“Moviegoers’ Use of Film Reviews in the Search for Information: A Multi-Country Study”

A cross-cultural study was conducted among Austrian, Canadian, Colombian, and Italian moviegoers. Based on Hofstede’s (1984) well-known value framework as well as some findings in the consumer information search literature, seven research hypotheses were put forward and tested. These hypotheses were based in part on presumed differences between the four countries on three central cultural values: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and individualism. As predicted by Hofstede’s (1984) framework, Canadian moviegoers appreciated a significantly greater number of movie genres than Austrian, Colombian, and Italian moviegoers. Along with Austrians, they were more susceptible to value-expressive social influence as regards cinema than Colombian and Italian moviegoers. In addition, the impact of susceptibility to value-expressive social influence was stronger in the Austrian and Canadian samples than in the other samples. Although not all research hypotheses were entirely supported by the results, this study shows the value of using a theoretical framework to make predictions about consumer behavior differences attributable to varying cultural orientations.