Investigating cross-national heterogeneity in the adoption of online hotel reviews

Abstract

Increasing reliance of potential guests on online hotel reviews has given rise to trepidation among some hospitality managers recently, thus necessitating a better understanding of its adoption. Literature on multicultural studies have suggested that behavioral models do not universally hold across cultures. In view of the limited generalizability and applicability of extant cross-cultural studies to this context, this study generates cross-national insights into the antecedents of travelers' intention to use online hotel reviews to better understand the use of consumer-generated reviews across cultures. Generally, the predictive power of the model derived from the Motivation Theory and TAM holds true for both the United States and Singapore. Nonetheless, tests for structural invariance reveals some noteworthy differences between the two countries. The results highlight the complex cognitive mechanisms determining the acceptance of online hotel reviews in each country as moderated by national culture orientations. Findings hold implications for practitioners and researchers as they navigate through social media in different cultural contexts.