What motivates and deters users’ online co-creation? The role of cultural and socio-demographic factors

Purpose: This paper aims to determine the impact of cultural context and socio-demographic characteristics on the users’ deterrents and motivators to co-creation online. Design/methodology/approach: The data from two different cultures the UK (306 users) and Spain (307 users) have been collected and compared by performing multi-group analyzes (MGAs) across cultural context, age, gender and educational level using a structural equation modeling approach. Findings: Cultural context, age, gender and educational level moderate the effect of the deterrents and motivators on the attitude and participation in co-creation online: users from individualistic, masculine, with low uncertainty avoidance cultural contexts are expected to be more motivated and express a stronger positive attitude toward co-creation online; young male users exhibit a higher level of positive attitude and higher effect of the motivators toward attitude; on the contrary, old women are exposed to the negative effect of the deterrents; the individuals with basic educational level exhibit a higher level of the deterrents’ effect. Research limitations/implications: The generalizability of the results across different cultural contexts requires further examination and cross-validation. Practical implications: The MGAs of two different cultures (Spain and the UK) and samples of different ages, gender and educational levels provide practitioners with information, which cultures and groups of users are expected to perform better in co-creation activities online. Originality/value: The first study empirically examines the moderating effect of cultural context and demographic characteristics on both deterrents and motivators and their effect on the attitude toward co-creation online.