Page 111 - Culture Technology Communication

96 Carleen F. Maitland and Johannes M. Bauer

identify the driving factors in this diffusion across the globe. With
nations as the unit of analysis, a broad range of variables, including
culture, are identified as possible explanatory variables. In the fol-
lowing sections the variables and sources of data are first discussed.
Subsequently, the types of analysis and results are presented. Fi-
nally, we discuss the implications of the results for future studies
involving culture.

Research Questions, Variables, and Data

This research proposes to examine Internet diffusion at the global
level. Using the theoretical concepts present above two general re-
search questions arise:

• Which diffusion variables explain differences in adoption
between countries? Do these same variables explain dif-
fusion within countries?

• How do cultural variables compare to economic and
infrastructure variables in terms of their explanatory
power?

Previous studies of Internet diffusion and our theoretical discussion
above suggest that a wide range of competing and interdependent
forces are driving the complex Internet diffusion process. Although
the role of culture in this process is interesting on its own, our ques-
tion about culture is, how does it compare to other more commonly
used attributes for describing ICT diffusion such as wealth and tech-
nical capabilities? In this global level analysis, explanatory variables
will be represented by national level indicators, including national
level measures of culture. To simplify the analysis the explanatory
variables will be grouped into categories representing infrastructure,
the national economy, and national culture. Their roots in diffusion
theory are mapped onto specific categories of variables and are shown
in Table 1. A more in-depth discussion of the variables follows.

VARIABLES

Diffusion studies have shown that relative advantage, usually in
terms of cost, and compatibility is the most powerful for predicting
adoption (Tornatzky and Klein 1982; Eastlick 1993). It will not be
surprising, therefore, if in this study high GDP, which makes the