The effects of individualism–collectivism cultural orientation on eWOM information

• We explore how individualistic culture affects readers’ information credibility.
• Individualistic culture has positive moderate effect with information sidedness.
• Individualistic culture has negative moderate effect with information consistency.
• Individualistic culture has negative moderate effect with information rating.

Drawing upon elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and espoused culture, this study predicts that eWOM reader's individualism–collectivism orientation (ICO) moderates eWOM antecedent factors’ effects on the perception of information credibility. 274 data were collected from two leading electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) forums in China, the results confirm our prediction: eWOM reader's ICO positively moderates information sidedness’ effect on the perception of information credibility, it also negatively moderates the relationships between information consistency/information rating and information credibility. These findings validate the necessity and importance to consider readers’ espoused cultural differences in eWOM context.