A cross-cultural exploration of online community newcomer behaviour

Abstract

As Internet use has become globally pervasive, the literature suggests that national culture is having an impact on online community communication practices. The importance of researching national culture in these spaces is critical for improved understanding, design and management of online communities. However, current theoretical insights on national culture in this space are inadequate for the scale of online community development being witnessed, and knowledge of how national culture can influence online community user behaviour is insufficient. In order to address this knowledge gap and reduce the complexity of exploring user behaviour, the online community newcomer was analysed using a cross-cultural comparative qualitative directed content analysis methodology. This research aims to identify and explain cultural similarities and differences in online community newcomer behaviour, develop new theoretical conceptions of newcomer theory, and support existing theory using a cross-cultural comparative analysis. It is positioned within the online community cross cultural space and the online community newcomer theory space. The research sampled three online discussion communities from different national cultural origins, namely Spain, Ireland and Australia to explore newcomer behaviour in a cross-cultural context. Over 3,200 newcomer posts were analysed using a qualitative directed content analysis methodology, facilitated with NVivo 10. A model of newcomer behaviour was developed using both emergent and existing theoretical categories to structure this directed approach. The results of the comparative cross-cultural analysis posed that there were both similarities and differences in newcomer behaviour categories across national cultures, and that existing theories of national culture serve as a starting point to explain differences in online community newcomer behaviour. These results aided in the construction of five original models of newcomer behaviour that could be used by online community moderators and researchers. The original contribution to knowledge is the identification of culturally-derived similarities and differences in online community newcomer behaviour, the validation of these with existing cultural theories from the online community cross cultural space, and the creation of multiple models of newcomer behaviour which serve as a basis for formal theory in the online community space. In particular, these models could have an important impact on the future investigation, understanding and structuring of newcomer behaviour research, and serve to bridge the knowledge gap of the impact of national culture on online community user behaviour.