Understanding the influence of culture on customer engagement and recommendation intentions

In a digital, global world, a paradigm shift in marketing has led companies and customers to become increasingly interconnected through the Internet and social media. Drawing on online review data from 64,285 hotel guests from 36 countries, this research explores the dynamics between customer engagement and recommendation intentions, adopting a cultural perspective. The results reveal that highly engaged customers generally provide more positive reviews. Regarding whether customers issue a recommendation, uncertainty avoidance exerts a context-dependent influence on negative sentiment. An information-motivated herding effect also arises, such that reviews reflect their immediately preceding reviews. Marketing managers thus should complement analyses of satisfaction scores with automatic analyses of textual sentiments in reviews.