Acculturation to the Global Culture as Moderator to Subjective Norm and Internet Adoption Reem Ayouby John Molson School of Business Concordia University rayouby@videotron.ca Anne-Marie Croteau John Molson School of Business Concordia University anne-marie.croteau@concordia.ca Abstract Internet adoption is seen as a prerequisite to the diffusion of eCommerce. Underdeveloped online markets exist in the Middle East. However, there is a scarcity of knowledge related to these markets [1]. This paper complements the work of Stafford et al. [1] by reporting on the results of a study on Internet adoption in two urban social communities in Jordan. We examine the effects of the phenomenon of globalization on Internet adoption. Results indicate that the Acculturation to the Global Culture moderates the relationship between subjective norm and Internet adoption with perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness playing their well known roles. 1. Introduction As historic constraints dictated by geography start to recede with the faster rate of globalizations spread and in ways which are unprecedented, the IS community has called for studies which would illuminate the cultural effects of globalization on the information systems field [2, 3]. The information systems literature includes a significant number of cultural research; however, this research is mostly based on Hofstedes conceptualization of culture [3]. Although Hofstedes conceptualization of culture has proven to be very useful, it does not consider the cultural effects of globalization and the possibility of cultural change. Cultural change has recently been highlighted as an important topic of research [4] and has been explored in the form of acculturation to the global consumer culture [5, 6]. This paper aims to fill the gap in the information systems literature concerning the effects of the global culture on technology adoption by examining how the acculturation to the global culture affects the relationship between subjective norms and Internet adoption in a developing county which has been experiencing the effects of globalization more strongly in the last few years. The paper is organized as follows: The next section reviews the theoretical background by discussing in more detail the topics of culture and its different conceptualizations, acculturation to the global culture, technology adoption and how technology adoption and culture are related. Next, the research model is presented and followed by the hypotheses section. The research method, findings and a discussion of the findings are presented thereafter. Finally the paper is concluded with a discussion of the limitations and future research suggestions. 2. Theoretical background This section discusses the theoretical considerations needed in formulating the model for this study. We draw on research in international business for a discussion of two opposing views of culture; next the concept of acculturation to the global culture is described. We then draw on research on technology adoption in the information systems field and discuss studies of technology adoption which considered the effect of culture in general. From the following definition of globalization, we will focus on the cultural effects of the phenomenon, specifically in the IS field. Globalization is defined as: A social process in which the constraints of geography on economic, political, social and cultural arrangements recede, in which people become increasingly aware that they are receding and in which people act accordingly. [7] (p. 5). We see the global culture to be a set of influences from global sources which affect peoples activities and practices. Proceedings of the 42nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2009 1 978-0-7695-3450-3/09 $25.00 © 2009 IEEE