The impact of culture on mobile phone purchasing: A comparison between Thai and British consumers

The aim of this research is to determine and evaluate whether differences in national culture impact on the buyer behaviour of Thai and British consumers when purchasing a mobile phone. Furthermore, the research was conducted in order to identify and compare key cultural attributes that influence mobile phone purchasing between Thai and British consumers. An empirical study was based on the concept of Hofstede’s dimension of Individualism /Collectivism and Power Distance and Schwartz’s values dimension of Power, Achievement, Hedonism and Self-Direction. The data was collected from 140 questionnaires using students at the University of Surrey. The findings indicated that there is a significant difference between Thai and British consumers in terms of mobile phone purchasing behaviour as far as Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and Schwartz’s cultural values are concerned. The findings also recommend that managers in mobile phone organizations should be concerned with the cultural dynamics of consumers as part of their going re-segmentation, communication and promotion strategies within their overall marketing strategie. Additionally, the cultural factors will assist managers to guide the specifications required for the development of online customer decision support systems.