Culture Priming of Multicultural Individuals on Localized Websites: A Cultural Frame Switching Perspective

Existing website localization efforts primarily focus on the preferences of monocultural users to provide culture-fit website design. However, it is unclear what constitutes a culture-fit design for multicultural individuals. Through five empirical studies and drawing on the cultural frame switching (CFS) theory, we investigate how website localization elements (i.e., language and image) can carry cultural cues that activate the corresponding cultural dimension of individualism/collectivism in multicultural individuals. We also identify depth of processing as a boundary condition for the priming effects of cultural cues. Specifically, cultural cues must be processed at a high semantic level to be effective, whereas a low sensory processing is insufficient. This argument challenges an underlying assumption in CFS that processing cultural cues will always lead to culture activation. Furthermore, we integrate culture priming with the information systems literature on website design to better inform practice. We found that the activated cultural dimension of individualism/collectivism moderates the impact of website design (e.g., social presence) and content factors (e.g., ingroup references) on multicultural individuals’ perception and behavior on websites. This research advances the CFS theory by identifying depth of processing as a boundary condition and enriches the website localization literature by challenging the assumption that localization is not necessary for multicultural individuals. Our findings provide practical guidance for culture-fit website design and content selection tailored to multicultural individuals.

History: Jason Thatcher, Senior Editor; Chuan-Hoo Tan, Associate Editor.

Funding: This research was supported by the Michael Jebsen Professorship Fund and the Hong Kong Research Grants Council [Grant 16505217].

Supplemental Material: The online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2024.1665.