Antecedents to enculturation and acculturation for diffusion of knowledge using internet applications: an empirical investigation

Abstract

This paper looks to the processes of cultural reorientation, i.e., acculturation and enculturation, using the internet as a facilitator. Immigrants using social media and other internet applications exchange, endorse and diffuse cultural elements with the host community thus shaping new behaviours and keeping their culture alive. The internet is found to be advantageous for the traditional word-of-mouth process; yet it also helps to shape and reshape cultural intention and knowledge diffusion of immigrants. Using data from 328 people from rural areas who migrated to big cities to improve their lives, we explored how homogenisation, assimilation, and severance, occurring through the use of the internet as well as through word of mouth, affect the diffusion of knowledge, taking cultural reorientation (both acculturation and enculturation) as a mediator. Our study helps to realise the implication for development of concerned theory and provides implications for both theory and practice.