Drivers and barriers of digital nomadism: A cross-country comparison of Chinese and US samples

Digital nomads (DNs) blend work and travel, creating opportunities and management challenges for destinations. Drawing on 571 participants in China and the United States, an expanded version of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) is used, examining life satisfaction, policy expectation, and travel experience as context relevant antecedents. PLS-SEM shows that policy expectation is the strongest correlate of intention, while perceived behavioral control (PBC) has the larger association with current DN status. Permutation multi-group analysis identifies four significant country differences: travel experience-PBC and PBC-current status associations are stronger in the Chinese sample, while PBC-intention and intention-current status associations are stronger in the US sample. The findings contextualize TPB for digital nomadism and show how motivational, experiential, and policy-related associations vary across country contexts. They help destinations tailor positioning, onboarding, mobility services, and community integration while managing local impacts.