Does culture influence online customer engagement of university stakeholders: pandemic perspective

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly increased the role of social media in the communication policy of educational institutions. Ensuring the effective use of social networks to communicate with target audiences requires universities to understand, among other things, the importance of cultural context for the audience’s engagement. We analyzed the engagement rates (ER) in Facebook and Instagram for the most influential universities in the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries to determine the influence of the country’s cultural characteristics. The study examines two hypotheses. H1: Stakeholders in collectivist cultures with a high level of power distance are more likely to increase online engagement when limited in offline communication. H2: High uncertainty avoidance countries with long-term orientation will demonstrate broader social media engagement. The results showed that the dynamics of stakeholder activity in the social networks Facebook and Instagram for the most influential universities in the Eastern Partnership countries do not depend on the country’s cultural profile. Thus, we can conclude that universities can expand their presence in the digital communication space while addressing representatives of their target audiences from different countries without differentiating their communication messages. The study results also indicate the prospects for expanding remote students’ mobility programs as they will not require different approaches to effective digital communication.

Keywords

• covid-19
• customer engagement
• social media
• students
• universities