Speakers
Description
The rapid expansion of cross-border e-commerce has renewed academic interest in how cultural values shape online purchasing decisions. The cultural dimensions framework developed by Geert Hofstede remains one of the most widely employed perspectives for explaining cross-cultural variation in consumer behavior; however, the literature has become increasingly fragmented across methodologies and regional contexts. Against this background, the present paper aims to map the intellectual structure and thematic evolution of research linking Hofstede's cultural dimensions to online consumer behavior, with particular emphasis on individualism–collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and power distance, the three dimensions most frequently mobilized in e-commerce studies.
The methodology relies on a bibliometric analysis of publications indexed in Web of Science for the period 2010–2025. After applying inclusion criteria related to topical relevance and document type, the resulting dataset was processed in VOSviewer to perform co-authorship, co-citation, bibliographic coupling, and keyword co-occurrence analyses. Performance indicators (publication output, citation impact, leading journals and authors) are complemented by science mapping techniques designed to reveal thematic clusters and their dynamics over time.
Preliminary findings indicate a steady acceleration of publication output after 2015, a significant concentration of contributions originating from Asian and North American institutions, as well as the emergence of distinct research clusters centered on trust formation, perceived risk, mobile commerce adoption, and social commerce. The individualism–collectivism dimension dominates as an explanatory variable, while uncertainty avoidance gains increasing relevance in studies addressing consumer trust and payment behavior. The paper concludes by outlining underexplored research directions and key gaps in the literature, including the interaction between cultural dimensions and emerging technologies such as AI-driven personalization and live-streaming commerce.
