A cross-cultural comparison of the impact of Social Presence on website trust, usefulness and enjoyment

Previous studies have shown that website design elements (such as text and pictures) can be manipulated to increase the perception of Social Presence (SP) among online consumers, which can then impact trust, usefulness and enjoyment. This paper seeks to determine if the impacts of infusing SP in websites is culture specific or universal. We were able to demonstrate similar results with Chinese online consumers compared to Canadian online customers in terms of usefulness and enjoyment, but not for trust. The paper concludes with a discussion of these results outlining implications for practitioners and directions for future research.