.g., France, Italy, and Germany) were more receptive to the app than countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States. In countries with low indulgence, people are more willing to curb self-gratification for their needs and adhere to strict social norms, such as government calls for COVID-19 contact-tracing apps to be used together to tackle the outbreak.…”