A CROSS-CULTURAL-STUDY OF INTERPERSONAL INFORMATION EXCHANGE

Research conducted primarily in the United States has shown that inter personal influence arising from opinion exchange behavior is an import ant factor in consumers' product adoption and brand choice decisions, An important managerial question in the international arena is whether information-giving and seeking behaviors depend on culture, In a stud y representing eleven nationalities, we explore the role of culture in moderating consumers' opinion exhange behavior, Results indicate that the cultural characteristics of power distance and uncertainty avoida nce [Hofstede 1980] influence the focus of consumers' product informat ion search activities, but not their tendencies to share product-relat ed opinions with others, Following earlier opinion leadership studies, we find that individual characteristics such as product category inte rest and involvement are most indicative of active opinion leadership behavior.