The Influence of Instagram Likes in Webshops on Russian and Dutch Consumer Behaviour

Instabuy: The influence of Instagram likes in Webshops on Russian and Dutch consumer behaviour

Iris Cornelis Masterthesis

Supervisor: P. Broeder 2nd reader: J. Engelen

Communication- and Information sciences Specialization: Business Communication & Digital Media Tilburg University, February 10, 2016.

Preface In 2011, I started as a student at the Raboud University in Nijmegen, where I completed my bachelor of Communication- and Information sciences. After my graduation in 2014, I decided to go to Tilburg for my master. In September 2014, I started my master Business Communication and Digital Media at Tilburg University, which is a specification of the master program Communication- and Information sciences. I decided to first spend a year following all the courses I liked, before starting to write my thesis in September of 2015. I am really happy and thankful with the support and contribution I got from people in my environment during the past 5 months. First of course I want to thank my supervisor, Peter Broeder, for his help and guidance during the process. Even though sometimes during the meetings I got a bit stressful, in the end everything turned out well and Peter has been of great help and support. I also want to thank the three other girls from the thesis group, Alies, Yvette and Alina. The collaboration with them was great and they really helped me during the whole process. And of course without Alina, we would not have managed to gain sufficient Russian respondents! Lastly I want to thank my friends, parents and my boyfriend who always helped me and calmed me down during this somewhat stressful period. I can look back at a great time in Tilburg and at Tilburg University. I learned a lot during this master and during the time I was writing my thesis which I think can be helpful in the future. First, I am going to South-America for a couple of months to travel, and after that I hope to find an exciting job.

Iris Cornelis Tilburg, January 2015

4 Abstract Nowadays, people do not go to physical stores to make their purchases anymore. The enormous amount of web-shops has led to people buying their products online, from their homes, instead of going to a physical shop. The main reason people do this, is because it is more convenient and time-saving. Social media has become of great importance on the Internet. Not only for relaxation and entertainment, but also for advertising. A relatively new social platform that has become extremely popular the past few years, especially among the younger audience, is Instagram. Instagram has many things and opportunities to offer for brands and companies, and since little research has done so far towards Instagram, it was decided upon to focus on this social medium for the present study. There are different factors, social or cultural, that can have an influence on the shopping behaviour of consumers. In the present study the influence on those factors on the online behaviour of consumers was investigated. Self-efficacy is one of those factors. Self- efficacy refers to an individual’s confidence in his own ability to perform a certain behaviour (Yusuf, 2011), which is in this case, making a purchase online. The second factor is social proof. Social proof means that people are influenced by the behaviour of others around them. In the world of Internet and social media, social proof appears in the form of likes and reviews. Besides these social influences, also a cultural influence was looked into. Online shopping requires a higher need for trust than traditional shopping, that is why Hofstede’s (2015) dimension of uncertainty avoidance was used as a third predictor for the shopping behaviour. In the current study, the differences concerning online consumer behaviour between Dutch and Russian consumers was investigated An online questionnaire was used to investigate the influence Instagram likes had on the purchase intention, and to look into the differences between Dutch and Russian consumers. Two different advertisements were used in the study. They both contained a Go- Pro action camera in a webshop environment. However, one was accompanied by the Instagram logo with likes and the Instagram like-button, and the other one was just the product in the webshop without any additions. In total, 188 respondents participated in study, of which 107 were Dutch and 81 were Russian. The respondents were randomly shown one of the two different advertisements when filling in the questionnaire. Against the expectations, no differences in the intention to buy the product were found between the two different advertisements. This means that the presence of the Instagram likes had no influence on the respondents. There was also no difference in attitude toward the

5 advertisements. Concerning cultural differences, some things were found. The Russians had a higher level of uncertainty avoidance than the Dutch respondents, and the Dutch respondents had a higher level of perceived self-efficacy than the Russian consumers. Even though social proof had an influence on purchase intention, respondents with a higher need for social proof were more willing to buy the product. However, no difference between the two advertisements was found.

Key-words: online shopping, self-efficacy, social proof, uncertainty avoidance, cultural differences, purchase intention, Dutch, Russian.

Table of Contents Preface...... 3 Abstract...... 4 Chapter 1: Theoretical framework ...... 8 1.1 Online shopping ...... 8 1.2 Social media...... 9 1.2.1 Social media marketing...... 9 1.2.2 Instagram...... 10 1.2.3 Social media and webshops ...... 12 1.3 Social influence ...... 13 1.3.1 Theory of Planned Behaviour...... 13 1.3.2 Self-efficacy...... 14 1.3.3 Social proof ...... 15 1.4 Cultural differences ...... 16 1.4.1 Criticism on Hofstede…………………………………………………………...17 1.4.2 Uncertainty avoidance ...... 17 1.5 Hypotheses ...... 18 Chapter 2: Methodology...... 20 2.1 Sample population...... 20 2.2 Instruments...... 21 2.2.1 Stimuli and context...... 21 2.2.2 Questionnaire...... 23 2.3 Pilot...... 26 2.4 Procedure...... 26 2.4.1 Design...... 26 2.4.2 Data collection...... 26 2.5 Perspective...... 27 Chapter 3: Results...... 28 3.1 Purchase intention...... 28 3.2 Attitude toward the advertisement...... 30 3.3 Self-efficacy...... 31 3.4 Uncertainty avoidance...... 31 3.5 Social proof...... 32 3.6 Social media...... 32

Chapter 4: Conclusion & discussion...... 34 4.1 Conclusion...... 34 4.2 Discussion...... 36 4.2.1 Relevant studies...... 39 4.2.2 Limitations……………………………………………………………………...40 4.2.2 Practical implications and future research……………………………………...41 References...... 44 Appendices...... 49 Appendix 1: Questionnaire...... 49 Appendix 2: Feedback of the experts...... 54

Chapter 1: Theoretical framework In the present study, the online consumer behaviour of Dutch and Russian consumers will be investigated. The main focus will be on the social platform “Instagram.” To investigate this, the following research question was created:

What is the influence of Instagram likes on online shopping behaviour and what are the differences between Russian and Dutch consumers?

Chapter 1 will describe how and why this research question was established.

1.1 Online shopping The number of internet users worldwide has grown from 2 billion to 3 billion in the past five years (Internet Live Stats, 2015), and this number keeps increasing every day. People are using the internet for an enormous number of different purposes, and one of them that has been increasing in popularity is online shopping. Several factors can explain why people like to buy their products or services online. Two types of shopping values can be distinguished according to Babin, Darden and Griffin (1994), the so called utilitarian and hedonic value. Utilitarian shopping behaviour can be explained as task-related and rational. This is achieved when a person is able to find and buy a product easily and quickly. Hedonic behaviour on the other hand, can be identified as more subjective and more focused on having fun during the purchase rather than completing the task. These values can also be applied to online shopping behaviour. Ahmad, Omar and Ramayah (2010) found that the utilitarian value, also called convenience, turned out to be a strong predictor and the most important driver for people to engage in online shopping. This implies that the main reason for consumers to make purchases online is to save effort and costs, and not to have fun. They also found that people like online shopping because it gives them the possibility to compare and evaluate all the different products available, and their prices, on different webshops. They can do this at home, privately, instead of standing in long checkout lines and having to fight for a parking space at a busy mall for example. On the other hand, there is an issue that can keep people from engaging in online shopping; the trust issue. The exchange of information via the Internet can bring several risks along with it. A greater degree of trust is required within an online environment compared to a physical store where one can actually see the person that sells the products or service. Trust

decreases the feeling of uncertainty that may arise when a certain webshop is unknown and when the shop owners are unknown (Tan & Thoen, 2011). In this study, two cultures will be compared; The Netherlands and Russia. The Netherlands is a country where the number of internet users, 96% of the total population (Internet Live Stats, 2015), and the number of people that engage in online shopping is really high. In 2011, The Netherlands was number four in the list of EU countries that performed the most online shopping (CBS, 2012). The number of people that performed in online shopping has increased from 50% to 77% between 2005 and 2014 (CBS, 2015). The Russian market is an interesting one for e-commerce since there still is an enormous group of people left that can be attracted to the e-commerce market. The Eastern- European market is de fastest growing of Europe (an increase of 47% in 2013). However, only 34 of the 135 million internet users in Eastern-Europe are engaging in online shopping at the moment. In Eastern-Europe, Russia is by far the country with the biggest percentage of online shoppers, 84 million internet users and 23 million online buyers (Thuiswinkel, 2014). Since little research has been toward Russian shopping behaviour so far, it was decided upon to compare Dutch and Russian consumers in the present study.

1.2 Social media 1.2.1 Social media marketing Nowadays, social media is playing an important role in marketing and communication strategies of brands and companies. Social media marketing offers plenty, and also less expensive possibilities for companies to reach a target group than traditional media. Social media channels can be used very easily to reach individuals, but also to reach an enormous group of people at the same time. On top of that, social media marketing is a good way to connect (potential) consumers with a certain brand. In 2011, more than 50% of all social media users were following brands on social media (Van Belleghem, Eenhuizen & Veris, 2011). Erdoğmus and Çiçek (2012) put forward that at least half of all Twitter and Facebook users say that they have become more likely to talk about, recommend or purchase a product after becoming interacting and engaged with a company on social media. There are different things that can distinguish social media marketing from traditional marketing. One of them is that social media gives companies the possibility for direct communication with their consumers, and the opportunity to send out a message to millions of followers at the same time. Also, with social media marketing, loyalty towards and involvement with the brand can be better increased than with traditional marketing tools.

Antheunis and Van Noort (2011) state that companies can develop very specific target group marketing with social media, by using all the personal information that can be found on people's profiles. The most important difference however according to them is the number of options for interaction with the consumers social media has to offer. Because of the interactive touch, consumers can actively handle the content posted by the brand. Individuals can directly provide brands and companies with feedback, and they are able to share their experiences with other consumers. Fogg and Iizawa (2008) describe how a social medium can also be used for persuasion goals. The commercial success of social networking site depends on persuading users to perform a specific behaviour. Their main focus was on Facebook and they mentioned three types of persuasion goals in their research. The first one was “create personal profile pages”. The second one is the “invite friends” option. Facebook for example was designed in such a way that the “friends” and “invite friends” option is always visible. The third one is “respond to other’s contributions”. The thing that distinguishes social media the most from traditional media is the opportunity for social interaction and user-generated content. There are multiple very easy options for users to post, share and respond on social media. Brands and companies have different options to use social media and integrate it into their marketing strategies. They can create brand-pages and post content which they can use to reach millions of followers at the same time. This can be informational content, but also more entertaining content like promotions, competitions, games and polls. Besides that, communities can be created where people with the same interests can discuss their experiences with each other. Another, more recent possibility is that social media nowadays can also be applied in the online shopping environment.

1.2.2 Instagram Instagram is a social medium that is gaining new users and increasing in popularity every day. Instagram is an American company founded in 2010, a social network that offers users the opportunity to share their lives through a series of pictures. Since 2010, Instagram has obtained 400 million active monthly users. 40 billion pictures are being uploaded daily and there are 3.5 billion likes generated per day (Instagram Press Center, 2015). There are not only differences in the activities on and the use of Facebook and Instagram, but there also is a differences in the age group of the users. Where Facebook used to be very popular among younger users, nowadays people between 25 and 30 are spending less time on Facebook and more time on social networks like Instagram (Drolet, 2013). Figure

1 shows the distribution of users by age in the Netherlands at the end of 2013. Remarkable is that the majority of the Facebook users are between 45 and 64 years old, where on Instagram the majority of the users is between 16 and 24 years old (Statista, 2013).

Figure 1. The distribution of Facebook and Instagram users by age (Statista, 2013).

Former Facebook chief financial offer David Ebersman explains this shift of younger people from Facebook to other media like Instagram and Snapchat in an article written by Lang (Washington Post, 2015). Since there are more users of 40+ now on Facebook, including parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, teens and young adolescents prefer to post their content on different platforms where no one checks on them. Results of Newcom’s national social media research in the Netherlands (2015), showed that there was a decrease of 12% concerning Facebook users between 15 and 19 years. On the other hand, there was an increase of 23% of Facebook users between 65 and 79 years. For Instagram there was a growth of 35% in daily users when comparing 2014 (536.000) to 2015 (722.000). Results also showed that Instagram is especially popular and growing among younger users. 50% of all Dutch youth between 15 and 19 years makes use of Instagram, where only 2% of people between 65 and 79 use Instagram. Next to this, where privacy concerns about social media used to be an issue for the older group of people, with parents being concerned about what their children were posting online, Newcom also showed that privacy concerns among people between 40 and 79 have decreased while on the other hand privacy concerns among users between 15 and 39 years have increased.

Instagram and advertising

Latiff and Safiee (2015) investigated why Instagram is an interesting and attractive way of advertising for brands. One thing that was standing out were the Instagram filters. The variety of filters one can add on a photo or video on Instagram gives users the opportunity to make their visuals look more professionally. Next, advertising on Instagram has become very attractive for brands. On Instagram there are numbers of popular “Instagrammers” with millions of followers. For a minimal fee, these persons can post a picture using the product of a certain brand and millions of people will see this at the same time. Underneath the post, there can be very easily referred to the Instagram or webpage of the particular brand, so with just one click all users can be directed to that page. There are no third parties involved or special marketing agencies needed. Another factor that makes Instagram an interesting place to advertise for brands that with Instagram it is quite easy to reach the right audience. When engaged with one user, Instagram automatically attracts the “like-minders”, which are other Instagram users with the same interests and intentions. This means no struggles when looking for new users to target. Instagram offers many interesting and innovative opportunities for brands and companies, a new more easy and less expensive way of advertising. However, little to no scientific research has been done so far on the effect Instagram has on consumer behaviour. Therefore it was decided upon to focus on Instagram in the present study. For companies whose target group consists of a younger audience, it could be really interesting to find out what opportunities Instagram has and how to integrate this into their marketing strategies, instead of only making use of Facebook and Twitter for example.

1.2.3 Social media and webshops Facebook and Instagram have the possibility for users to express their appreciation by means of "likes". It is possible to like pictures and other status updates, but also music groups, artists, sports clubs, brands, and so on. This function can nowadays also be used in webshops. Facebook landed a "Facebook Social Plugin" in 2010, which gives external parties the opportunity to integrate the social functions of Facebook into their own website. The most important one of these functions is the like-button. When someone presses the like-button on the external page, a connection is made between this page and the user. This has also created the possibility of likes within a webshop. By means of the Social Plugin, consumers can like a product after they purchased it. In Juni 2012, more than two million websites had integrated the Facebook social plugin, and 35% of the top ten thousand websites included the like button into their page (Kontaxis, Polychronakis, Keromytis & Markatos, 2009).When the plugin is

13 integrated into a website, consumers can see how many likes a particular product has. In some cases, it is also possible to see how many of their own Facebook friends have liked this product. The presence of these likes may have an influence on the purchase intention of the consumers. De Wolf (2012) and Vermeulen (2015) both investigated the effect of Facebook- likes in webshops on online consumer behaviour, by showing their respondents a webshop environment where products had either many likes, few likes or no likes, and likes from strangers or from Facebook friends. De Wolf (2012) researched the effect of likes on the consumer behaviour and looked at differences between Dutch and Indonesian consumers, when buying a book online. The results of this study showed that the presence of likes had a positive effect on the behavioural component of consumer behaviour; the presences of likes increased the buying intention. Vermeulen (2015) focused on differences between Dutch and Greek consumers while buying shoes online. In contrast to the results of De Wolf (2012) he found no differences in purchase intention when the likes were either absent or present. Wang, Yu and Wei (2012) found that consumption-related peer communications through social media are becoming increasingly more important and relevant for online consumers and can have an influence on the attitude toward a product. The influence of the like-option with Facebook has been researched, but as mentioned before, little to nothing is known about the effect Instagram can have in a similar setting.

1.3 Social Influence 1.3.1 Theory of Planned Behaviour A theory that can be used to understand the, in this case online, behaviour of people is the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991). This theory is an extension on the Theory of Reasoned Action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). According to the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991) the intention to perform a certain behaviour is being formed by three different components; a personal component, a social component and a control component. The personal component is the attitude toward that particular behaviour. The subjective norm is the social component, what do other people think of the behaviour? The last component is the perceived behavioural control, also called self-efficacy. This is the perception a person has toward his own abilities to perform or not perform the behaviour. Figure 2 shows the model of the Theory of Planned Behaviour and shows how the components are related to each other.

Figure 2. Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991).

Attitudes are being formed by beliefs. An attitude in this case means whether a person stands positively or negatively toward the behaviour. Subjective norms are formed by normative beliefs and refer to the social pressure a person feels in his direct environment toward performing or not performing the behaviour. The third one, perceived behavioural control (or self-efficacy) is formed by beliefs about the difficulty of that particular behaviour, and whether a person beliefs that he is capable of performing the behaviour. This can be related to time, money and personal skills (Ajzen, 1991).

1.3.2 Self-efficacy Self-efficacy plays an important role in the Theory of Planned Behaviour, which refers to the personal beliefs or to an individual's confidence in his own ability to perform a certain behaviour (Yusuf, 2011). People with a low sense of self-efficacy have negative thoughts and think of tasks as threatening, instead of challenging for example. A consequence of this could be that they set low goals for themselves (Suraya & Ali, 2009). Self-efficacy beliefs can strongly influence people's choice of activities, preparation for an activity or effort made to perform a certain activity. Self-efficacy is not about the skills a person has, but about what that person believes he can do with those skills. Bandura's theory about self-efficacy (1997) states that the perceived self-efficacy a person has can have an influence on the final behaviour of the consumers. Self-efficacy also has an influence on the online behaviour of consumers. It is an important factor in efforts to use e-services according to Hsu & Chiu (2014). In offline environments this is less important since consumers there learn how to make purchases at an

early age. In the online environment however, there is complexity, barriers in knowledge and comfort issues, which can be considered as shortages. Hsu & Chiu (2004) researched Internet self-efficacy by investigating individual's intention and behaviour while filing in income tax on the Internet. Their results showed that general Internet self-efficacy had a significant influence on the attitude toward e-service usage. According to Dash & Saji (2008) there is a debate going on between online retail practitioners, whether a consumer's capability to perform a specific task online can influence the intention to make a purchase online. They conducted a research in India, exploring the role of self-efficacy of consumers in their adaption of business to consumer online shopping. The results of this study indicated that self-efficacy does affect trust and perceived usefulness among consumers online, and next to that it positively influences the intention of the consumer to buy products or services online. Smits (2011) researched the effect of Facebook reviews on consumer behaviour in the form of like- and purchase intentions, and also included self-efficacy in his research. The results of his study showed that the amount of perceived self-efficacy had a positive influence on the actual purchase intention; the higher the perceived self-efficacy was, the bigger that person's intention was to buy a product online.

1.3.3 Social Proof Another social concept that can influence the behaviour of people is social proof. Where self- efficacy is about a person's perception of his own qualities, social proof is about the influence of the behaviour of others. A person can let his attitudes, beliefs, perceptions and behaviour get influenced by others around him. Conformity is one type of social influence, which refers to wanting to change ones behaviour in a way so that it matches the behaviour of others (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004). By social comparison with people that are alike, individuals can justify their own opinions and decisions. A result of this is that people tend to behave the same way as their friends and other people in their direct environment do. Cialdiani et al. (1999) researched the effect of commitment/consistency and social proof on students from Poland and the United States, by indicating their willingness to comply with a request to participate without pay in a marketing survey. The results showed that both these factors turned out to be important determinants of compliancy decisions for both groups. However, social proof, evidence of what one's peers had done in the same situation, had more impact in Poland than in the United States. This could be explained by the fact that Poland has a different culture than the United States. Goldstein, Griskeviciu and Cialdini (2007) conducted

an experiment to find out what was the best way for hotel chains to persuade their guests to use the linen more than one time. The results of this experiment showed that a message like: "The majority of the guests re-uses their linen" had more effect on the guests than a message like: "Save the environment! You can show your respect towards nature and your environment by re-use your linen during your stay." This shows that when the guests were told what the norm of their co-guests were, the message was more persuasive. Social proof also plays a role in the online shopping environment. We now live in a world of customer reviews and ratings, especially in the Web 2.0 environment. Reviews are a very important source of trust for consumers when they are buying online in a completely strange environment according to Amblee and Bui (2011). Consumers rely on the shared information and experiences of others. According to them, when needing information about a particular product, the online consumer looks for reviews from friends as a source of emotional, and possible non-judgmental support and opinions. In contrast to communications about a product or service from an expert, feedback from peers and friends offer a different form of communication with a higher level of trust and friendship. This gives a personal touch to the buying decision process.

1.4 Cultural differences The attitude toward online shopping may be different for different cultures, and in every culture different factors are important for influencing the attitude and the behaviour of the members. It may differ for each culture what the best way is to persuade them for example, and what according to them is the most trustworthy and attractive shopping environment. Marketers and companies have to take this into account while developing online marketing activities. Hofstede (2015) defines culture as "The collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from others". He explains culture on the base of six dimensions. These are power distance, individualism versus collectivism, masculinity versus femininity, uncertainty avoidance, long-term versus short- term communication and indulgence. As mentioned before, a limitation or a barrier for people to engage in online shopping can be the uncertainty and the lack of trust. Therefore, uncertainty avoidance is seen as the most interesting dimension to use when explaining the online shopping behaviour of consumers.

1.4.1 Criticism on Hofstede Even though the dimensions of Hostede are used very often and very popular when analysing different cultures, there has also been some criticism toward his model. McSweeney (2002) and Baskerville (2003) for example wonder why Hofstede defines a country by only one national culture, even though many countries are divided into different sub-cultures. McSweeney (2002) indicates that it cannot be assumed so easily that the responses from the IBM employees in a particular country are reflecting the general population of that country. Baskerville (2003) states on top of that, that for example in Europe there are 81 cultures in 32 countries, which makes it remarkable that Hofstede accounts one country also for one culture. Baskerville also mentions that the results of the study of Hofstede are not very up to date anymore since they are dated from 1980. Between then and now, many things have changed in the world concerning environment, communication and rules and regulations. Nowadays, the results of a similar research could be completely different from the results of Hofstede's first main research at IBM.

1.4.1 Uncertainty avoidance Uncertainty avoidance can be explained as to what extent people in a particular society or culture are made nervous by situations that they perceive as unstructured, unclear or unpredictable, and the degree of which they try to avoid insecure situations like these by adopting strict rules, regulations and codes of behaviour (Hofstede, 2015). Members of cultures that have a high uncertainty avoidance often maintain very strict rules to avoid risks, and every behaviour that contrasts with these codes of behaviour is seen as risky and dangerous. Cultures with a low uncertainty avoidance on the other hand, have a more relaxed attitude toward rules and regulations, and a "practice ice is more important than principles" attitude (Hofstede, 2015). Internet shopping involves a higher level of uncertainty than shopping in a physical store. The effects of uncertainty however could be decreased when there is more trust between transacting parties. With the high uncertainties involved in online shopping, trust becomes critical to the success of an online business (Lim, Leung, Sia & Lee, 2004). Cultures with a high level of uncertainty avoidance, are slower in introducing and adopting electronic communication. Al Kailani and Kumar (2010) investigated the impact of uncertainty avoidance and perceived risk on internet buying. They conducted a survey among students in India, the United States and Jordan. Their findings showed that individuals from a high

uncertainty avoidance culture experienced high levels of perceived risk when buying something online. The Jordanians, with the highest uncertainty avoidance of the three groups, experienced the highest perceived risk when buying on the internet, while the Americans with the lowest uncertainty avoidance score, showed the least perceived risk. The most recent index scores on uncertainty avoidance (Hofstede, 2015) show that Russia has a significantly higher uncertainty avoidance (95) than the Netherlands (53).

1.5 Hypotheses Chapter 1 showed that there are different factors that can influence the behaviour of people, or in this case the online shopping behaviour of consumers. We are now living in an era full of new online developments and possibilities, especially concerning social media. As mentioned in chapter 1, it was decided upon to focus on Instagram in this study. The influence of the presence of Instagram likes in a webshop environment will be investigated. Wang, Yu and Wei (2012) already found that social influence from peers has a positive influence on the purchase intention and attitude of consumers. Therefore, the following hypotheses were established.

H1.The presence of Instagram likes in an advertisement will lead to a higher purchase intention H2.The presence of Instagram likes in advertisement will lead to a more positive attitude toward the advertisement

In this study, three influences will be taken into account to explain the online consumer behaviour. Two social influences, perceived self-efficacy and social proof, and one cultural influence, uncertainty avoidance. The first one is self-efficacy. The higher someone's perceived self-efficacy is, the more confidence a person will have that he can perform the online shopping behaviour. Therefore, the following hypotheses was established.

H3. Consumers with a high level of perceived self-efficacy have a high purchase intention.

The second one is uncertainty avoidance. As mentioned before, in the present study the differences between Dutch and Russian consumers will be investigated. First, the differences

19 in uncertainty avoidance between the two cultures will be looked into. When looking at Hofstede's level of uncertainty avoidance for both Russia and the Netherlands, the next hypotheses was established.

H4. Russian consumers have a higher uncertainty avoidance than Dutch consumers

Online shopping comes with more risks and uncertainty than shopping in physical stores, and therefore the uncertainty avoidance of a particular culture can have an influence on the shopping behaviour of individuals. Since the expectation is that the Russian consumers have a high uncertainty avoidance, it is expected that they will be less willing to make purchases online.

H5.Russian consumers are less willing to make purchases online compared to Dutch consumers

The last one is social proof. Cialdini (1999) and Goldstein, Griskevicius and Cialdini (2007) already showed that social proof is an important determinant of the behaviour of people. People with a high need for social proof adapt their behaviour to others. Therefore the expectation is that respondents with a high need for social proof have a higher purchase intention when there are likes present in the advertisement, than when there are no likes present. Therefore the sixth and last hypotheses is as follows:

H6. Consumers with a high need for social proof have a high purchase intention when there are likes present in the webshop

Chapter 2: Methodology

2.1 Sample population A total of 188 respondents with a mean age of 23,8 years (SD = 4.56) participated in this study. 107 of them were Dutch respondents with a mean age of 23 years, and 81 of them were Russian respondents with a mean age of 24,9 years. 36,2% of the total respondents was male (n=68) whereas 63,8% was female (n=120). There was 1 respondent from Russia who didn't consider himself Russian but 'Dargan'. Since Dargan can be considered as Russian, this person was also counted as a Russian respondent. The ethnic identification of the respondents was measured by means of questions involving country of birth, country of current residence, belongingness to ethnic group and language spoken at home (Broeder, 2015). For the present study it was decided to use the question about perceived ethnicity for distinguishing the Russian respondents. 31 respondents were eliminated from the analysis because they stopped the questionnaire after a few questions. The following table shows the amount of respondents of each groups and the division of those respondents over the different advertisements. There were two different conditions: one advertisement with Instagram likes and one advertisement without Instagram likes. 92 participants filled in the questionnaire with the stimuli with likes and 96 filled in the survey with the stimuli without likes. Table 1 gives an overview of the respondents in this study for each of the different versions.

Table 1: Sample population division for the two stimuli categorized by gender and ethnicity (percentage between brackets) Dutch (n=107) Russian (n=81) Total With likes Without likes With likes Without likes Female 30 (16%) 32 (17%) 30 (16%) 28 (14,9%) 120 (63,8%) Male 21 (11,2%) 24 (12,8%) 10 (5,3%) 13 (6,9%) 68 (36.2%)

Total 51 (27,1%) 56 (29,8%) 40 (21,3%) 41 (21,8%) 188

Table 2 shows the division of the completed level of education for both respondent groups. It shows that the majority of the Dutch respondents, or only completed high school so far, or completed university. Among the Russian respondents, almost all of the respondents completed university.

Table 2: Level of education of the sample population categorized by ethnicity Dutch respondents Russian respondents (n = 107) (n = 81) High school 37 3 Middle level education 10 1 Higher level education 26 7 University 34 70 Total 107 81

2.2 Instruments

2.2.1 Stimuli and context The present study was set up in an online setting. Two different web-shop advertisements were designed and randomly shown to the respondents. Each stimulus consisted of an advertisement of a product that was placed in a web-shop background. These stimuli were designed according to Scaling cultural persuasivity in online advertisements (Broeder, 2015). The structure of these stimuli can be seen in figure 3.

Figure 3. Stimuli and Context (Broeder, 2015).

The two different stimuli that were designed for the present study can be found below in figure 4 and figure 5.

Figure 4. Condition A: Advertisement with likes

Figure 5. Condition B: Advertisement without likes

Product The product that was used in the advertisements for the present study was a Go-Pro camera. A Go-Pro camera is an action camera, often used in extreme-action videography. In previous similar studies, more basic products were used like shoes (Vermeulen, 2015) or books for example (De Wolf, 2012). For this study, decided was to use a different type of product that is very popular at the moment. The Go-Pro is a product that is interesting for both men and women, and is known all over the world. Therefore, the Go-Pro was used in this study.

Background The product was placed in the webshop of the official website of Go-Pro. The aim was to make the environment look as realistic as possible, therefore a printscreen of the webshop was made and used for the stimuli. To make sure that the respondents were not distracted and influenced by any other factors, features such as product specifications and price were not included in the environment.

Context The two different stimuli had a different context. One advertisement showed the Go-Pro camera in the webshop environment without any additions. The other advertisement showed the same Go-Pro in the same environment, except in this case Instagram likes and the opportunity to like the product via Instagram (with the original like-button) was added. It was decided upon to use a big amount of likes (280 in this case) so it would attract the attention.

2.2.2 Questionnaire An online questionnaire was created to investigate the online shopping behaviour and preferences of Dutch and Russian respondents. The questionnaire was created in Qualtrics, which is a free website that enables designing and constructing online questionnaires. The questionnaire contained different elements, and the majority was based on the 'scaling cultural persuasivity in online advertisements' framework (Broeder, 2015). The questionnaire contained the following parts: 1. Introduction 2. Social-bio background 3. Introducing the setting 4. Purchase intention 5. Attitude toward the advertisement 6. Self-efficacy 7. Uncertainty avoidance 8. Social proof 9. Social media On the first page of the questionnaire, the respondents could find a short introduction that briefly explained the aim of the study, and an indication of the length of the survey was provided.

In the first block, the respondents were asked to fill in some questions concerning their social-bio background information. These were questions concerning gender, age, country of birth, country of residence, ethnic group, language spoken at home and education (Broeder, 2015). Next, the respondents could find a short scenario followed by one of the two advertisements. The scenario described: "Please read the following text carefully. You are planning to go on a long planned vacation. You would like to capture every moment of it. Have a close look at the advertisement below.” After the advertisement, the respondents were asked to answer questions and statements measuring the purchase intention and the behavioural intention toward the product. (Broeder, 2015). The first question was “would you like to buy this product?” which could be answered with 'yes' or 'no'. Next, the construct the behavioural intention was measured by the items “I would like to use this product”, “I would like to talk with friends about this product” and “I would like to give this product as a present.” This was measured by a 4-point scale, which by mistake differs from the rest of the scales. However, the reliability of the scale was acceptable, α = .70. After this, the attitude toward the advertisement was measured with semantic differentials. This scale was based on the questionnaires for scaling cultural persuasivity in online advertisements (Broeder, 2015). The respondents were asked to indicate on a bipolar 5- point scale which of two terms suited them best. This semantic differential scale contained twelve different items. Bad versus good, negative versus positive and sensible versus stupid measured the overall attitude. Four items measured the utilitarian function: not informative versus informative, unnecessary versus necessary, worthwhile versus useless and pointless versus useful. Five items measured the hedonistic function: enjoyable versus irritating, fun versus no fun, amusing versus not amusing, unappealing versus appealing and frustrating versus relaxing. The reliability of this scale was good, α = .89. After this block, one block was added to measure the level of self-efficacy, uncertainty avoidance and social proof of the respondents. To measure self-efficacy, five items from the scale of Jerusalem and Schwarzer (1995) were adopted, since this scale has been verified and adopted in different earlier studies. The following five questions were used: 1. “I can always manage to solve difficult problems if I try hard enough” 2. “I am confident that I could deal efficiently with unexpected events” 3. “Thanks to my resourcefulness, I know how to handle unforeseen situations”

4. “When I am confronted with a problem, I can usually find solutions” 5. “If I am in trouble, I can usually think of something to do” This construct was measured by using a 5-points scale, varying from definitely false to definitely true. The reliability of this scale was acceptable, α= .73. To measure the level of uncertainty avoidance, six questions concerning uncertainty avoidance and perceived risk when buying online from Lee and Turban (2001) were used. The following six items were used: 1.“Buying products on the Internet is easy to do” 2.“I enjoy buying products on the Internet” 3.“I can save time by buying products on the Internet” 4.“Buying products on the Internet is risky” 5.“There are too many uncertainties in online shopping” 6.“Buying over the Internet entails vulnerability” This scale was measured by using a 5-point scale which varied from completely disagree to completely agree. The reliability of this scale was acceptable, α = .73. The level of social proof was measured by four different items. 1. “The opinions of others are important to me” 2. “When a lot of people bought something, then it must be good” 3. “When other people recommend a product, my confidence in that product is high” 4. “When I buy a product, I usually consider the amount of likes the products has” This construct was measured by a 5-point scale which varied from completely disagree to completely agree. The reliability of this scale however was poor, α = .57. When checked for “items deleted”, the reliability did not increase. The last block of the questionnaire consisted of two different questions asking about the social media use of the respondents. The first question asked whether and with what frequency the respondents made use of the channels “Facebook”, “Instagram”, “Pinterest” and “Vkontakte.” Vkontakte was added since this is the most popular social medium in Russia. This was measured by using a 6-point scale varying from almost never to multiple times a day. The second question asked about the respondents’ activities on social media: “reading posts”, “liking posts”, “replying on posts” and “placing post”. This was also measured by a 6-point scale varying from almost never to multiple times a day. After the last question, the respondents were told that they had completed the last question and they were thanked for their participation. They could leave their e-mail address to participate in the contest and win 50 euros.

2.3 Pilot Different steps were taken when designing the persuasive ads and the questionnaire. Before the final questionnaire with the final stimuli was distributed, some pilot studies were conducted to gain feedback and to check whether there were any mistakes in the questionnaire. In phase 1, when designing the stimuli, two experts were asked to judge both of the persuasive advertisements. These experts were Communication- and Information Sciences students that were also writing their thesis on cultural differences in online shopping behaviour. Based on their feedback, some adjustments on the stimuli were made. The experts mentioned that the "follow on Instagram" button was not necessary in the manipulated advertisement, since that option was not researched in the present study and it could have an influence on what was really investigated. Therefore, these option was deleted from the stimuli. Also some small advice about the size and the position of the Instagram manipulation was given. These experts were also asked to have a critical look at the questionnaire. They noticed some small things like spelling errors and sentence structures. The second pilot study was conducted with friends and family. When the stimuli and the questionnaire were finished off, ten persons were asked to fill out the questionnaire and to give feedback concerning the questions, the flow of the questionnaire and any other mistakes. Some small spelling errors were found, and some thought on the sorts of answers on the "education question." The remarks on both the stimuli and the questionnaire can be found in appendix 2.

2.4 Procedure 2.4.1 Design The research design of the present study consisted of two different conditions, one with Instagram likes and one without Instagram likes. The study had a between-subjects design, the respondents either saw the webshop environment with or without likes.

2.4.2 Data collection An online questionnaire, created via Qualtrics, was used to collect the data for the present study. The questionnaire was developed in English for both the Russian and the Dutch respondents. By means of randomization, half of the participants was shown the "normal" advertisement without likes, and the other half was shown the manipulated advertisement with Instagram likes.

The questionnaire was distributed online, mainly via Facebook and direct messages. Pages like "Russian students in Holland" and "Russian-speaking friends in Amsterdam" were used to target Russian people. Also, different Russian networks and websites were approached to gain Russian respondents. An example of this is the website Internations, which is a big international network where people from all over the world find each-other to meet in other countries and places. On top of that, the personal network of friends was used, Russian co-students were approached to help and distribute the questionnaire to their friends.

2.5 Perspective In this chapter, an overview of the method was given which described what and why certain decisions were made. The sample population was described, followed by a description of the stimuli and the questionnaire. Also, the pilot study was explained. The comments can be found in the appendix. To finish of this chapter, the procedure of data collection was described. In the following chapter, the results of the study will be presented.

Chapter 3: Results In this section, the results of the study will be discussed. For each construct, attitude, purchase intention, behavioural intention, self-efficacy, uncertainty avoidance, social proof and social media, the results will be provided. First, the purchase intention is measured followed by the behavioural intention. Second, the attitude towards the product will be measured. After that, the results of the scores on and influences of self-efficacy, uncertainty avoidance and social proof will be provided. Lastly, the results of social media use will be discussed. For all constructs, the differences between Dutch and Russian consumers will be illustrated and several different analyses will be provided.

3.1 Purchase intention The overall purchase intention was measured by asking the respondents: "Would you like to buy this product?" which could be answered with either "yes" or "no". Table 3 shows the number of Dutch and Russian respondents for both the advertisement with and without likes that answered yes or no on this question.

Table 3: Purchase intention for the advertisement with and without likes, categorized by ethnicity. Advertisement with likes Advertisement without likes Total Yes No Yes No Dutch 31 20 27 29 N=107

Russian 23 17 18 23 N=81 Total 54 37 45 52 188

Table 3 shows that when the advertisement contained the Instagram likes more people said they would buy this product than people that said they did not want to buy the product, and when the advertisement did not contain likes more people said “no” on wanting to buy the product instead of “yes”. However, a χ2-test showed no effect between the version of the advertisement and the purchase intention χ2(1) = 3.16, p =.08. A second χ 2-test also showed no effect between the ethnicity of the respondents and the purchase intention χ 2(1) = .23, p = .63.

Besides the purchase intention, also the behavioural intention of the respondents towards the product was measured. The questions and the means can be found in table 4 and 5.

Table 4: Means of scores of behavioural intention toward using, talking about or giving the product as a present for condition A, categorized by ethnicity (1= most negative and 4 = most positive) with the standard deviations in brackets.

With likes

Dutch Russian Total

I would like to use this product. 3.02 (.88) 2.93 (.80) 2.98 (.84)

I would like to talk with friends about this 2.69 (.76) 2.75 (.87) 2.71 (.81) product.

I would like to give this product as a present 2.29 (.73) 2.70 (.97) 2.47 (.86)

Total behavioural component 2.67 (.63) 2.79 (.70) 2.72 (.66)

Table 5: Means of scores of behavioural intention toward using, talking about or giving the product as a present for condition B, categorized by ethnicity (1= most negative and 4 = most positive) with the standard deviations in brackets.

Without likes Dutch Russian Total I would like to use this product. 2.93 (.85) 2.68 (.79) 2.82 (.83) I would like to talk with friends about this 2.59 (.82) 2.56 (.67) 2.58 (.76) product. I would like to give this product as a present 2.30 (.78) 2.49 (.75) 2.38 (.77) Total behavioural component 2.61 (.67) 2.58 (.57) 2.59 (.62)

Table 4 shows that the behavioural intention toward the advertisement with likes was slightly higher for the Russian respondents than for the Dutch respondents, and table 5 shows that the behaviour intention for the advertisement without likes was slightly higher for the Dutch respondents than for the Russian respondents. A two-way Anova however showed no interaction effect between ethnicity and type of advertisement on behavioural intention F(1.184) = .67, p = .42, 

Although table 3 and 4 show that the behavioural intention after seeing the advertisement with likes is slightly higher than when seeing the advertisement without likes, an independent t-test showed no difference in behavioural intention between the two advertisements t(186)= 1.36, p = .18. A second independent t-test also showed no difference between ethnicity for behavioural intention t(186) = .50, p = .62.

3.2 Attitude toward the advertisement Table 6: Mean scores of attitude toward the advertisement categorized by ethnicity, on a 5- point scale (1 = most positive and 5 = most negative) with the standard deviations in brackets. Dutch Russian Total Ad with likes 3.03 (.62) 3.0 (.72) 3.01 (.67) Ad without likes 3.05 (.64) 3.24 (.70) 3.13 (.67)

The results of table 6 show no big differences on attitude toward the advertisement between the two cultures. The attitude toward the advertisement with likes is slightly more positive than the attitude toward the advertisement without likes. A two-way Anova has been conducted however and showed no main effect from the type of advertisement on the attitude toward the advertisement F(1,184) = 1.91, p = .17, , and no main effect from ethnicity on the attitude F(1,184) = .09, p = .77, . There was also no interaction effect between ethnicity and type of on the attitude toward the advertisement F(1,184) = 1.20, p = .28, 

Table 7: Means of the perceived attitude toward the advertisements categorized by ethnicity, on a 5 point scale (1 = most positive and 5 = least positive) with standard deviations in brackets Dutch Russian Total Purchase intention Yes 2.74 (.51) 2.78 (.66) 2.77 (.57) No 3.39 (.57) 3.46 (.62) 3.42 (.59) Total 3.04 (.63) 3.12 (.72)

A two-way Anova showed a main effect from purchase intention on attitude toward the advertisement F(1,184) = 59.98, p = <.01,  Respondents that answered yes when asked whether they wanted to buy the Go-Pro had a more positive attitude toward the advertisement (M = 2.77, SD = .57) than respondents that answered no (M = 3.42, SD = .59). However, there was no interaction effect of purchase intention and type of advertisement on the attitude F(1,184) = .005, p = .94,   3.3 Self-efficacy Table 8. Mean scores for self-efficacy categorized by ethnicity, on a 5 point scale (1 = low self-efficacy and 5 = high self-efficacy) with the standard deviations in brackets. Dutch Russian Level of SE 4.39 (.68) 4.03 (.81)

A two-way Anova was conducted to compare the main effects of purchase intention and ethnicity and the interaction effect between purchase intention and ethnicity on perceived self- efficacy. There was no main effect for purchase intention on the level of perceived self- efficacy F(1,181) = .80, p = .37,  There was a main effect of ethnicity on self- efficacy F(1,181) = 10.18, p< .05,  Dutch consumers had a higher level of perceived self-efficacy (M = 4.39, SD = .68) than Russian consumers (M = 4.03, SD = .81). No interaction effect between ethnicity and purchase intention on self-efficacy was found F(1,181) = .07, p = .79,

3.4 Uncertainty avoidance Table 9. Mean scores for level of uncertainty avoidance categorized by ethnicity, on a 6 point scale (1 = low uncertainty avoidance and 6 = high uncertainty avoidance) with the standard deviations between brackets. Dutch Russian Level of UA 2.35 (.61) 2.77 (.62) A two-way Anova was conducted to investigate the main effects of purchase intention and ethnicity on the level of uncertainty avoidance. There was a main effect from ethnicity on uncertainty avoidance F(1,181) = 20.50, p < .001,  Russian consumers have a higher level of uncertainty avoidance (M = 2.77, SD = .62) than Dutch consumers (M = 2.35, SD = .61). There was no effect from purchase intention on uncertainty avoidance F(1,181) = .09, p

= .77,  or interaction effect of ethnicity and purchase intention on uncertainty avoidance F(1,181) = 1.30, p = .26, 

3.5 Social proof Table 10. Mean scores for level of social proof categorized by ethnicity and purchase intention, on a 5 point scale (1 = low need for social proof and 4 = high need for social proof) with the standard deviations between brackets. Dutch Russian Total Purchase intention Yes 3.96 (.72) 4.10 (.64) 4.00 (.69) No 3.83 (.91) 3.66 (1.01) 3.76 (.96) Total 3.90 (.81) 3.87 (.86)

Table 9 shows that both Dutch and Russian consumers have a very high need for social proof, since 4 was the maximum score in this question. An independent sample t-test between level of need for social proof and ethnicity showed no difference on the level of need for social proof between Dutch and Russian respondents t(183)= .27, p = .78.A two-way Anova was conducted to compare the main effects of purchase intention and ethnicity on the need for social proof. There was a main effect from purchase intention on social proof F(1,181) = 4.61, p = .03, The respondents that answered "yes" on the purchase intention question, had overall a higher need for social proof (M = 4.00, SD = .69) than the respondents that did not want to buy the product (M = 3.76, SD = .96). Nor a main-effect from ethnicity on social proof was found F(1,181) = .09, p = .77,  neither an interaction effect of ethnicity and purchase intention on social proof F(1,181) = 1.30, p = .26, 

3.6 Social media In the questionnaire, respondents were asked about their activity on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Vkontakte. For the present study however, only Instagram is of interest. Therefore only the results of Instagram are being provided in this section. Table 11: The frequency in use of Instagram categorized by ethnicity Dutch Russian Total almost never 31 (29%) 19 (23,5%) 59 (26,6%) Once a month 2 (1,9%) 2 (2,5%) 4 (2,1%) 2-3 times a month 2 (1,9%) 3 (3,7%) 5 (2,7%) Weekly 11 (10,3%) 9 (11,1%) 20 (10,6%)

Daily 23 (21,5%) 21 (25,9%) 44 (23,4%) Multiple times a day 37 (34,6%) 25 (30,9%) 62 (33%)

There is no big difference in the frequency of use of Instagram between the Dutch and Russian respondents. Remarkable is that the majority or never seems to use Instagram, or daily or multiple times a day, and almost no in between. When conducting an independent t- test, no difference between the use of Instagram was found between the Dutch and the Russian respondents t(183)= .27, p = .78.

Chapter 4: Conclusion and Discussion

This section will provide the conclusion that can be made after analysing the results from the previous chapter. In the present study, the influence of Instagram ‘likes’ in an advertisement on the online shopping behaviour of Dutch and Russian consumers was investigated. First, a conclusion based on the results will be provided, on the base of the hypotheses that were established in chapter 1. Second, an explanation for the findings will be provided, followed by limitations of the study and implications for future research.

4.1 Conclusion As described in chapter 1, online shopping has become an increasingly popular activity on the internet over the past few years. New developments and technologies have caused for new opportunities for webshops, for example to make the connection between social media and webshops when buying a product online. The Facebook plugin already gave online consumers the opportunity to like a product after they bought it. However, Instagram is a new upcoming medium that is increasing in popularity. Not many companies make use of Instagram yet and therefore it was decided upon to investigate the effect of presence of Instagram likes in the present study.

Purchase intention and attitude First, the purchase intention and the attitude toward the advertisement were studied. According to Ajzen (1991) and his theory of planned behaviour, attitude is one of the three components that can have an influence on someone’s behaviour. Wang et al. (2012) found that social influence of peers had a positive influence on the purchase intention. However, in the present study there were no differences in the attitude toward the different advertisements, and there was no difference in purchase intention. For both of the advertisements the attitude was neutral. Even though for the advertisement with likes more respondents answered yes instead of no when asked if they wanted to buy the product, and for the advertisement without likes more respondents said no instead of yes, the difference was not significant. However, a significant effect from purchase intention on attitude was found. The respondents that wanted to buy the product had a more positive attitude toward the advertisements than the respondents that did not want to buy the product. There were no differences between ethnicity groups and the two different advertisements. Even though H1: The presence of Instagram likes in an advertisement will lead to a higher purchase intention, and H2: The presence of

Instagram likes in advertisement will lead to a more positive attitude toward the advertisement¸ can be rejected, the results show that there is a certain relation between purchase intention and attitude. The absence or presence of likes did not seem to have any influence, but overall a more positive attitude toward the advertisement also lead to a higher purchase intention. These findings are in line with earlier findings of Vermeulen (2015), who did a similar study toward the influence of Facebook-likes in webshops, and found no differences in purchase intention when the likes were either absent or present. Next, the behavioural intention towards the product was investigated. No differences for the different advertisements, or between the two ethnicity groups were found.

Self-efficacy In this study, three different factors were included that could have an influence on or explain the online shopping behaviour of the respondents. Two of them were social influences, self- efficacy and the need for social proof, and one of them was Hofstede's cultural dimension uncertainty avoidance. First, the level and the effect of self-efficacy was looked into. There was a difference in the level of self-efficacy between Dutch and Russian respondents, the Dutch respondents had a higher level of perceived self-efficacy than the Russian respondents. However, it was not the case that respondents with a high level of perceived self-efficacy also had a higher purchase intention. Therefore H3: Consumers with a high-purchase intention have a high level of perceived self-efficacy, must be rejected.

Uncertainty avoidance The fourth hypotheses concerned the level of uncertainty avoidance of the respondents and the influence of this on the purchase intention. Following the scores of Hofstede on uncertainty avoidance for Dutch and Russians, expected was that the Russian respondents had a higher level of uncertainty avoidance than the Dutch respondents which lead to H4: Russian consumers have a higher uncertainty avoidance than Dutch consumers. The results of this study showed that the Russian respondents indeed had a higher level of uncertainty avoidance, which confirms the third hypotheses. As a follow up of H4, the expectation was that since the Russian respondents experienced a higher level of uncertainty avoidance, they would be less willing to make purchases online. Therefore the fourth hypotheses was as follows: H5. Russian consumers are less willing to make purchases online compared to Dutch

consumers. However, there were no differences found between the intentions to purchase a product between these two cultures. Therefore, H5 must be rejected.

Social proof The final hypotheses concerned the need for social proof. The expectation was that respondents with a high need for social proof had a higher purchase intention when there are likes present in the webshop than when they are no likes present: H6. Consumers with a high need for social proof have a high purchase intention when there are likes present in the webshop. First, it was found that there were no differences in need for social proof between the Dutch and the Russian respondents. For both of the ethnicity groups, the need for social proof was remarkably high. However, there was an effect of purchase intention on the level of social proof. Respondents with a high purchase intention, the respondents who answered yes, had a higher need for social proof than the respondents that did not want to buy the product. There were no differences however between the advertisements with or without likes however, therefore, H6 must be rejected.

Social media To check whether the social medium used in this study, Instagram, had an influence on the results, the difference between the two ethnicity groups in use of Instagram was also investigated. No differences were found, both groups or never used the app, or used it daily or multiple times a day.

Gender differences It is remarkable that this study does not provide any results on the differences between male and female concerning purchase intention. However, even though for all constructs, the differences between male and female respondents were investigated, no differences between genders were found. That is why the differences between genders were not discussed in the present study.

4.2 Discussion The research question of this study was “What is the influence of Instagram likes on online shopping behaviour and what are the differences between Russian and Dutch consumers?” which can be answered on the base of the results of this study. Besides, there was looked into

the influence self-efficacy, uncertainty avoidance and need for social proof had on the purchase intention of online consumers.

Purchase intention and attitude The presence of Instagram likes did not have an effect on the purchase intention. Beforehand it was expected that the advertisement with likes would lead to a higher purchase intention toward the Go-Pro than the advertisement without the likes, and that there would be differences between the Russian and the Dutch participants. However, no differences in purchase intention were found. Next to that, no differences were found between the purchase intention of Dutch and Russian consumers. This is not in line with the results of van Aken (2015) who found that the Dutch respondents had a higher purchase intention than the Russian respondents. Also, there were no differences in the attitude toward the two advertisements and between the two different cultures. Wang et al. (2012) earlier found that consumption-related peer communications can influence the attitude toward a product. This is not in line with the findings of the present study. The presence of the Instagram likes in the advertisement did not lead to a more positive attitude toward the advertisement compared to the one without likes. However, even though no differences in attitude and purchase intention between the two advertisements were found, a more positive attitude in general lead to a higher purchase intention. This is in line with Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behaviour (1991), in which he explains that attitude is one of the three components that can influence and form a certain intention and behaviour from a person, or in this case, a consumer.

Self-efficacy The Dutch respondents seemed to have a higher level of perceived self-efficacy than the Russian respondents, which means that Dutch people consider themselves more capable of handling situations, dealing with problems and unexpected events than the Russians. Like “attitude”, self-efficacy also plays a big role in the intention toward performing a certain behaviour (Ajzen, 1991). People who consider themselves as capable of performing activities and handling situations are expected to be more likely or willing to perform a certain behaviour, which in this case means purchasing the product. That is why the expectation in the present study was that respondents with a high level of perceived self-efficacy would have a higher intention to buy the product. The results however showed that purchase intention and self-efficacy had no influence on each other. This on the contrary to earlier findings of Smits

(2011) who found that the higher the perceived self-efficacy of the consumer was, the bigger the purchase intention of that person was. However, Smits used a different scale to measure self-efficacy than was used in this study. He measured the Internet and Facebook self-efficacy of the consumers, instead of the general perceived self-efficacy. Self-efficacy in the case of the present study for example was more about money and budget: Do I consider myself to have enough money to spend on a product like this? It could be that the respondents did consider themselves to be able to make the purchase online, but that their budget was too low and that this was the reason why they did not consider themselves able to buy the product. Self-efficacy can be used in different contexts. Earlier research on self-efficacy on the Internet (Hsu & Chiu, 2004) showed that there was an influence from self-efficacy on the attitude toward the use of e-services. However, this research investigated the effect when filling in taxes online, their research was about filling in taxes online which is a completely different online activity than online shopping. Filling in taxes is more complex and requires a higher need of trust and self-efficacy than online shopping. This could explain the differences in results with the present study.

Uncertainty avoidance The Russian consumers had a higher level of uncertainty avoidance than the Dutch consumers, which is in line with the country scores for uncertainty avoidance of Hofstede (2015). Ai Kailani and Kumar (2010) earlier found that individuals from a high uncertainty avoidance culture perceived more risk when buying something online than individuals from cultures with a lower level of uncertainty avoidance. However, even though the Russian consumers in the present study perceived a higher level of uncertainty avoidance, this had no effect on the purchase intention. An explanation could be that even though there was a difference between the Dutch and The Russian consumers concerning uncertainty avoidance, for both groups the mean uncertainty level score was more leaning toward a low uncertainty avoidance level than a high uncertainty avoidance level. The scores of Hofstede (2015) however show that the Russians have a very high level of uncertainty avoidance (95 out of 100) compared to the Dutch (53 out of 100). This may mean that the Russian respondents in the present study are not representative for the Russian population, and therefore have no influence of the results of this study.

39 Social proof The most interesting finding from this study is that purchase intention and social proof had an influence on each other. People that answered yes on the question whether they would like to buy the product or not, had a higher need for social proof than the people that did not want to buy the product. The form of social proof in the present study were the Instagram likes, that is why the expectation was that the advertisement with likes lead to a higher purchase intention among people with a high need for social proof. However, it turned out that it was not dependent on the advertisement: the influence of social proof on purchase intention was not different for the advertisement with or without likes. This means that this form of social proof did not have an influence on the purchase intention of the respondents. This is not in line with what Amblee and Bui (2011) state about the effects of online reviews. They say that social proof in the form of reviews and ratings from peers, or in this case likes, are an very important source of trust for consumers when they are buying in a strange environment. Especially when these are reviews from friends. The likes in the advertisement in the present study however were likes from strangers. People could only see that a certain number of people had liked the product, but not who these people were and whether they knew this people. Perhaps, the social proof of likes had a bigger influence when the Instagram likes were from people they know instead of strangers.

Social media For both cultures it was measured in what frequency they made use of Instagram, to see if there were any differences between the two ethnicity groups and whether this could have had an influence on the results. In total, 50 of the respondents (26,6 %) never made use of Instagram. This could have had an influence on the results, since when people do not know Instagram or have no association with it, this can explain why the presence of Instagram likes in a webshop did not have an influence on them.

4.2.1 Relevant studies The present study was conducted at the same time and in the same manner as three other studies, those of van Hout (2015), van Aken (2015) and Steblovskaya (2015). The main focus of all of these four studies was on investigating the differences in online consumer behaviour of Dutch and Russian consumers. All of the studies took place in a webshop environment with an advertisement of a Go-Pro camera. However, each study focused on a different and specific aspect of online shopping.

Van Hout (2015) investigated the effect of tie-strength of online Facebook friends in a webshop environment. Her focus was on finding out whether there was a difference in purchase intention when the advertisement was accompanied by likes from Facebook friends, compared to likes from strangers. Her results showed that when there were strong-ties present (likes from Facebook friends), the respondents were more willing to buy the product than when the likes were from strangers. There was also a more positive attitude toward the advertisement with the strong-ties. Also, the results showed that uncertainty avoidance had an influence on purchase intention. The respondents with a high uncertainty avoidance were less willing to buy the product. Concerning cultural differences, the Dutch had a more positive attitude toward the advertisement than the Russians. Van Aken (2015) looked into the influence of user generated content in online webshops, focussing on Instagram. User generated content is content posted by other consumers. She compared one advertisement accompanied by content placed by other consumers via an Instagram feed, in the form of people posting their own pictures with the Go-Pro camera, to one advertisement without user generated content. She investigated whether the presence of the Instagram feed with content generated by other consumers had an impact on the purchase intention. Her results showed that there was an influence from both social proof as user generated content attitude on the purchase intention. The more positive the level of social proof or the attitude was, the more the respondents were willing to buy the product. The presence of the Instagram feed however, did not have an influence on the purchase intention. Steblovskaya (2015) focused on a different upcoming social platform: Pinterest. She investigated the difference in buying intention via Pinterest. One advertisement on Pinterest had the option where the consumers could directly make a purchase from Pinterest. In the other advertisement, the respondents just saw the product page in Pinterest but they had to go to the online web-shop of that product to actually buy it. Her results showed that, even though she expected the buy option on Pinterest to be very convenient for the respondents, the respondents considered buying from the actual web-shop as more convenient. This could be explained by the fact that Pinterest and the buy it option are relatively new and unknown and buying in “regular” webshops is more common for the majority of the people.

4.2.1 Limitations An online survey was used to gain respondents for this study. The survey was distributed via different channels through the Internet. This means the respondents had to fill in the

questionnaire outside the control of the researcher. Therefore, the respondents could be distracted while filling in the survey, and there was no possibility for them to ask questions when something about the questionnaire was not clear for example. The answers of the respondents may have been influenced by external factors. Also, the questionnaire was in English which for neither the Dutch nor the Russian respondents was their native language. This might have led to some misunderstandings while filling in the questionnaire. Another limitation of the study were the Russian respondents. The group of Russian respondents in the present study probably is not representative for the Russian population in general, since all of them were students on a university and the majority of them (had) studied in another country. This means that all of the respondents belonged to the “highest class” group of Russia. They may have been influenced already by their time in Europe, and their way of thinking and capabilities may be more developed than from the average Russian person. There was also a big difference in level of education between the Dutch and the Russian respondents. Almost all of the Russian respondents had finished university, while a big group of the Dutch respondents or only finished high school so far, or higher level education or university. This can be explained due to the fact that the education system in Russia is different than in the Netherlands. High school education may mean something different in Russia than it does in the Netherlands. Also, there were concerns about the Russian respondents and their own ethnic identification. There are different groups and also countries where people identified themselves as Russian, for example people from Kazachstan, but on the other hand there were also people from Russia that do not consider themselves as Russian. Some of the respondents now lived in Belarus or Kazachstan, but considered themselves Russian when asked about their ethnic identity. This made it very difficult to decide: When can someone be considered as Russian? As a group it was decided upon to use the question “to what ethnic group do you belong?” to identify the nationalities of the respondents. However, as Broeder, Stokmans and van Wijk (2012) explain in their book, there are different kinds of criteria that have to be looked at when defining a culture into ethnicities. These are nationality, country of origin, their own opinion, language spoken at home and cultural background. In this study, the only thing that was looked at was the ethnicity the respondents attributed to their selves. The case could be however that many of them are part of a different ethnic group (since there are many different groups in Russia), but just filled in “Russian” to not make it too complicated.

Only one Russian respondent mentioned that she thought of herself as “Dargan” instead of Russian. However, Dargan is the same as Russian and therefore this person was also classified as Russian in the analyses.

4.2.2 Practical implications and future research Even though no differences in purchase intention and behaviour between the two cultures investigated in this study were found, the results still showed that there were some differences between the Russian and Dutch respondents. As explained in chapter one, the Russian market is a very interesting market for online marketers where still are a lot of opportunities. Therefore it could be interesting for future research to deeper investigate the online shopping behaviour of Russians. For this research it was decided to use a general product, popular all over the world and suitable for both the Dutch and the Russian culture. However, the Go-Pro is quite an expensive product and the majority of the respondents were students with a very low mean age of almost 24 years. Most of the people from this age group, especially those that are still in school, do not have a lot of money to spend on products like a Go-Pro camera. This could also have had an influence on the purchase decisions. Besides, Russia is a less wealthy country than the Netherlands, which may mean that such luxury products like the Go-Pro camera are less popular in Russia than in the Netherlands. In future research, there could be looked into products that are more suitable for the target group of the study. Also, it could be interesting to compare different types of products per different culture. In every country or culture, different products have different functions. It could be interesting to compare not only electronic products but also for example luxury products like jewellery, or more simple products like books and clothes. In this way it could be investigated which products people from a certain culture prefer to buy online over other products. For example, since Russia has a high level of uncertainty avoidance in general, the case may be that they prefer to buy less risky and less expensive products like clothes and books online, rather than expensive products like electronic tools and jewellery. In this way, it can be investigated what kind of brands and companies should invest in the e-commerce market of a certain country, and what kind of companies and brands can better focus on other markets. The level of uncertainty avoidance can also have an influence on the privacy concerns. The more risk there is perceived by a consumer, the less willing this consumer will be to make a purchase online. Especially when it concerns an expensive, luxury product. Future research could therefore also extend on the privacy concerns when shopping online for different cultures, especially on

social media. The use of social media has caused for concerns among users. They worry if their personal information is still personal, or for everyone to see. Especially when social media is being connected to online shopping, it could be interesting to investigate the privacy concerns this arouses for online consumers and in different cultures. As described in chapter 1, Instagram is a very new and upcoming social platform and it offers many possibilities for brands and companies. However, not many research has done toward Instagram so far. More research should be done toward the attitude and influence of Instagram in advertising and marketing. Recently, Instagram introduced “sponsored posts”, which were already integrated in Facebook and Twitter. On the base of the pages and posts liked by a user, sponsored posts from brands appear in their feed. This goes for products, services, games, events, but also webshops. They have the opportunity to place sponsored posts. Users that see these posts on their feed can immediately, with one click, go to the webshop, so when placing an attractive post that attracts the interest of the user, this is a new opportunity for companies and brands to lead new (possible) consumers to their online webshop. There could be looked at the influence of these sponsored posts on the behaviour of consumers. Are they attracted by these posts, and if so, what type of post (picture/video and text) makes them click further? Also for this there could be looked into differences between different countries and culture, since different cultures most of the time have different ways that are best suited for approaching them when it comes to advertising. In the present study, the popularity and numbers of the use of Instagram in the Netherlands was discussed. However, more research could be done toward the use of Instagram around the world. There could be looked into in what countries Instagram is the most popular and where it has the highest influence and most positive image. Concerning the sponsored posts mentioned above, research about this can be combined with cross-cultural research. For every different culture, like in traditional advertising, it may differ what attracts (potential) consumers. In western countries for example it is very normal for a lingerie company to post content of models just wearing lingerie. In other less modern and developed countries however, these posts will only make people offended. It could be interesting to investigate in what way Instagram can be best used in different types of cultures.

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48 Appendix 1: Questionnaire

At the moment Tilburg University is doing a study about buying in webshops. We would like to ask you some questions about your online shopping and webshop preferences. This short questionnaire will take about 5-10 minutes, Thanks for your cooperation!

Research group 'Online consumers' Tilburg University

------BLOCK 1:

1. What is your gender? - Male - Female 2. What is your age? ____ 3. What country were you born in? - The Netherlands - Other, please specify ______4. In what country do you live at the moment? - The Netherlands - Other, please specify ______5. To what ethnic group do you belong? - Dutch - Other, please specify ______6. Which language do you mainly speak at home? - Dutch - Other, please specify ______7. What is the highest level of education you have completed? - Elementary school - High school

49 - Middle level education - Higher level education - University BLOCK 2: Stimuli 1 (with likes) or 2 (without likes) Please read the following text carefully. You are planning to go on a long-planned vacation. You would like to capture every moment of it. Have a close look at the advertisement below.

8. Would you like to buy this product? - Yes - No

9. Please indicate whether you agree or disagree

Completely disagree Disagree Agree Completely agree I would like to use this product o o o o I would like to talk with friends o o o o about this product I would like to give this product as a o o o o present

10. How do you feel about the advertisement?

50 Bad O O O O O Good Negative O O O O O Positive Enjoyable O O O O O Irritating Unappealing O O O O O Nice Relaxing O O O O O Frustrating Fun O O O O O No fun Not amusing O O O O O Amusing Informative O O O O O Not informative Unnecessary O O O O O Necessary Useless O O O O O Worthwhile Pointless O O O O O Useful Sensible O O O O O Stupid

BLOCK 3: Self-efficacy, uncertainty avoidance, social proof & social media

The following statements are about your own opinion, and not about the advertisement.

11. Please, indicate to what extent you agree with the following statements

Definitely Probably Neither true Probably true Definitely true false false nor false I can always manage to solve O O O O O difficult problems, if I try hard enough I am confident that I could deal O O O O O efficiently with unexpected events. Thanks to my resourcefulness, I O O O O O know how to handle unforeseen situations. When I am confronted with a O O O O O problem, I can usually find several solutions.

51 If I am in trouble, I can usually O O O O O think of something to do.

12. Please, indicate to what extent you agree with the following statements

Completely Disagree Neither agree Agree Completely disagree nor disagree agree Buying products on the O O O O O Internet is easy to do. I enjoy buying products on O O O O O the Internet. I can save time by buying O O O O O products on the Internet. Buying products on the O O O O O Internet is risky. There are too many O O O O O uncertainties in online shopping. Buying over the Internet O O O O O entails vulnerability.

13. Please, indicate to what extent you agree with the following statements Completely Disagree Neither agree nor Agree Completely disagree disagree agree The opinions of others are O O O O O important to me. When a lot of people bought O O O O O something, then it must be good. When other people recommend O O O O O a product, my confidence in that

52 product is high. When I buy a product, I usually O O O O O consider the amount of likes the product has.

14. How often do you use the following social media?

Almost Once a 2-3 times a Weekly Daily Multiple never month month times a day Facebook O O O O O O Instagram O O O O O O Pinterest O O O O O O Vkontakte O O O O O O

15. How often do you use social media for the following activities?

Almost Once a 2-3 times a Weekly Daily Multiple never month month times a day Reading posts O O O O O O Liking posts O O O O O O Replying on posts O O O O O O Placing posts O O O O O O

------This was the last question. Thank you for your cooperation!

Please do not forget to click on the >> button to save your answers.

Iris Cornelis

Please provide your email address if you wish to participate to win the €50 cash prize

53 ______

Appendix 2: Feedback of the experts

1. Feedback Britta Pijnenburg

 Stimuli

De achtergrondtekst van de webshop is vrij klein en onduidelijk, waardoor dit moeilijk te lezen is. Daarnaast vind ik de tekst naast het product (de likes) vrij groot, vooral in vergelijking met de webshop tekst. Misschien kun je de lettertypegroottes wat meer op elkaar afstemmen, zodat het niet meer zo’n groot contrast is. Tevens vind ik de rand om het product een beetje overbodig, op webshops zie je dit meestal ook niet. Ik raad aan om de rand weg te laten om zo goed mogelijke een webshop omgeving na te maken. Als laatste zou je misschien nog een titel boven het product (GoPro naam) kunnen plaatsen, dit wordt bij webshops meestal ook gedaan.

54  Vragenlijst

Ik vind de vragenlijst erg duidelijk en alle constructen komen goed terug. Ik heb maar een paar kleine aanmerkingen. Ten eerste, begrijp ik niet zo goed hoe de statements na de Instagram vragen passen bij het onderzoek. De vragen zijn enorm algemeen en zijn niet gericht oponline shoppen. Daarnaast ontdekte ik nog twee spellingsfouten. Bij de volgende lijst met statements moet bij de laatste statement denk ik buying over the Internet vervangen worden door buyingproducts on the Internet. In de lijst met statements die daarop volgt moet bough vervangen worden door bought.

2.Feedback Lotte Erasmus

 Stimuli De Go Pro is goed gekozen en geschikt voor zowel mannen als vrouwen. Je onderzoeksvraag is interessant en komt duidelijk uit de verf in de twee stimuli. Zo duidelijk dat het denk ik wel nodig is een manipulatie check te doen: Weten gebruikers dat het onderzoek ging om de Instagram likes? De afbeeldingen zijn van goede kwaliteit en goed zichtbaar. Alleen het gedeelte available in these editions is niet helemaal duidelijk te lezen. De 280 likesen like this product staan niet helemaal parallel aan de afbeelding. En is het ‘follow Go Pro’ gedeelte ook onderdeel van je onderzoek, of alleen de likes? Ik weet niet zeker of het helemaal valide is om beide toe te voegen, omdat je dan misschien niet het effect van enkel de likes meet maar ook het feit dat GoPro een Instagram heeft en dat men de mogelijkheid heeft ze te volgen. Maar je hele opzet ziet er erg natuurlijk en uitnodigend uit.

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