Does culture matter? A qualitative and comparative study on eLearning in Germany and China

eLearning offers the exciting opportunity to acquire new material at any time and any place. It is also a means to teach a large number of people simultaneously, which is an important aspect when thinking about challenges in fast growing countries like China. We suggest that the successful usage of eLearning requires the consideration of didactic Nadine Hammer, Andreas Janson, Jan Marco Leimeister 2 socialization. While prior research has primarily focused on the overall success factors of eLearning, there is little understanding about how a specific learning culture context influences its usefulness. This study intends by a use of a proxy approach to investigate culture-sensitive success factors of eLearning measures regarding overall satisfaction and learning success. The results of the comparison of the German and East Asian learning context show that there are culturally specific requirements of eLearning success that cater to the specific didactic socialization.