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GENDER, THE INTERNET AND ELECTRONIC COMMERCE
Fulbright Senior Scholar, PhD, Professor of Business and Computer Studies, John P. Sagi
101 College Parkway, Arnold, Maryland, USA 21012-1895, Anne Arundel Community College
jsagi@aacc.edu
The Internet as an enabling information technology is rapidly becoming the global highway of choice for communications and trade across societies, governments, organizations and businesses. One particularly popular and pervasive use of the Internet is electronic commerce (eCommerce). ECommerce is rapidly encompassing the world as a truly single and universal employment of this technology.
Studies show that cultures of the world utilize technologies differently. For example, Berger and Huntington (2002)[1] posit that cultures can wholly accept, modify or totally reject any given technology. In the case of the Internet, this is manifest for example in the universal use of the Internet Protocol (IP) of telecommunications rules. However, cultures modify the display Web sites to suit differences in language, preference for color, and so on. Further, some governments choose to block and control data across their borders while others present a more «hands off» approach.
In seminal work by Geert Hofstede (1983, 1997)[2,3], national cultures are shown however, to differ among themselves in aspects described by Hofstede as «Power Distance», «Uncertainty Avoidance», «Individuality» and, curiously, «Masculinity». This latter cultural attribute, directly associated with the physical traits called «gender» indicates that while cultures themselves differ, understanding these differences also involves differences between genders. These differences may manifest themselves in technology access, attitudes and use. As the gender demographics change on the male-dominated Internet, as the number of female uses of the Internet gradually increase globally (In US, for example, females are most recently outnumbering males) certain aspects of the Internet and eCommerce may also change. It is important therefore for the future of this information technology to understand not only differences in cultures but also those attributable to gender. This is supported in the literature. Many researchers have studied cultural differences about the Internet. Several studies note that cultural differences do not provide sufficient explanation for differences in attitudes and in the use of information technology. Harris and Davison (1999)[4] research global anxiety and technology involvement, and their influences upon attitudes towards computers in developing societies. Using computer students on China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, New Zealand, Tanzania and Thailand, they find that many differences are attributable to gender and prior computer experience. Hoxmeier et al. (2000)[5] study the impact of culture and gender on user confidence with electronic mail. They report that gender differences «appear to diminish through technical education and experience».
In a study of national level culture and global Internet diffusion, Maitland and Bauer (2001)[6] write that economic factors are strong predictors of information technology adoption; that national culture is slightly less powerful in predicting adoption; and that gender plays a significant role in technology adoption. Simon (2001)[7] studies Web site perceptions, and finds that there are both cultural and gender factors involved. Zhang et al. (2002)[8] study the characteristics of Internet users with a particular focus on privacy concerns. They compare US and Chinese students, and conclude that females are «more concerned with the internal unauthorized use of personal information and the possible misuse of credit card information than male respondents». A similar study was conducted by Sagi et al. (2004)[9] involving attitudes about eCommerce. 195 university students from the US, Great Britain and Greece contributed to a survey which was developed in the US by business students at Anne Arundel Community College, Arnold, Maryland. The survey consisted of Likert-scale questions related to the issues of national control of data, the cost of privacy for technology use, property rights on the Internet, and the preferences of consumers to purchase from a store rather than from eCommerce sites. The research hypothesized that there would be statistically significant differences in attitudes about these issues across cultural groups and between genders. As a result of Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) tests conducted on the data, the culture differences hypothesis is supported (H1) while the gender differences hypothesis (H2) is not. These results are shown in Table 1.
Table 1. MANOVA Analysis
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Test: If the
F ratio > 1 and its significance level at the
degrees of freedom for the
two mean squares is <.05, the null hypothesis,
that the means are the
same, can be rejected.
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Hypothesis
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Source of
Variance
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Sum of Squares
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Df
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Mean
Square
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F
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Sig
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Result
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H1: Cultural groups
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Between groups
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87.477
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2
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43.739
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4.547
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.012
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Supported
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Within groups
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1741.242
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181
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9.620
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H2: Genders
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Between groups
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22.907
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1
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22.907
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2.309
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.102
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Not
Supported
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Within groups
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1805.811
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182
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9.922
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The gender findings for particular dependent variables are shown in Table 2.
Table 2. ANOVA for Gender
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Test: If the
F ratio > 1 and its significance level at the
degrees of freedom for the
two mean squares is <.05, the null hypothesis,
that the means are the
same, can be rejected.
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Hypothesis
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F
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Significance
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H2A: National Control of Data
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2.457
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.119
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H2B: Privacy Cost
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3.822
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.052
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H2C: Property Rights
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1.030
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.312
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H2D: Consumer Preferences
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2.691
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.103
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From Table 2 the general agreement between genders is interesting. Genders were close to a statistically significant difference about Privacy Cost (sig=.052) as females tended to disagree more than males about giving up privacy as a cost of technology. The differences about privacy cost are similar to the findings of Zhang et al. (2002). Simon (2001) reports that gender may also have different influences in different nations.
The level of education reported by the respondents may explain the general agreement between genders. The subjects are all college students. Other possible factors may include age and technology access.
To further understand gender differences in technology, this researcher conducted a recent (2004) unpublished and informal poll of 70 electronic commerce students at Kazan State University, Russian Federation. The students were asked about their Internet access and use. The results are shown in Table 3.
Table 3. Gender eCommerce Survey, Kazan State University
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Question
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Male
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Female
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Average age
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20.8
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20.9
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Do you have
a PC at home?
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92.3%
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92.0%
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How many hours
per week are you on
the Internet?
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11.5
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2.8
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Are you connected
at home to the Internet?
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92.3%
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62.5%
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Have you purchased
anything on the Internet?
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46.1%
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4.1%
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Do you have
a credit card or have
access to a credit card?
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69.2%
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34.8%
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Do your parents
use the Internet?
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46.1%
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28.0%
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What is your
Internet access cost per month?
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R308
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R220
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Have you ever…
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Researched a product?
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100%
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76%
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Searched for hobby info?
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84.6%
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88%
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Downloaded music?
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84.6%
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68%
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Done Internet banking?
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15.4%
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8%
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Clearly Table 3 shows a structural difference between genders in both their access to the Internet and to the enablers of eCommerce such as the credit card, but it also demonstrates a difference in Internet use between genders in Russia. The males students (34.2% of the sample) spent more hours online per week, had a much greater chance of having purchased something on the Web, had credit access, had parents also interested in this technology, and used the Web in slightly differing ways than their female peers. Certainly national structural differences play a considerable role in the use of this technology, but the marked differences between genders in these Russian students is well worthy of further research and comparison with other cultures.
In conclusion, this paper has presented a discussion of the importance of understanding gender in the use of the Internet and of electronic commerce. It has also indicated that the role of gender may be different across different global cultures, but that understanding these differences in technology is a first step in the future of eCommerce.
References
1. Berger, P. & Huntington, S. (Eds).(2002). Many globalizations: Cultural diversity in the contemporary world. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2. Hofstede, G. (1983). National cultures in four dimensions. International Studies of Management and Organization, 9(12), 46-74.
3. Hofstede, G. (1997). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind. NY: McGraw Hill.
4. Harris, R. & Davison, R. (1999). Anxiety and involvement: Cultural dimensions of attitudes towards computers in developing societies. Journal of Global Information Management, Jan-Mar, 26-38.
5. Hoxmeier, J., Nie, W. & Purvis, G. (2000). The impact of gender and experience on user confidence in electronic mail. Journal of End User Computing, Oct-Dec, 11-20.
6. Maitland, C. & Bauer, J. (2001). National level culture and global diffusion. In Ess, C. (Ed). Culture, technology, communication: Towards an intercultural global village. NY: SUNY Press.
7. Simon, S. (2001). The impact of culture and gender on Web sites: An empirical study. The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems, Winter, 18-37.
8. Zhang, Y., Chen, J. & Wen, K. (2002). Characteristics of Internet users and their privacy concerns: A comparative study between China and the United States. Journal of Internet Commerce, 1(2), 1-16.
9. Sagi, J., Carayannis, E., Dasgupta, S. and Thomas, G. (2004). ICT and business in the new economy: Globalization and attitudes towards ecommerce. Journal of Global Information Management, 12(3), 44-64.
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