sustainability Article WhatsApp! Does Culture Matter to Persuasive System Design and Brand Loyalty? Serri Faisal 1, *, Kamaal Allil 2, * , Nor Aziati Abdul Hamid 3 and Nor Hazana Abdullah 3   Citation: Faisal, S.; Allil, K.; Hamid, N.A.A.; Abdullah, N.H. WhatsApp! Does Culture Matter to Persuasive System Design and Brand Loyalty? Sustainability 2021, 13, 5800. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13115800 Academic Editor: Hong-Youl Ha Received: 21 April 2021 Accepted: 18 May 2021 Published: 21 May 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 Department of Business Information Technology, Emirates College of Technology, Abu Dhabi 51133, United Arab Emirates 2 Department of Marketing and Entrepreneurship, College of Commerce and Business Administration, Dhofar University, SalalahP.O. Box 2509, Oman 3 Faculty of Technology Management and Business, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, Batu Pahat 86400, Malaysia; aziati@uthm.edu.my (N.A.A.H.); hazana@uthm.edu.my (N.H.A.) * Correspondence: serri.faisal@ect.ac.ae (S.F.); kallil@du.edu.om (K.A.) Abstract: The traditional paradigm prioritizes local culture in application design; however, popular applications with persuasive systems design (PSD) like WhatsApp appeal to a global audience beyond local cultural attributes. The purpose of this study is to test the moderating role of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions on PSD and the relationship to loyalty in the context of WhatsApp. By employing an online survey, data were collected from the Netherlands, Germany, KSA, and Malaysia (N = 488). Using regression moderation analyses, the hypotheses were tested. Findings suggest that only two cultural dimensions, namely power distance and individualism, have a moderating role: power distance in Germany, and individualism in both KSA and Malaysia. This implies that managers must consider the possible influence of some cultural dimensions on loyalty. The study contributes to the literature by focusing on smartphone apps in countries with varying cross-cultural dimensions scores and utilizing the user’s perspective instead of the designer’s perspective. Keywords: cross-cultural dimensions; loyalty; persuasive system design; smartphone applica- tions; WhatsApp 1. Introduction As the smartphone app market is becoming more crowded, the study of consumer loyalty to apps is becoming more attractive to both business managers and academics. As of November 2020, there were 2.87 million apps available for Android users from Google Play and 1.96 million apps available for Apple smartphone users from Apple’s App Store [1]. The advent of smartphones has proved that computers are designed to perform tasks beyond storing and processing data [2]. Recent studies observed that smartphones are mostly designed to influence human behavior and attitudes through applications (apps) that include social media, marketing, financial, and knowledge management services [3,4]. As a result, fierce competition among app developers emerged. Consequently, loyalty is a critical issue for designers and developers. Many available smartphone applications are either not downloaded or never used. Research indicates that only one-fifth of the available apps go beyond 1000 downloads, as 25% of those downloaded applications are ignored [4]. Therefore, convincing customers around the globe to accept and be loyal to smartphone apps is a paramount concern for the software industry. Persuasive technology can significantly influence individual’s behavior leading to the adoption of apps. A review of 72 studies on users’ feedback showed positive results that technologies generate lasting behavioral change [5]. In healthcare, for example, per- suasive technology has proven effective for encouraging the adoption of healthy behavior. Furthermore, the utilization of health technologies to guide the attitudes of patients can be positively influenced by an individual’s self-efficacy perceptions [6]. Sustainability 2021, 13, 5800. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13115800 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability