The Relationship Between National Culture and E-Adoption: A Case Study of Iran

Abstract

National Culture, in the sense of the shared traditions and representations of a society, has a profound effect on the design, adoption and the use of Information Technologies in each society. E-Adoption refers to the adoption of Information Technology and internet. Using Hofstede theory as the primary theoretical framework, through a review of existing studies, the current study attempted to explore the potential impact of differences in national culture on IT implementation and adoption. Based on these studies, national culture has a major effect on e-adoption; it could be as a restraining or driving force. Given the fact that the concept of culture is not static and will change over the time, this study illustrated that by renewing Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, a newer attitude towards Iranian culture and its relevance with e-adoption could be achieved. In addition, the findings show that Iranian society is clustered in sense of some cultural indexes and concerning merely the average of every index, is not sufficient. Rather, it is necessary for an IT planner to provide a thorough plan which could cover each cluster of the society. To achieve this fact, we provide some propositions for e-adoption based on previous studies in other countries, to cover all of various clusters in each cultural index.