Abstract

This thesis is a cross-cultural study of eWOM, comparing the contexts of North America and China. Media content subscription, featured by invisibleness, is hard to predict before the subscription, thus eWOM becomes an externalization of the perceived quality of media content websites. Consumers from diverse cultural backgrounds may be affected to a different extent by positive and negative eWOM. This study also analyzes consumer behavior under the framework of the six Hofstede (2001) cultural variables: collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation, masculinity, and indulgence.
Electronic Word-of-Mouth(eWOM) has an impact on consumers’ perceived quality and brand loyalty of the website they subscribe to. This study will focus on both positive and negative eWOM to explore different patterns of the valence of eWOM by the following structure: first, analyze the mediation effect of perceived quality in the relationship between eWOM and brand loyalty; second, analyze the moderation effect of Hofstede’s six cultural variables.