Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse consumer purchasing behaviour in different cultural settings by exploring the value of consumer reviews from various countries. Design/methodology/approach This study uses online review mining technology to collect, process and analyse user review data from multiple countries. The main procedures of this research are data collection, data pre-processing, feature extraction and sentiment analysis. Online reviews from the American, British and Indian websites for the iPhone 5s are analysed. Findings Every country has unique cultural characteristics, and these cultural differences affect consumers’ perceptions, attitudes and purchasing behaviours. The results show that consumers from different countries exhibit different levels of attention towards the same product and have different emotional inclinations for the same product feature. In addition, the study also identified the advantages and disadvantages of the product. Limitations implications The user reviews provide abundant feedback information that serves as a good intelligence resource for companies. Under the premise of different language habits, this paper uses a universal approach to analyse consumer behaviour from online reviews in different countries, which can help reveal consumers’ emotional inclination towards each feature of a product. This approach can be extended to other brands of mobile phones or other industries. Practical implications Multinational companies should analyse the cultural characteristics of target groups when proposing transnational development strategies. Companies can understand the perceptions of their products based on the consumer reviews and can formulate their marketing and product strategies by considering consumer purchasing behaviours arising from cultural differences. Originality/value This study identifies differences in consumer behaviour in different cultural settings by using a data mining method, which can help companies understand consumer perceptions and the performance and quality of product features.

The continuous growth of the sharing economy has the potential to transform the competition in the accommodation sector. At present, research on accommodation sharing is scarce. This paper identifies drivers and barriers to accommodation sharing in Dubai. Taking into account different viewpoints of accommodation sharing professionals in Dubai and the grey-based Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method, this study singles out the essential drivers and barriers and examines the cause and effect connections between them. The process starts with a review of the existing accommodation sharing literature and the feedback from the industry experts to identify the drivers and barriers. Then, the elaboration of the questionnaire, data collection from five experts, data analysis with grey-based DEMATEL, and the sensitivity analysis follow. The lower costs, higher value, ease of use, wealth of available information, and contributions to the development of the local economy and residents are the most influential drivers of accommodation sharing in Dubai. The difficulties related to learning and using new technology along with insufficient or underdeveloped accommodation sharing legislation are the most critical barriers. The paper ends with implications for the stakeholders, limitations, and future directions for research on accommodation sharing.