Cultural differences in electronic commerce: Comparative study between Brazil and Portugal

This article presents the description of a research in electronic commerce (EC) in Brazil and Portugal. A comparative analysis of the cultural differences of the most visited retail websites of these countries, based on the cultural dimensions of Geert Hofstede, was carried out. This is a quantitative investigation. Hypotheses and respective variables were defined for analysis. It was considered a sample of the largest EC websites in the countries and data were collected and analyzed using appropriate techniques. The research concluded that the Brazilian sites are more likely to collectivism than the Portuguese sites, proving only one of the hypotheses formulated. Thus, we find that the cultural characteristics of the countries are still poorly represented on B2C sites.