Peter Broeder

Colour Preference of Online Consumers: a Cross- Cultural Perspective

Abstract This study focuses on the influence of colour on the online purchasing intention of consumers. The literature review about colour associations showed that several factors could play a mediating role in the relationship between colour and purchasing intention. Two of these factors are emotion and trust, which have been shown in previous studies to have a relationship both with certain colours and with online purchasing intention. The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between colour and online purchasing intention, taking into account the influence of emotion, trust and cultural differences between Western and Asian cultures. The method used to investigate these relationships was an online survey, which has been conducted amongst 522 participants from seven countries that can be separated in Western (The Netherlands, Germany and United Kingdom) and Asian (China, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia) cultures. The survey asked the participants about their cultural background, attitudes towards the product and message, emotions, level of trust, colour influences and experience. When filling in the survey, an image was presented to the participants that showed an online shopping background, a coloured context and a simple digital photo camera. Only the coloured context of this image varied amongst the participants; every participant answered the questions being exposed to one colour: red, yellow or blue. The results of the study showed that the direct relationship between colour and online purchasing intention was supported only for the colour yellow and that emotion indeed played a mediating role between colour and online purchasing intention, although no clear relationships could be defined between colours on the one hand and emotion and trust on the other hand. Concerning the cultural differences, results on emotion were found for both Western and Asian cultures, but trust was shown to influence the relationship between colour and online purchasing intention only for Asian consumers. The results partly confirmed the findings of previous studies, but also highlighted areas that need to be studied in more detail or by using another method. Overall, the study showed that colour does influence online purchasing intention, so companies should consider this when persuading consumers to buy their products.

The use of English in Dutch text messages as a function of communicative constraints

The influence of English on other languages such as Dutch is still growing. But how does this influence show up in actual day to day verbal behavior? A promising domain to study this issue is texting by young adults. How often and in what ways do they use English in their digital messages? Are there context factors at work that make them rely less or more on English? In an experimental study the influence of two pragmatic factors has been assessed: social distance and subjective costs. How familiar is the sender with the receiver, and how intrusive is the message? In response to four sketches of a communicative situation, 38 young adults composed in all 148 text messages. Both pragmatic factors proved to be effective. English words and phrases were used most often in communicating with peers for a ‘light’ reason. When addressing more senior receivers with a rather intrusive message, English was used far less. In the undemanding situation English features outnumbered the Dutch ones; in the more demanding situation this pattern was reversed, now the Dutch features were the more frequent ones. The use of English showed a positional effect as well: it occurred for the most part at the beginning and ending of the message, leaving the core content almost untouched. Each of these effects shows that texters take into account several pragmatic considerations. If English is becoming an integral part of Dutch text messages, it seems to do so in a deliberate way.

Location privacy online : China, the Netherlands and South Korea

The aim of the study is to explore cross-cultural differences in users’ location privacy behaviour on LBSNs (location-based social networks) in China, the Netherlands and Korea. The study suggests evidence that Chinese, Dutch and Korean users exhibit different location privacy concerns, attitudes to social influence, perceived privacy control and willingness to share location-related information on LBSNs. The results show that in general, the more concerned users are about location privacy, the less they are willing to share and it also suggests that location privacy concern and social influence affect each other. Furthermore, the more control people perceive they have over their privacy, the more they are willing to share location information. A negative relationship between willingness to share location information and users’ actual sharing of location information was seen. In short, it is concluded that the relation between cultural values and location privacy behaviours only have a partial connection.