| Rapid developments in the area of telecommunications and information technologies have brought about dramatic changes in the way organizations conduct business and influenced the way organizations gain competitive advantages. Among these evolutions, some of the most prominent are the Internet's World Wide Web (Web or WWW) and Electronic Commerce (EC). This dissertation compares Japanese and U.S. practices regarding consumer-oriented EC on the Web.;The results of content analysis and statistical data analysis provided support for country differences between Japan and the U.S. on several Web-site characteristics. The results demonstrated that there were significant differences in individualistic features and collectivistic features between countries. Regarding the cultural difference on consumer behavior and advertising, it was expected that U.S. sites would have more hard-sell features than Japanese sites, but this hypothesis was not supported, indicating the amount of information in advertisements does not make difference on the Web. Regarding types of payment, credit cards and personal checks were used more in U.S. sites than in Japanese sites, whereas bank transfers were used more in Japanese sites than in U.S. sites. For the number of languages used in a site, the results showed evidence of English being a de facto lingua franca in business. Most U.S. sites had nothing but English, while some Japanese sites had English pages in addition to the main pages written in Japanese.;Furthermore, the main effects of industry type and company size on Web characteristics and their moderating effects on association between country and Web characteristics were tested. Results indicated that there were some significant interactions between country and industry type or between country and company size on dependent variables. Moreover, some main effects of industry type and company size on Web characteristics were supported. |
