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The “Mail-Order-Bride” (MOB) Phenomenon in the Cyberworld: An Interpretive Investigation

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The “Mail-Order-Bride” (MOB) Phenomenon in the Cyberworld:
An Interpretive Investigation
SUPRATEEK SARKER, University of Virginia1
SURANJAN CHAKRABORTY, Towson University
PATRIYA SILPAKIT TANSUHAJ, Washington State University & Chiang Mai University
MARK MULDER, Pacific Lutheran University
KIVILCIM DOGERLIOGLU-DEMIR, Sabanci University
Information technology (IT) is often an enabler in bringing people together. In the context of this study, IT helps connect
matchmaking service providers with those looking for love, particularly when a male seeks to meet and possibly marry afemale from another country – a process which results in over 16,500 such ‘mail-order-bride’ (MOB) marriages a year in the
United States alone. Past research in business disciplines has been largely silent about the way in which this process unfolds,
the perspectives of the participants at different points of time, and the role of IT underlying the MOB matchmaking service.
Adopting an interpretivist stance, and utilizing some of the methodological guidelines associated with the Grounded Theory
Methodology (GTM), we develop a process model which highlights: a) the key states of the process through which therelationship between the MOB seeker (the man) and the MOB (the woman) unfolds, b) the transitions between states, and c)
the triggering conditions for the transitions from one state to another. This study also highlights key motivations of theindividuals participating in the MOB process, the effect of power and the role it plays in the dynamics of the relationships, thestatus of women and how their status evolves during the MOB process, and the unique affordance provided by IT as therelationships evolve
Categories and Subject Descriptors: H.1.2. [Models and Principles]: User/Machine Systems---Human Information
Processing; H.5.3. [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: Group and Organization Interfaces---Theory and Methods
General Terms: Theory, Human Factors, Management
Additional Key Words and Phrases: On-line relationships, mail order brides (“MOB”), e-commerce, information technology,
process model, grounded theory, interpretive research
ACM Reference Format:

1. INTRODUCTION

Consider the experiences of two different women who found their loved one from a far-away land.
Notably, at the inception of the search process, they knew little about their mates, which continued
to be the case even after the women had started their married lives overseas.
“David2 is a well-educated, middle aged man whose first relationship ended in a
divorce. During his initial attempt at dating locally, he had difficulty finding awoman that provided the right ‘spark,’ a woman with compatibility. He discovered amatchmaking service which helped pair men in the U.S. with foreign women, anddecided to give it a try. David scanned the hundreds of women with images in the
catalog, looking for someone special. After contacting different women from all over
the world, he found one person in particular with whom he felt a connection. David
and Corazon continued to write, and over time a relationship developed. Afterapproximately one year of correspondence, David travelled to meet Corazon and herfamily in Cambodia. They were soon married, and are now in what Corazon
describes as a ‘beautiful’ marriage, even after 12 years. ““Anastasia3 grew up in Russia. At 19, she was a bright student, well versed in music
and culture, and had stunning looks which caught the attention of modeling1

All authors contributed equally. The authors would also like to take this opportunity to state our sincere appreciation to all
the interviewees who permitted us to go into their private lives, to learn about a socially and culturally sensitive issue, inorder for us to develop a deeper understanding of this global IT phenomenon.
2
At the request of the interviewees, and out of respect for their privacy, the names of the participants as well assome key identifiers have been changed.
3This account was created using news articles about this relationship.

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S. Sarker et al.

agencies. Anastasia’s parents, seeing potential in Anastasia which would be hard toachieve in Russia, supported her when she decided to include her profile inmatchmaking catalogs. Soon, a man began pursuing Anastasia, ultimately flying to
Russia and meeting her and her parents. While the attraction was not a physical one
at first from Anastasia’s point of view, she was attracted to the suitor’s professional
experience – he held an MBA from an elite MBA program in the US, was a former
Eagle Scout, and had taught as a college instructor. The two married in 1998, she
enrolled at a university, and beamed in her letters home about life in America.
About a year later, a police report described a domestic violence incident resulting in
scratches on Anastasia [Kamb and Jamieson 2001]. A little more than a year later
after the incident, Anastasia went missing, and her husband was arrested andcharged with her murder [Fisher 2002a]. He was ultimately convicted by a jury andsentenced to 29 years in jail [Fisher 2002b].”
These two stories represent perhaps the two ends of a possible continuum of outcomes – one woman
experiences abuse and a premature end to a promising life, while the other experiences a fulfilling
life with a loving man and a ‘beautiful’ marriage. While they end in extremely different ways, they
start with the same beginning – a quest for a spouse from a distant country and culture, aided by theservices of a third party ‘matchmaker.’ This is where this research project begins, with the following
broad questions: How does the entire process unfold, from getting signed up with an agency toultimately getting married? Given the ability for information technology (IT) to serve as theunderlying mechanism for possible love connections, how might one’s use of technology improve theentire process? While these may not be easy questions to answer definitively, we believe they need
to be explored. Yet, there is little (if any) research to date to address the above questions. Given thelack of previous research, we turn to a predominantly inductive approach for our research.
2. THE “MAIL-ORDER-BRIDE” (“MOB”) PHENOMENON

Studies from other disciplines which investigate the MOB phenomenon refer to international
marriage brokering agencies as mail order bride services. Indeed, even the popular press hasreferenced the services as such; with one recent Business Week Magazine headline stating, “TheMail-Order-Bride Trade is Flourishing” [Wayne 2011]. “Mail order brides,” otherwise known as thepotential bride-to-be, are typically from the developing world (e.g., Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia)
and often come from less privileged backgrounds. These women register with MOB agencies in thehopes of finding a suitable marriage partner [Angeles and Sunanta 2007; Kojima 2001; Robinson
1996]. Interestingly, while there is widespread recognition that the term “mail order bride” isdemeaning, the term continues to be used in the popular press as well as in the academic literature.
Perhaps, in part, this highlights the existence of unequal power relations between men and women
involved in the exchange process. Indeed, scholars point to unequal relationships as playing a role inthe commoditization of the women involved in this marital exchange [Sciachitano 2000].
Mail order bride services date back to the early settlers of North America, where men would write
to Europe in hopes of finding a wife. Later, during World War II, American GI’s wrote letters towomen whom they had never met and arranged marriages through letter correspondence. While
culturally we find that an arranged marriage is not a new phenomenon, the mail order bride“business” is a recent phenomenon [Tolentino 1996]. In the early 1980s, for-profit matchmaking
agencies were established. Originally, they provided their male customers with paper catalogs
containing pictures and short biographies of women, mostly from developing countries. Customers
would then pick a number of potential mates and send them letters. This letter-writing process could
take years until finally the partners felt comfortable with one another and decided to meet. Withadvances in information technology, these mail order bride agencies began to offer services online.
These IT-mediated services offered customers access to more profiles, more detailed information on
potential brides, instant messaging, web cam communication, e-mail options, and 24/7 customer
support. Indeed, the popularity of the service seems to have been aided by the role of IT.

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In the words of [Schaeffer‐Grabiel 2006 p.331], “When the mail-order bride industry shifted fromusing a magazine format to operating over the Internet during the 1990’s, the number… providing
matchmaking services exploded.” It is estimated that in 2007 more than 16,500 U.S. marriages were
MOB related [Wayne 2011] though the size and scope of the IT-mediated industry worldwide isperhaps underestimated if just US marriages are considered. Lynn Visson, a former professor andauthor studying MOB, says the number of MOB firms operating in the United States alone hasgrown from “a handful to roughly 600” in the past decade [Harris 2005]. Without representative
industry associations, the size of the mail-order-bride industry is somewhat difficult to ascertain.
However, several sources and reports help to piece together an idea of the size and trends within theindustry. A recent report on MOB in Bloomberg Business Week reported that international
matchmakers (MOB agencies) in 2010 earned more than $2 billion dollars [Wayne 2011]. As such,mainstream media has recently been talking about MOB matches, with the ABC show Nightline
dedicating an entire show to the topic (August 18, 2011), as host Bill Weir traveled to the Ukraine toshadow American men during their MOB experience [Thompson and Lovett 2011].
In their
overview of the industry, BusinessWeek highlighted the story of Joseph Weiner, who owns aninternational matchmaking agency with 30 offices throughout the world [Wayne 2011]. Thesesources suggest that the MOB industry is growing, and attribute a big part of the growth to theonline nature of the services and search opportunities. Indeed, the size and scope of industry is
substantial, the role of IT is significant, and social implications are profound, warranting a need forresearch in this area.
There are, in addition, three interrelated characteristics of the MOB phenomenon that makes it
worthy of investigation. First, the MOB phenomenon represents the morphing of a seemingly social
tradition into one that is inherently socio-technical, perhaps exemplifying the increasing
pervasiveness of IT in modern society. Second, in its current avatar, the phenomenon demonstrates amarked evolution of form and character from the past, when paper-based catalogs and letter-based
interactions were central. Today, the IT mediation offers the possibility of incredible speed andrichness of interaction for participants.. Third, this phenomenon represents a socio-technicalinteraction that is very distinct from the apparently similar phenomenon of online dating. A few key
aspects distinguish these two phenomenon – a) MOB websites typically do not use matchingalgorithms, a common trend in online dating website; b) the distributed and internationalized natureof the interaction makes the MOB phenomenon more exclusively online and IT mediated than online
dating (where individuals may progress offline, face-to-face interactions after the initial online
introduction); and c) the MOB services typically provide a number of different service extensions (e.g.
sending flowers, coordinating travel arrangements for international visits, etc.) not expected or evenrequired by individuals using an online dating service.
3. BRIEF LITERATURE REVIEW

Despite being a fascinating and rapidly-growing industry that has several sociological,
psychological, and business implications, the MOB phenomenon has not received the scholarly
attention it deserves. With a few exceptions in the marketing and IS literature, which have sought toshed light on related themes such as on-line dating [Frost et al. 2008] and evolution of on-line
relationships [Fernback 2007] (though not for MOBs), studies in business disciplines have chosen to
be generally silent on this issue. Thus, we develop our pre-understanding in this area based onscholarly work on MOB in other humanistic disciplines. The first point that struck us is that theexisting literature in general adopts a critical outlook on MOB, highlighting themes such as
domination by men and commoditization of women, and portraying MOB as a response to feminism
and also as a new form of colonization. We briefly highlight these themes next. For example, it has
been suggested that web based tools such as instant messaging and web cam options allow a focus onexternal features, which effectively turn women into commodities and a type of personal brand[Hughes 2000]. In this context, cyberspace is viewed as a male territory and new information andcommunication technologies as men’s toys [Angeles & Sunanta 2007]. To elaborate further, on one
hand, with the assistance of the MOB agencies, women from third world countries who seek toescape from their harsh local circumstances are viewed as “selling” themselves. On the other hand,

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some Western men are said to be looking for women from other cultures, particularly Asian, to avoid
dealing with Western women who they (these Western men) believe are under the influence offeminist values. In the view of these men, the feminist influence results in women focusing overly on
their own individuality, which, in turn, leads them to ignore the needs of the husband and thefamily.
Scholars argue that websites of the MOB agencies construct women as the “sexual and racial
other” [Angeles & Sunanta 2007] who are beautiful, significantly younger, and, more importantly,“unspoiled by feminism.4” Some researchers have even suggested that the Internet demonstrates a
growth that resembles colonization and a power imbalance between Western and developing
countries that is difficult to overturn [Sciachitano 2000]. In this asymmetric relationship, mail orderbrides are mere commodities for sale, and western men are privileged purchasers [Pehar 2003]. In
other words, MOB is portrayed as involving unequal power in the relationship between the man (the“buyer” from a wealthy developed country) and the woman (the “seller” from a less developed
country), at least at the beginning. While such research highlights the negative connotations
inherent in the phenomenon, we believe that it is important to investigate why individuals,
particularly the women, continue explore and participate in the MOB process.
Our literature review also reveals that much of the research in business and computing is limited
to the online dating phenomenon which, as we previously highlighted, is markedly different from the
MOB phenomenon (see Table 1). Further, none of the existing studies take a holistic approach oroffer a longitudinal account of the phenomenon, where the reader is able to see how the entire
process unfolds. Also missing is an inquiry into the experiences and understanding of theindividuals involved in the process. And, finally, a surprisingly underemphasized element is thecritical role of technology, with existing studies in closely related areas primarily focused on
exploring the stylistic aspects of online dating sites [Ellison et al. 2006; Fiore and Donath 2004], theinteractions between partners [Fernback 2007], and the typology of services/goods perspective [Frostet al. 2008]. The present research seeks to fill some of these gaps in the literature.

4

Quoted from http://www.eastern-europe-women.com

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Table I. A summary of recent literature
SourceOverview

Theory/Concept

MethodKey findings

Critique/Comments

Ellisson et al. (2006) in
the Journal of ComputerMediatedCommunication

Authors take an
inductive approach in
examining selfpresentation
processes in the
online dating
environment.

Social Information Processing(SIP) theory: SIP suggests that
Internet users develop
impressions of others with thecues available online. Users
adapt to these limited cues inorder to make decisions aboutothers.

Semistructured
interviews ofmembers of an
online dating
service.
Iterative
content
analysis.

Stylistic aspects of messages (e.g.
timing, length, and grammar) in
online interactions are crucial(when nonverbal cues are notsufficient, the remaining cues
become more salient to users).
Technical constraints of the site
may have enabled acts ofmisrepresentation (design ofwebsites is extremely important).

Article focuses on online
dating at one point in time.
Does not take a process
approach, and is limited to areview of one online dating
service.

Fiore and Donath (2004)
in the Conference on
Human Factors in
Computing Systems

Discussion on stylesof online personals
ads (e.g. searchable
profile listings,
personality
matching, and social
network systems).

No specific theory is employed.

Review article.

This article provides an overview
of how demographic andbehavioral data can be utilized to
improve the experience of using
online personals.

An overview of the online
dating services. No in -depth
inquiry or analyses areprovided.

Fernback (2007)in New
Media & Society

An interpretive studyof ‘community’ incyberspace.

Symbolic Interactionism: people
act toward things based on themeaning those things have forthem; and these meanings arederived from social interaction
and modified throughinterpretation.

Semistructured
interviews.

Online relations also evolve (likeordinary relationships), andcommitment is key in such
relations.

The focus is on online
communities (online datingor MOB is not a focus).

Frost et al. (2008) in the
Journal of Interactive
MarketingExploration of online
dating.

Experience goods vs. searchgoods. Search goods have
objective and tangible attributes.
Experience goods, in contrast,
are judged by the feelings theyevoke. Online dating should bestudied with an experience goods
perspective in mind.

Survey.

People are "experience goods."
Thus, online dating fails to meet
expectations.

A fresh look at the online
dating service. However, thefocus is still on online
dating.

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S. Sarker et al.

4. OVERALL METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH

We adopted an interpretive approach [Walsham 1995] in conducting our empiricalinquiry. Our research objective, as mentioned earlier, was to develop an in-depth
understanding of online international marriage services (or MOB services). While the
MOB phenomenon has received attention from other research disciplines, the ITmediated modern avatar has been less explored. Therefore, the context of ourresearch can be seen as fertile ground for exploration, particularly from an IS
perspective.
4.1 Data Collection

Given the nature of the phenomenon of MOB, it was important to capture thesubjective experience of MOB participants along with the emotions and symbolisms
surrounding the experiences. For this study, two main sources of information wereidentified and utilized.
4.1.1

Personal Interviews

During our study, it became clear that MOB has a certain stigma associated withit (at least for some individuals), and thus it is not easy to recruit subjects who
would be willing to reveal their inner thoughts and emotions in interviews with aresearch team. While we approached well over a dozen individuals and couples who
utilized the services of an MOB-related agency, many declined to be formallyinterviewed, some pointing to the low social desirability associated with the process.
Nevertheless, we were able to personally interview 11 subjects in depth, most ofthem identified through a snowballing approach [Patton 1990]. All interviews wereconducted in the US. Each interview lasted for 1-2 hours. The recorded interviews
provided important insights into the process, ranging from those currently active inthe search process to those who had met and married via a MOB service. We also
gained valuable insight about the stigma and the state of relationships throughinformal conversations with some of those who declined to be formally interviewed.
4.1.2

Internet Sources

Further, we examined many MOB websites and blogs. Realizing that there are far
too many websites and blogs that could be potentially relevant, we followed thefollowing sampling approach initially. We utilized a search by relevance on Google,
typing in keywords (such as ‘Mail Order Bride Blog,’ ‘Mail Order Bride Warning,’‘Mail Order Bride Russian’, ‘Mail Order Bride Asian’, ’Mail Order Bride Legal’, ‘Mail
Order Bride Success’) and reviewed several of the top sites from each search. As ouranalysis proceeded, and we found gaps in our understanding, we deliberately sought
out new relevant sources and revisited data we had coded earlier, consistent with theprinciples guiding our analysis (we elaborate on the same in the next section).
We would like to note that as with any interpretive activity, there are myriad of“texts” available on a topic in the universe, and it is neither feasible nor desirable tocollect/analyze all the relevant texts to develop a valid understanding [Chalmers
2004; Sarker and Lee 2006]. Within the interpretive perspective, any understanding
is provisional, subject to revision and reformulation; thus, our claim regarding our
findings is closer to the notions of plausibility and coherence, rather than to theultimate truth [Alvesson and Sköldberg 2009; Sarker and Lee 2006]. Table 2
summarizes our data sources, and Table 3 summarizes interviewee profiles.

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Table 2. Data Collection Summary

Source andType of Data

Nature of Data
Collected

Sampling Strategy

Personal
Interviews:
Direct MOB
Experiences

Conversations
Initially based onregarding experiences geographic criteria(positives and(e.g., part of the world
challenges) withfrom which brides
service experiences and originated), aided bymethod of search forsnowballing andmate. Some discussions referred sources. Alsoon hypotheticalincluded inquiries toscenarios as well.
websites for interview
sources.

Few people/couples
were willing to talkabout theirexperiences due tostigma, though richcontent wasreceived frominterview sources.

Internet:
International
Marriage
Websites

Web presentation formen and women, site
content, layout,
testimonials, service
extensions and U.S.
state related
communication.

Identified key sites
which were popular in
their geographic area
(e.g. Russia, Asia,etc.). Searched byrelevance and ranking
as identified by
Google.

Many sites are
subscription based
and hidden behindregistration or login screens.

Internet:
Information
Websites

Information about
Sites identified byinternational marriage keyword search andrequirements (fiancé
as recommended links
visa, travel, etc.), fraud from related content
warnings, and personal sites.
experiences.

Sources for website
information arequite diverse andnot centrally
available.

Internet:
Blogs

Comments,
testimonials,
perceptions of users
and non-users.

Other than service
providers, we found
few web-based blogs
with centralized
information.

Sites identified by
keyword search andas recommended links
from related content
sites.

Challenges in Data
Collection

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Table 3. Interviewee Profiles

Interviewee

GenderAgeCountry of Origin

Mail Order Bride stage#1*

Female38

Philippines

Married (10 years)

#2

Male

29

USA

Looking for a partner (6months)

#3

Male

30

USA

Looking for a partner (2months)#4

Female30

ThailandMarried (1 year)#5

Female29

ThailandMarried (2 years)

#6*

Male

48

USA

Married (10 years)#7

Female28

ThailandMarried (3 years)

#8

Male

60

USA

Looking for a partner (10years)

#9
Male
42
USA
#10
Female34
Thailand
#11
Male
52
USA
*Interviewees 1 and 6 are married to each other.

Married (3 years)
Married (1 year)
Married (few months)

4.2 Analysis – Approach and Assumptions

Research suggests that there are two interrelated components underlying
interpretation in qualitative studies. The first involves the qualitative text thatserves as the empirical input to the analysis process. This process aims at breaking
down the text and recombining the emerging theoretical themes into a richtheoretical narrative. The second component relates to the idea of using theories as
lenses to facilitate the interrogation of data and the revealing of meanings that mayotherwise be hidden from the observer’s or researcher’s view [Sarker et al. 2012;
Walsham 2006]. The literature also suggests that the role of theory is instrumental
in the formation of the author’s assumptions and his/her conceptualization
regarding the nature of the theoretical output. One would argue that effective
interpretation of data depends on the choice of the analytical technique andtheoretical lenses, and the harmonious interpretation that is able to blend the twoelements. Therefore, we felt that decisions about these were critical and ensured
that our choices were a result of a careful examination of our context and thewisdom of methodologists we revere. We elaborate on these decisions in thefollowing sub-sections.
4.2.1

Data Analysis Technique

Walsham [2006, p. 325], a leading interpretive researcher in information systems(IS), suggests that “In terms of learning from the data itself, grounded theory offers
one way of doing this… ”. We note that this point is not unique to Walsham. Indeed
there are several instances of well-regarded research that have utilized groundedtheory coding procedures to analyze data within the framework of interpretive
research [Lehmann 2001b; Maznevski and Chudoba 2000; Urquhart 2007], each
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study adopting varying degrees of openness and subjectivity in analyzing data.
There have also been indications that such combinations of interpretive studies andgrounded theory methodology (GTM) can be very fruitful. For example, Lehmann[2001a, p. 87] comments, “Applying Grounded theory to case study was very
successful. It produced a prolific amount and yielded a great richness of
information…”. Finally our own familiarity with this methodological approach led
us to adopt GTM procedures for aiding the analysis/interpretation of our data. We
should mention at this point that we use GTM in this study as a tool for guiding
data analysis; we do not claim to have carried out a full-fledged GTM study.
A secondary choice is the need to decide on the particular variant of GTM. This isrelevant as accumulated knowledge on GTM research and applications resemble atapestry that is both abundant and “contested” [Bryant and Charmaz 2007, p. 3].
There are documented variants such as the Glaserian school, the Strauss andCorbin school, and the Constructivist school. These variants tend to adopt different
assumptions and emphasize different methodological procedures and practices[Birks et al. 2013]. Also, owing to the fact that “… progenitors of GTM havechanged, modified, or eliminated major methodological strategies themselves”[Bryant and Charmaz 2007, p. 9], orthodoxy regarding the core elements of GTM isdifficult to sustain. Indeed, GTM researchers such as Urquhart [2007, p. 354]
acknowledge this point, suggesting that appropriation of this methodology is deeply
contextual to the researcher’s particular investigative endeavor. In particular, we
primarily draw upon Strauss and Corbin’s [Strauss and Corbin 1990] overall
methodological guidelines as they relate to the conduct of GTM coding procedures.
Strauss and Corbin describe and elaborate on a sequence of coding procedures
including open coding, axial coding, and selective coding [Strauss and Corbin 1990].
These coding procedures allow the researcher to fracture the qualitative data andrecombine it into a rich theoretical narrative. In our adoption of the coding
procedures, we followed the principle that methodology is contextual in its use, andadaptations maybe applied without violating the fundamental principles of GTM[Bryant and Charmaz 2007]. Therefore, while we have been faithful in utilizing theunderlying logic of the coding procedures, we have adapted the procedures asnecessary [Sarker et al. 2001; Charmaz 2006].
First, our data analysis and theorizing involved induction as well as abduction.
Reichertz [Reichartz 2007, p. 225] observes that “GT (in the variant of Strauss andCorbin) contains an abductive research logic” (emphasis added), where referring to
the research logic as “abductive” acknowledges the fact that conceptualizations do
not result from a mechanical coding process but involve “an intellectual act, amental leap” that is at the very heart of a “cognitive logic of discovery” [Reichertz
2007, p. 220]. Specifically, in our study, induction played a predominant role in our
open coding, while the role of abduction became more evident during axial andselective coding.
Second, instead of using the paradigm model offered by Strauss and Corbin[Strauss and Corbin 1990], which some researchers have found uncomfortable indeveloping theoretical models [Kelle 2007; Sarker et al. 2000; Urquhart 2007], andin line with Kelle’s [Kelle 2007] suggestion to construct contextually relevant coding
paradigm consistent with the researchers’ objectives and traditions, we adapt thevehicle of state transition diagrams that are often used to describe the behaviors offinite state systems [Booth 1967], to model the social process underlying the MOB
phenomenon. This primarily involved conceptually describing the different “states,”
and identifying the triggers for transitions between the states.
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S. Sarker et al.

The use of theory in the interpretation of data

Theory plays a critical role in interpretive analysis, particularly in enabling the
researcher to make sense of the data [Walsham 1995]. The use of theory ininterpretive research is varied, ranging from its use as meta-theoretical scaffolding
within which the contextual narrative plays out, to its use as a lens to develop
deeper and sometimes different insights about emerging theoretical themes.
Walsham suggests that the choice of a theory may be subjective and based on the
researcher’s own background and interest, as long as he/she is able to justify its
relevance to the research context. We agree whole-heartedly with this viewpoint andalso suggest that it is important to also ensure that the choice and use of theory iscommensurate with the particular methodology chosen.
Therefore, given the importance of being able to successfully weave theoreticalperspectives into the data analysis, it was also important for us to assess the natureof theory usage in GTM-supported interpretive studies. In the GTM approach,significant importance is placed on the idea of grounding and the role of theoreticalsensitivity. Glaser and Strauss [Glaser and Strauss 1967] emphasize the need to
avoid preconception or forcing of existing concepts or theory, and instead letconcepts emerge from the data; however, Strauss and Corbin [Strauss and Corbin1990] explicitly acknowledge that “the construction of theoretical categories,
whether grounded or not, cannot start ab avo, but have to draw on [some] existing
stocks of knowledge” [Kelle 2007, p. 197]. A similar perspective was also put forward
by Urquhart and Fernandez [Urquhart and Fernandez 2006, p. 460], who state that
“Like most myths [related to GTM], the idea of the researcher as blank slate, has atits base a kernel of truth. However, it is more accurate to say that grounded theory
research does not start with a theory to prove or disprove” (parenthesis added).
Suddaby [Suddaby 2006, p. 634-635], a leading scholar of GTM in Management, alsolabels as “myth”, the belief that “researchers [must] enter the field with a blankmind or researchers must defer reading existing theory…” so as not to contaminate
the researchers’ perspective. This points to the importance of theoretical sensitivity
without which the relevance of raw data to the theoretical project may become
difficult to recognize [Strauss and Corbin, 1990], and the researcher is likely to thenfocus on description rather than on abstraction (the goal of this study).
We have therefore enriched our interpretation of data with theoretical insightsfrom different existing theories, in a way that is consistent with interpretive caseresearch and GTM guidelines. The choice of theoretical lenses was influenced by theunderlying objectives of the research and our assumptions about the phenomenon.
Our research objective was to investigate and reveal how the social interaction
underlying the MOB phenomenon evolved within a technological environment. A
specific focus within this broad objective was to highlight the role of technology.
Therefore, our theoretical lenses were identified and drawn from research in social
psychology and IS. Within IS, we focused on research on areas such as e-commerce,
Human-Computer Interactions (HCI), technology usage and adoption. In particular,
our analysis has been influenced by the perspectives provided by Social Exchange
Theory [Thibaut and Kelley 1959], Self-discrepancy theory [Higgins 1987],
frameworks on internet and web technology features [Kim et al. 2002; Laudon andTraver 2007] and the concept of functional affordance of technology [Markus andSilver 2008]. We provide detailed descriptions of these theoretical perspectives in
our theoretical appendix (Appendix A).
At this juncture, we would like to clarify how we have drawn on these theoreticallenses. First, the exploration, identification, and use of the theoretical perspectives
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were iterative and linked to the outcomes of the multiple rounds of data analysis
performed by the research team. Second, we have been careful in ensuring that ouruse of theoretical perspectives did not contravene the core values underlying GTM
based analysis. Specifically, we have been conscious in our efforts to ensure thatpre-existing theory was not forced on the data for the purpose of proving or
disproving it, as this would be against the spirit of any GTM variant [Suddaby
2006]. For example, while Social Exchange Theory sensitized us to the idea that
individuals enter relationship with particular motives and expectations of rewards,
the specific goals and objectives of the participants and the patterns of processual
evolution captured in our theoretical model emerged directly from our analysis of
the data. Similarly, while the concept of functional affordance sensitized us to apossible relationship between the individual goals and technology features, thespecifics of the relationships and the actual nature of the perceived functional
affordance as well as the narrative that tied the affordances to the states in theprocess emerged from our data and were not forced by pre-existing theoreticalperspectives. Moreover, it was the data that prompted us to look for suitableconcepts that would allow us to theoretically discuss the emergent patterns about IT
use, and this led us to adopt the affordance perspective in framing and narrating theprocess. We believe that our use of the theoretical lens allowed us “to render the
new theory in the context of existing knowledge and thus making the theory morevaluable” [Urquhart and Fernandez 2006, p. 461], and in turn, develop a deeper andmore coherent understanding of the phenomenon.
5. A THEORETICAL ACCOUNT OF THE MOB PROCESSIn this section, we outline the process model that emerged through ourinvestigation. The model traces the evolution of the participants’ journey throughthe MOB process in terms of two key elements: (1) states, and (2) transitions
between these states.
The states depict a configurative representation of the key elements of the sociotechnical interaction that underlie the MOB process. Specifically, each state
embodies the participant’s goals, their perception of functional affordances provided
by the technology, the key technology features that serve to provide notice of thepotentiality of the affordances and goal fulfillment tasks/actions. We would like toexplicitly note here a few key aspects of the process: a) the participants’ goals andthe corresponding goal fulfillment tasks change, as they proceed through thedifferent states of the MOB process, b) the goal fulfillment tasks are facilitated by acontingent set of affordances and technological features, and c) the contingent set
provided by the affordances and technological features changes for each state (seeFigure 1). The evolution of the MOB process is captured through the mechanism ofstate transitions. A transition from one state to another occurs, for example, when
the participant successfully attains the goal(s) relevant for that state, or when acertain critical conditions become true. In the following sections we describe indetail each of the MOB states that emerged from our empirical analysis (please see
Figure 2, Table 4 and Table 5 for a summary of the states). Figure 2 shows thestates with their descriptions in the rectangles connected to the states with dottedlines, along with the state transitions (arrows). Table 4 describes the different statetransitions, highlighting differences between the conditions relevant to men andwomen. Finally, Table 5 shows an integrative view of the process model, withgoals/objectives of each state, the macro and micro features of IT relevant to each

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state, the perceived functional affordances and the goal fulfillment actions distinctly
for men and women.

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13

Fig. 2. The Process Model

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Table 4. Interviewee Profiles

Transition
labelaTransition
Description
Progression to
Match–Seeking
State

b

Progression to
Wait-And-Think
State

c

Transition back to
Entry Stated

Progression to
Interaction Statee

Progression to
Wait-And-Think
State
Transition back toInteraction Statefg

Transition to
Termination State

Triggers• For Men and Womeno Identification of a preferred MOB website
o Conviction that the MOB Agency/Website
provides appropriate services andenvironment to meet their objectives• For Meno Peer pressure discouraging the search forbrides through this channelo Perceived stigma associated with being aclient of MOB service providero Lack of confidence on the service provider,often as a result of an unprofessional website
o The inability or unwillingness to pay thefees demanded by the website• For Womeno Peer and societal pressure to consider
traditional alternatives
o Awareness of MOB-related horror stories• For Men and Womeno Lack of computer self-efficacy• For Men and Womeno The transition occurs when one or moreconditions triggering state transition “b”changes• For Meno Identification of one or a set of candidates
that matches preferred criteriao Willingness to initiate communication• For Womeno Acceptance or inclination to initiate
communication with individuals who havemade an overture• For Meno Inability to identify a suitable candidate• For Meno Re-assessment of their initial criteria for
identifying suitable womeno Availability of a new pool of womeno Switch to a different, more suitable MOB
Agency• For Meno A high level of frustration with the process
o Perception or realization of a lack of

ACM Transactions on xxxxxxxx, Vol. xx, No. x, Article xx, Publication date: Month YYYYThe “Mail-Order-Bride” (MOB) Phenomenon in the Cyberworld: An Interpretive InvestigationhProgression to
Wedding Bell
State

i

Transition to
Wait-And-Think
State

j

Transition back toInteraction StatekTransition to
Termination StatelTransition to Post
Wedding Bell
State
Transition to
Termination StatemnTransition to
Termination State

15alignment with their objectives and theprocess mechanisms• For Men and Womeno Achievement of mutuality throughinteractions
o Development of shared frame of reference
regarding need complementarities
o Physical attractiono Emergence of perceived interdependency• For Men and Womeno Mismatch between need and expectancy –ORo Failure to achieve mutuality ofcommunication, shared frame of reference
and interdependency
o -ANDo Retention of a hope in the process despite
setbacks• For Men and Womeno Renewal of effort with other candidates
previously identified while in the MatchSeeking State• For Both Men and Womeno Mismatch between need and expectancy –ORo Failure to achieve mutuality ofcommunication, shared frame of reference
and interdependency
o -ANDo Loss of faith resulting from frustrations
with the process• For Both Men and Womeno Completion of wedding and immigration
formalities• For Both Men and Womeno Disagreement regarding weddingo Misunderstands arising within friends andrelations leading to breakdown inrelationshipo Gross misrepresentation of relevant
information• For Men and Womeno Disillusion with spouse due mismatch in
expectation• For Women especiallyo Inability to acclimatize in new environment
o Abuse and cultural repression

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Table 5. Gender based perspectives of the MOB state

GenderMOB
StatesGoals/Objectives

Technology Features
Macro Features
Micro Features• Structural
Firmness• Representational
Delight

Perceived IT
Functional
Affordances• Information
Accessibility• Decision
Support

Men

Entry

• Seek partner from adifferent culture• Seek younger orprettier partner

MatchSeeking• Identify partner best
matched topreferences• Ubiquity• Global Reach• Information Density• Universal
Standards• Personalization/
Customization• Interactivity• Richness• Functional
Convenience• Representational
Delight• Information
Accessibility• Decision
SupportInteraction• Better gauge
suitability of potential
partner• Project best
representation of
oneself• Richness• Ubiquity• Universal
Standards• Information Density• Functional
Convenience• Structural
Firmness• Communication
facilitation• Service
Provisions

Wedding
Bell• Ensure successful
wedding• Information Density• Ubiquity• Richness• Interactivity• Information Density• Ubiquity• Social Technology• Interactivity• Functional
Convenience• Communication
facilitation• Service
Provisions• Service
Provisions

Post
Wedding
Bell• Transition seamlessly
into new life

• Functional
Convenience

Goal Fulfillment Actions• Find an efficientmechanism to searchfor suitable partner• Choose a particularonline MOB agency• Information seeking• Assimilating
information• Decision-making withregards to suitable
candidate• Seeking new
information about
potential partner• Leverage different
modes ofcommunication• Seek mutuality ofcommunication• Organize wedding• Seek to know more
about partner and her
culture• Seek to know more
about partner andhis/her culture• Acclimatize to new
cultural environment

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Women

Entry

MatchSeeking

Interaction• Seek partner from adifferent culture• Seek stable
relationship• Seek a better life
• Maximize thepotential of
meeting/being chosen
by the most suitablepartner• Better gauge
suitability of potential
partner• Project best
representation of
oneself

Wedding
Bell• Ensure successful
Wedding

Post
Wedding
Bell• Transition seamlessly
into new life

17

• Structural
Firmness• Representational
Delight• Information
Accessibility• Decision
Support• Functional
Convenience• Representational
Delight• Communication
Facilitation• Richness• Ubiquity• Universal
Standards• Information Density• Functional
Convenience• Structural
Firmness• Communication
facilitation• Information Density• Ubiquity• Richness• Interactivity• Information Density• Ubiquity• Social Technology• Interactivity• Functional
Convenience• Communication
facilitation• Service
Provisions• Service
Provisions• Ubiquity• Global Reach• Information Density• Universal
Standards• Richness• Functional
Convenience• Find an efficientmechanism to searchfor suitable partner• Choose a particularonline MOB agency• Presenting personal
information in themost attractive way• Seeking new
information about
potential partner• Leverage different
modes ofcommunication• Seek mutuality ofcommunication• Organize wedding• Seek to know more
about partner and his
culture• Seek to know more
about partner andhis/her culture• Acclimatize to new
cultural environment

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S. Sarker et al.

5.1 Entry StateThe Entry State refers to a context where the individual participants, influenced
by different sets of factors, decide whether or not to sign up with the MOB service
provider. In the context of this inquiry it is important to understand the factorsthat motivate or influence the decision to initiate the process. Social Exchange
Theory (SET) suggests that the expectation of a reward encourages individuals tointeract with each other [Thibaut and Kelley 1959]. SET proposes that men andwomen seek to maximize their returns. Individuals look for the best alternative,
given a set of options. Sensitized by this perspective, we focused our empiricalinvestigation on understanding the motivation of the individuals from theperspective of expected benefits and resources that they bring into the interaction.
We found that in most cases the male participants are aware of their relative
strengths with respect to resources (financial, psychological, etc.), and expect somebenefits (i.e. a wife of his dreams) in return. Further, our interviewees also indicatedthat their choice of potential mates is influenced by factors such as a desire to father
children, for which they would like to be married to younger (and, in some cases,“prettier”) women. For example, one of our interviewees stated:“I started this when I was 50 years old. I was divorced and … I wanted to havebiological children of my own. I am the last male in this particular family. I
wanted…I guess it’s very selfish but I wanted my very own children....”5
Yet another interviewee confessed:“...Definitely…I want to get married. I am serious about that. And I think there isa better chance of finding someone prettier if you use the so called mail order bride
services.”
Another common theme that emerged was a sense of dissatisfaction with western
women and their values. As one our interviewees stated:“I am not happy with the existing relationships. I wanted something different.
American women are too individualistic. Downside of feminism…I cannot really saythat women’s liberation and feminism really benefited family life.”
Such dissatisfaction regarding values often leads to a desire for partners withincultures that embody a different set of values (i.e., a more “spouse-centered” and“feminine”). For example, a respondent who has travelled extensively in China
admitted that he had perceived a number of admirable qualities in Chinese women.
In the case of women, our empirical analysis indicated that although there were
those wishing to search for their ‘soul mate’ from afar, more commonly, themotivating factor is the wish to escape their present circumstances by marrying aman (even without a “perfect” match), who could provide a financially andpsychologically secure and/or wealthy future. For example a respondent, for whomand his wife the MOB process had a very happy culmination, stated:
5

We would like to state here, that the quotes have been used for illustrative purposes. In addition, themeanings apparently being conveyed by these quotes represent the respondent’s perspective, and not ourviewpoints as authors.
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19“… she gets what she wants, a new life, a better life, and a different trajectory forher daughter. She was not in poverty or really needing to get out of her region [inChina], but she had a broken heart and a broken family. She just wants a happy
home life, and to continue her current path of parenting and nursing as aprofession.”
Another respondent also reflected on this issue:“I think women had an idea of that America is a promised land. Economic
opportunities…they think they will have a better life here.”
Respondents also suggested that such marriages could potentially enable the
MOB to help her (extended) family, especially parents and siblings. Other
motivators mentioned included social climbing — in most of the cases weencountered the women was expected to marry “up” in terms of economic as well associal standing. Such a rise in standing would generally not be likely within theirown culture because of societal norms and barriers, their own/family backgrounds,
and/or geographic restrictions. A lot of times the desire to look for a partner fromanother culture seemed to have been accelerated by a perception that the woman
was entering an age where she would not be considered a suitable bride within her
culture:“...I was 29…then I looked for more serious relationships. In Thai culture, womenshould marry before 30. My mom really wanted me to get married.”
Sometimes the women were attracted to the MOB process because of previous
experiences of their acquaintances. For example a respondent from the Philippines
stated:“Well, I have relatives that have done the same thing… I felt like it was mydestiny to find a person outside the Philippines.”
Similarly, another respondent reflected on her own life as follows:“Initially, I did not think that I was going to marry an American guy. In
Thailand, I did not meet a nice [Thai] guy. They did not keep their word. I did notseem to find the right guy. Friends are happily married. They encouraged me to join
Thailovelinks.com.”
MOBs offered certain valuable resources within a potential exchange. These
include desired qualities of a younger age, physical attractiveness, potential for childbearing and the creation of a new family, and a perception of being more devoted
and committed to the husband. This idea was highlighted by one of ourinterviewees, who stated:“In my experience, some guys on the site are very old… they have to marry to a
Thai girl...somebody to take care of them.”

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However, many MOBs-to-be appeared to have a very romantic (perhaps unrealistic)
view of being married to a man from far away, and living their life filled with novel
experiences in a distant culture.
From the preceding discussion it seems reasonable to conclude that the MOB
process suggests itself as an attractive forum where the individuals can maximize
the return for the resources they bring into the relationship. At the same time, we
found another distinct pattern that is also extremely illuminating about the
motivations of the individuals. Our respondents were uniform in their indicationthat they were deeply dissatisfied with their current image of their self. Most of our
respondents represented men and women who had unsuccessfully attempted to findlove using traditional ways of meeting partners (e.g. at a social gathering, throughan acquaintance or through a lack of opportunity).
Most of our interviewees had also failed to find a suitable match using more
traditional online dating services. The majority of men indicated that they were notcontent with potential Western partners. Interviews revealed complaints about
Western women being too individualistic and not fitting the expectations of thesemen. Previous experiences with online dating were described as follows, forexample::“Some women were only looking for intimacy, a one-night stand. They did notcare about a long term relationship. This really shows the women are totallyliberated. Traditionally, this is not how a woman should be… I did not want an
intimate relationship that I knew wouldn’t last long. It’s emotionally destructive. I
didn’t want to tear my mind off… “Likewise, the women from the so-called “third world” or developing regions, on
the other hand, often perceived the men from their country as not fitting to be
devoted husbands. Sometimes the desire for a partner from a different culture wasalso predicated by previous relationships that were broken and/or based on theirself-assessment that they had little chance of finding a suitable partner within thesame culture. For example, one of the respondents talked about the perspective of
his Chinese wife who had a previous failed marriage:“A divorced woman in China has little chance of re-marriage, a woman older than
28 has a difficult time to remarry, and a woman with a child (especially, a girl) has[even lower] chance to remarry. So in addition to her not wanting to remarry a
Chinese man, she was at a great disadvantage being from a broken marriage.”
Women, choosing the MOB route, endorsed traditional values of the need to havea stable family, marrying a man who could give a “dowry” to their parents(particularly in the case of Thailand), and could care for them and their children.
Indeed, we found that in many cases, men and women engaging in MOB processes
wanted to fulfill their dream of a happy marriage in its most “traditional” sense -our subjects indicated that there was a longing for a genuine relationship whereconventional roles for women and men are maintained. Somewhat unexpectedly,
Internet-based mail order bride services seemed to contribute to making it more
effective for such individuals to find the right partner from a broader set ofcandidates who apparently shared similar needs and expectations.

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In the entry state (and indeed through the entire process), IT plays an importantrole by facilitating the tasks that allow the individuals to achieve their goals. In thisstate, the individuals were motivated primarily by the perceived need for searchingfor a partner from a distant culture. The fulfillment of this need is facilitated by amore precise task objective of identifying an efficient mechanism for this process(the MOB websites being perceived as suitable means) and deciding on a particular
MOB agency. IT facilitates this by providing two distinctive functional affordances –information accessibility and decision support. First, it affords the individuals arich, interactive, easily accessible environment that provides uncomplicated andspeedy to access to a rich set of information. Second, it provides a potential foraiding their decision-making process in identifying the most suitable MOB agency.
The above functional affordances of the IT are in turn identified by the contingent
set of features embodied within the technology. These features include both those of
the overarching technological environment (macro features) and those (microfeatures) of the more specific interface (the website). The attractiveness of theseaffordances was reflected upon by one of our interviewees:“Well, I figured I could get to meet someone that I would not otherwise. Moreoptions... I am looking for something specific and online catalogs can provide that forme.”
The information accessibility affordance of the IT during the Entry State isfacilitated primarily by the macro features of the technological environment such asubiquity, global reach, and universal standard. An important aspect of the IT being
used in this context is its ubiquitous nature, which makes it available any time andfrom practically anywhere. Ubiquity reduces transaction costs for the individuals[Laudon & Traver 2010], and allows them to initiate transactions at a time andplace of their choosing. This provides the individuals making a plunge into the MOB
process the flexibility of maximizing their personal level of comfort while embarking
on a potentially uncomfortable process. One of our respondents discussed the easewith which the process could be initiated:“It started for me in January 2011... and I just typed in..'Find a Chinese wife'... I
admired [Chinese spouses] that I had met...and I found all these websites.”
Further, universal standards represent an aspect of the technologicalenvironment which allows individuals to interact seamlessly with the interfaces,
irrespective of the nature of the underlying technological infrastructure (Laudon
and Traver 2010). But perhaps the most attractive feature in this context is theaffordance provided by the environment’s global reach spanning across nationalboundaries, to search for partners beyond one’s own cultural milieu. As a
respondent stated:“Something that I cannot easily find here in the US…eHarmony? Match.com?
They are still part of this culture. Cherry Blossoms [a MOB website] seems like a
totally new avenue.”
During the entry state, the individuals are also pre-occupied with the task ofchoosing a particular MOB agency, while at same time trying to minimize personalrisk. Functional affordances of IT enables this task by providing critical support to
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the decision making process. This role of IT is again enabled by both the macro andmicro features of the technology. At the macro level, the inherent information
density of the internet environment supports this decision making process bymaking relevant, contextually rich, information abundantly available. This easily
accessible information provides the individual with choice regarding MOB agencies,
reducing the individual’s search cost [Laudon and Traver 2010] because pertinent
information such as recommendations, reports, and experiences of similar
individuals were easily accessible. One of our interviewees acknowledged this point:“Once MOB businesses went online, they did a better job at helping me to findthe right person.…”The micro-features of IT are also significant enablers of the decision making
process at this state. HCI research has frequently indicated that individuals searchfor signs of credibility [Pavlou and Gefen 2004; Pennington et al. 2003] when
initiating an interaction with a particular website. This is predicated by of an
overwhelming urge to reduce personal risk in an environment of information
asymmetry. As individuals commence their interaction with a particular website,their perceptions of credibility is enhanced by interface features such as design look,information design/structure, perceptions of security/trust guarantees, information
focus, information accuracy, etc. [Gefen et al. 2003; Liu 2005;McKnight et al. 2011 ].
In other words, an interface that provides an indication of the integrity of theinformation architecture and navigation, provides an aesthetics that appear
professional, provides markers that assure safety from external threats are
considered preferable [Pavlou and Gefen, 2004]. Therefore, two categories of microfeatures that become salient at this state are structural firmness andrepresentational delight by providing evaluative interface features that allow theassessment of internal stability, external stability and the quality of the systeminterface. The overall impression provided by these features (if positive) enable anindividual to decide on a particular MOB website, and progress further in theprocess to the match-seeking state. On the other hand, a negative impression leads
to the rejection of particular MOB agency and renewal of search. Along these lines,
one of our respondents stated:“They look unprofessional… that really repels me… the language on thesewebsites... is generally poor. I don’t trust these services, I also did not like the way
the website is designed. I do not want to feel like I am shopping for girls.”
In fact, continued negative perceptions regarding various MOB agency websites
might undermine an individual’s perceptions about the MOB process in general andtrigger a shift to the wait and think state:“Some of these sites … the pictures are definitely fake. All the girls look as if they
are out of a modeling agency. I want to see real women.”
For technology to enable a smooth transition from the Entry State to MatchSeeking State, two issues emerge as being salient: 1) The websites need to be
professionally designed, and 2) They need to provide a clear sense to the potential
client about the services offered and the user experience they can expect on thewebsite. As a respondent stated:
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23“Unless you pay, it is hard to see what they have to offer. I don’t want to pay forsomething that is creepy.”
Moreover, the signing up for the services should be easy, professionally managed,
and reasonably priced. An expectation regarding reasonable price is evident in thefollowing quote:“...I paid $125. Not that much. There are other agencies out there that asked for$2,000 to match me with a person here in the__. They asked for $2,000 only for 5
names!”The transition from the entry state to match-seeking state (noted as path (a),please see label of transition in Figure 2) is indicated when the individual formallysigns up with the MOB service provider (we use terms such as MOB agency, MOB
process mediator, and MOB service provider synonymously). However, in somecases, individuals seemed to transition (b) to what we refer to as a Wait-And-Think6
State. Conditions triggering this transition to Wait-And-Think State include, formen, (1) peer pressure discouraging the search for brides through this channel, (2)perceived stigma associated with being a client of MOB service provider, (3) lack ofconfidence on the service provider, often as a result of an unprofessional web-site,and (4) the inability or unwillingness to pay the fees. For women, factors include:(1) a solution for their economic hardship becoming available, (2) peer and societalpressure to consider traditional alternatives, and (3) horror stories of MOBs. For
both men and women, a lack of computer self-efficacy is an obvious factor leadingthem to the wait-and-think state. Changes in these conditions would lead to thereverse transition (c).

5.2 Match-Seeking StateThe match-seeking state primarily involves the male participant actively
searching for a female partner who best matches his preferences. Men select andcontact women from an online listing of potential brides. The men are usually theones to initiate conversations. Most men at this state have very definite ideas about
the attributes they look for in a partner. As one of our respondents stated:“If someone said having a good time, traveling, partying, etc… [was important tothem] I don’t want that. What I found especially with Asian women, they wanted a
responsible person, who cared about family, care about children. They wanted toraise kids…”
6
We would like to note here that the Wait-And-Think state and the Termination state that we refer tolater in the discussion are somewhat different in nature to the other states (e.g. Entry, Match-Seeking).
These states do not explicitly represent complete states that epitomize a stage in an individual’s evolution
through the MOB process. In both these states, the individual exits from the actual MOB process, either
temporarily or permanently. One could say that the Wait-And-Think State represents a holding state,
where the individual contemplates re-entering the process, while the Termination State represents apremature and permanent exit. Therefore, we feel that these represent punctuation points within theprocess, and we have therefore conceptualized them as pseudo states. These states help us understanddisruptions with an individual’s progress but are of not of core interest to our theorizing. Consequently, we
have not explored or discussed these states as elaborately as the others.

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Another respondent noted:“I did not reply to everybody ....I had an idea what I wanted...certain age group,
profession...education level...you get a lot of response...you have to use your filter... I
searched, and I found a certain set of people to contact that met my criteria...”The role of the woman is relatively passive in this state, in that she most often
waits to be picked by someone. Of course, there is some volition in the female
agreeing to interact with an interested male, but in many cases, such volition is not
exercised, given the implicit power differences between the two groups ofparticipants (i.e., men over women). The power difference is perhaps a direct resultof the significant asymmetry with regards to information available to the men andwomen. The information asymmetry is generally due to the fact that the womenpost (because they are required to do so) a significant amount of information about
them, while men post very little, if any. Thus, women proceed (or do not proceed)with the MOB process based on the little information that may have been disclosedby the man in question. For example, one of our respondents describes how she
initiated conversations based on impressions made for posted pictures:“When I saw his face…I decided to write to him. He looked so … friendly andsincere. I looked at the men’s pictures.”This suggests that the women often have to decide whether to interact withinterested men based on very incomplete and often unrealistic view of the man
and/or his culture. A few of women in our study told us that their views on American
men were based on Hollywood movies where men are generally depicted as
passionate, committed, and considerate. Information asymmetries at this state of
the MOB process create number of challenges for the women by making them themore vulnerable participants at this stage of the relationship.
In the Match-Seeking State, the goals/objectives for male and female participants
are somewhat distinct. The men in this state actively search for their prospective
partner in the online catalog of brides provided by the MOB agency. Their primaryobjective is therefore to search for and identify a candidate that best match theirpreference. The goal fulfillment actions that facilitate these objectives are
information seeking and decision-making.
“I think having a good partner is the ultimate goal. I don’t mean beauty or sexualappeal…someone to go through life as your best friend and your lover.”For the men, therefore, the significant functional affordances here are
Information Accessibility and Decision Support - these provide support for the men
to perform the tasks or actions that would allow them fulfill their objectives.
The women’s motivation at this point is to leverage the technologicalenvironment to present information in a manner that would maximize their chanceof meeting a suitable partner, while competing with the other women. The
functional affordance that assumes significance during this state is that ofCommunication Facilitation. A unique aspect of the website (as an environment) isthat it offers a rich communication interface that contains within itself capabilities
of a heterogeneous set of communication media. These offer communication with
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varying degrees of synchronicity. Media Synchronicity Theory (MST) suggests thisto be a desirable quality of a communication environment [Dennis et al. 2008]. This
state can be perceived as the one in which the first overtures of a dialogue areenacted by the participating individuals. Such an overture can be characterized as
one-way, in which the potential brides provide information about her through avariety of media, for the purpose of impression management, without the option ofreceiving reciprocal information. The goal of the communication process isinherently the conveyance of information. In addition, the nature of the information
processing by the recipients (i.e., the male participants as they attempt to find a
candidate with most desirable qualities) is slow and retrospective. This process formen is very aptly characterized by one of our respondents, who, when reflecting on
how he picked the woman he would write to, stated:“I had the feeling she was really concerned about her parents. She was obviously
a woman that cared about family. That’s what attracted me. If she cared about her
parents, family, she’d care about me too…”
Another respondent described his feelings on this matter:“They can post pictures… they post some words about their career...some words
about their past...where they live... sometimes put a little video…It is very touching
to read these bios...”
MST suggests that, in circumstances related to such communication, media of
low synchronicity allowing for high rehearsability and high reprocessability ispreferred. One of our respondent echoes this:“… videocam options are great but I would definitely want to chat and e-mail forsome time until I decide to do the webcam thing.”
IT (in the form of a website) facilitates the communication by providing a wide
choice of low synchronicity media in this state (e.g., photographs, audio clips, video
clips and text presentation with high customizability).
The macro-features of IT that enable the key functional affordances in this state
are richness, interactivity, and personalization/customization. The richness of themedia allows the information central to the communication process to be presented
through a variety of media (text, audio and video). For the women, these media offer
flexibility of presentation of their information. Further, because of the highrehearsability offered by the media, there is an inherent opportunity for increasing
the quality of their self-expression. For men, the same set of media, allows for a highlevel of reprocessability making it conducive to the retrospective nature of theirinformation processing. Such reprocessability was found beneficial to the men not
only in identifying the partner of the choice, but also in assessing the authenticity ofthe site. For example, one of our respondents commented on this issue of (the lackof) authenticity:“I did read about [someone seeing] …the same photo of a model in three different
websites under three different names... I remember a guy telling me that he wrote
to girl for about 6 months and then the lady wrote...that by the way I am nother...this is my photo...”
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Another respondent also expressed his reservations because of the doctored
photos on the MOB websites:“There is a lot of sketchiness...well I did drop this site [name withheld]..because
what they do is that they take photos of these women and they do something with
Photoshop... So this website...I mean they are portraying the women the best they
can...but it’s kind of...a trick...So I did drop the website because it was unreal...andfalse advertising...”This issue seems to be quite prevalent, and some of our respondents found a wayof dealing with the situation by taking advantage of the communication richness ofthe media by proposing a video chat or asking the potential partner to send thempictures from more realistic setting:“… so one of the tricks I learnt was to say please send me a recent photo of you in
the park or something...and then very often the person does not look the same. “
The capability of the media is further enhanced by technological capabilities of
personalization/customization and interactivity. Personalization/customization
allows the men the capability of creating information filters, thereby tailoring theinformation presentation to suit their preferred criteria. One interviewee stated:“There is a query. You can actually put in things about the women...region,
education level, profession, age, number of children, height weight and few otherlittle things...smoking, non-smoking, single, divorced...”Further, interactivity allows for instantaneous customized information
presentation based on the filters and criteria set by the users. These features
provide critical affordances to the individual’s decision-making process.
The micro-feature during this state (as also in the others) facilitate the social
interaction by instantiating the capabilities offered by the macro features, throughthe provisions of (1) seamlessly instantiating of the various communication media
capabilities, (2) providing easily comprehendible access to media, and (3) presenting
information dynamically based on personal requirements (as an aid to decisionmaking). At this point, the salient categories are functional convenience andrepresentational delight. The former allows the assessment of how well the interface
provides affordances for information transmission and information processing thatare aligned not only to the specific goals/objectives, but also to the requirements ofthe communication mode (i.e. facilitates decision-making and makes low
synchronicity media available). Our respondents offered their views regarding
features for better presentation and decision support that could be valuable at thispoint:“I think what would be nice is to be able to compare a couple of girls based on
certain traits. … Just like Amazon.com, it would be really good if there arerecommendations. Something like…’you seem to be interested in this girl, here areothers who you might also like X, Y, Z”

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Other features that were also suggested were “short video clips of women
introducing themselves” and “personality tests for identifying matches” among
others, similar to the algorithms used by online dating services.
Representational Delight enables the process by ensuring a certain level ofquality of both the system interface (information presented in a manner that isreadable and comprehensible) and the communication interface (variety as well ascapability of seamless use). Our analysis indicates that progress to the interaction
state occurs when the MOB agency website provides adequate affordances for
information seeking and information processing tasks and assists the individual’s
decision making. One should also note however, that attaining of personal
objectives for the individuals would only occur when the individuals leverage thesecapabilities appropriately and in a manner conducive to the communication goals.
The identification of potentially interesting women and the willingness of thechosen women to communicate with the interested men results in the transition (d)to the interaction state. Of course, at this time, some of the men may not be able toidentify someone suitable. One of respondent shared his experience:“I am specifically looking for Japanese women and these websites do not seem tobe listing any Japanese women.”In such a case they would transition (e) to the Wait-And-Think State, where theywould re-assess the criteria they were using or whether they should pursue thischannel at all. At a later time, they may always return to Match-Seeking State (f),when additional women may have signed up with the agency, and/or their own
initial search criteria had changed somewhat, or sometimes, even by switching to adifferent MOB agency. In some cases, the participant may also feel frustrated withthe process, and transition directly to the Termination State (g). For women, thetransition to Interaction State (d) typically occurs when they feel inclined to accept
the initial communication overtures made to them.

5.3 Interaction StateThe Interaction State involves the “getting to know each other” activities, where
both parties engage in impression management regarding who they are as a person,
assess need complementarities, and imagine (as well as co-construct) how the futurewould be together. This state exemplifies reciprocal or relatively balanced exchange
relations. In the Interaction State, men and women with different backgrounds
exchange e-mails, chat, and get to know each other. They tell each other about theirlives, culture, and even troubles. The final aspect of the Interaction State is often avisit to the woman’s country by the man (often, aided by the MOB agency) to gain
more insight regarding his future partner. This also gives a chance for the woman
to gain a better understanding of her potential husband prior to accepting a
proposal for marriage (if it follows). As one respondent pointed out:“…Then he wrote to me and said, ‘I am coming to Thailand.’ He contacted five
women from Thailand so when he made the trip to Thailand, he booked hotels inother provinces so that he could meet [the] other girls too. But I was lucky to be thefirst one. We met and got along so he never went to the other provinces to meet fourother girls. If I had not been the first one, he may have picked another girl.”

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The face to face visits also provide the women some indications about theauthenticity of intentions of the man. One of our respondents recounted thisconversation with his wife:
She said ‘well I have been talking to different men but you are the first one thatcame to China. You are sincere... a lot of men just want to flirt.’
From our data, we also discerned that power shifts in the relationship of the
MOB partners, from dependency to that of interdependency (or perceived
interdependency) mark a crucial point of punctuation in determining the success of
the relation forged during the MOB process. Indeed, interviews reveal that partnersof successful MOB marriages took time to learn about each other for an extended
period of online chatting and even face-to-face visits. One of our women respondents
elaborated on this issue:“I and my husband corresponded 1 year and 2 months before we finally met andgot married. We were already involved. After 1 year, I called him. On Valentine’sDay. We exchanged phones [phone numbers]. Yes, after a year! Then he came over.”Meaningful friendships are formed in this state where both parties become
indispensable part of the each other’s lives. Inability to achieve perceived
interdependence often can lead to the shifts to Termination or Wait-And–Think
State (k and i in figure 2). The entire idea is to move from communication whereinboth the man and woman may be communicating past each other to mutualcommunication, wherein they communicate with each other [Sarker and Sahay2003]7. Often, the achievement of communicative mutuality, a shared frame ofreference regarding the need complementarities of the two parties (e.g., economic
security for the women, and the possibility of having children for the man) in
addition to physical attraction, leads to the transition (h) to the Wedding Bell State.
In other words, social exchange at this stage prepares the foundation for the
possibility of an emerging “perceived interdependency” in the relationship, and at
this point, the partners feel they complement each of other and can proceed to thenext state.
Because of the nature of communication made possible in today’s internet age,both individuals have an opportunity to get to know each other faster, and arguably
better, during the Interaction State. One of our respondents recalled:“It took us a year to get to know each other through letter correspondence andsometimes through phone. Online service is definitely faster and more efficient.”
Many respondents indicated that while looks were important, values andlanguage/education were very critical; something that could not be really assessed
without such communication. For example, one respondent mentioned:7

We note that while mutuality in communication between two individuals in a virtual context
can be enabled by synchronicity of the media [Dennis & Valacich 1999], it is possible for twoparties to communicate synchronously in a way where there isn’t a shared focus, and a respect
for one another’s interests and perspectives – required conditions for mutuality incommunication [Sarker and Sahay 2003]. Likewise, asynchronous communication need notnecessarily lack in mutuality. In other words, mutuality is not determined by the media, but
the nature of social relationship between the interaction participants.
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29“…they should look pretty. Next...language. Language is important. If theirEnglish is good, then it means they are pretty educated. Then, I’d decide to continue
the online relationship, otherwise I’d quit.”
Another respondent focused on “seriousness” noting that he found that Asian
women in particular “wanted a responsible person, who cared about family andcared about children. They want to raise kids,” which is what he was looking for,rather than those “having a good time, travelling, partying, etc.” Whenever suchmismatches in needs and expectations became clear, or conditions in their personal
lives changed significantly, there would be a transition (i) to the Wait-And-Think
State or the Termination State (k) (the latter occurring when the participants wereso fed up with the channel that they would not be interested in participating in the
MOB process any more). Interestingly, we did encounter such a case, where a man’s
ex-wife persuaded him to come back, and he terminated the early interactions withan Asian lady whom he was getting prepared to visit. Thus, there could besituations where the individuals may later re-transition back to the Interaction
State (j) and resume efforts at meeting the ideal partner with other candidates.
The two functional affordances that gain in salience in this state are –communication facilitation and service provision. The motivation on both sides istypically to gauge better the prospective partner’s suitability using information, andother cues not realized or made available earlier. Further, the nature ofcommunication process can be characterized as being focused on convergence, withinformation processing characterized by faster speed, negotiation, adjustment, andverification [Dennis et al 2008]. According to MST, such communication situations
are facilitated by media of higher synchronicity. The technology features provide
Communication facilitation through a range of possible high synchronicity media(e.g., text chat, voice chat, video chat), thus matching the media capabilities withthe communication objectives. The variety of synchronous media made available atthis juncture creates a communication environment characterized by hightransmission speed and a variety of symbol sets, are considered important for highsynchronicity media [Dennis et al 2008]. The communication environment provided
by IT allows the individuals to initiate dialogue, again using a variety of media, andattempt to reach a stage where the communication exhibits mutuality and results ina shared understanding about each other. The communication environment further
facilitates the process by providing a virtual space that is inherently neutral, andaccessible to the individuals based on their preference of time and space. This statearguably allows the participating women attain a relatively high zone of comfort,
particularly in comparison with the lower power status they appear to have in theprevious states. The multiple channels of communication and the capability ofcomparing information through them also enable IT to facilitate and fine-tune thedecision-making of the individual. Finally, IT affords service provision, byfacilitating access to important services (e.g., travel arrangements, backgroundchecks, visa application etc.) if individuals are close to making a decision and takethe next step of meeting face-to-face.
The macro-features of ubiquity and universal standard facilitate the affordance ofcommunication facilitation by supplementing the communication options offered by
the technological feature of richness. In addition, information density of theenvironment which makes a wide variety of services to be easily available enables
the service provision affordance of IT, during this state (in terms of MOB websites
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this is achieved by providing information or links to relevant and reputable service
providers). The micro features of IT, that are salient at this state, belong to thefunctional convenience category. The extent of functional convenience exhibited at
this stage depends on how well the features facilitate the individuals’communication by making high synchronicity communication capability, as well as
appropriate services/information easily available. Such services could include
counseling regarding the interactions by the MOB agency staff, translation services
facilitating the communication, and security mechanisms (including backgroundcheck services) available to reduce vulnerability, both physical and financial (forexample, some of the men have been asked for significant sums of money by the
women in order to continue interactions). In addition, IT-enabled support for travel,visa assistance, and apartment booking services are useful, as the man plans a trip
overseas to see his potential bride.
While technology provides critical affordances within this state, we feel that weshould also point out how participants can somehow also be frustrated by its
limitations. A frequent stumbling block of the interaction process in this state
relates to language. The women often are not adequately conversant in the language
and the communication is therefore facilitated by translation services provided by
the MOB agency. Such translation services are typically human mediated. While
such human mediation can often help bridge cultural distance and minimize
misunderstandings arising from such distance, they can also introduce frustration
because of delay in communication, a perception of reduced privacy, and costs
incurred for human translation. One of our respondents commented on both aspectsof such mediated communication:“Chinese women are not very risqué …the most she will ever say is that you
make me feel warm. But an American men can often say really lewd things…for
many of these the mediated transactions, this mediation is good, because thetranslator pulls out these and rephrases these things because it is very easy to scareaway a Chinese woman… even if you say [‘my god you are so hot..’ that could put
them off.”
At the same time, another respondent lamented about this problem and wished
for improved technology that would speed up the translation process:“Rather than write a letter and then wait two days to get a letter back... it is kindof gut wrenching when you like somebody and you have to wait the interpreter to dotheir job...”Another respondent added:“I don’t know if a woman writes her true feelings if she knows that a third person
is reading her letters. So I think I think if IT needs to grow and help people likeme…the IT could have a live translator like Google translate…but the translation
softwares are not so good now… I just wish that I could go to a website and type in
the chat program and I get it in English and she gets it in Mandarin.”
Yet another respondent highlighted differences related to interactions that amachine translator may not be much help with:

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31“Things like little phrases … [my wife said to me] ‘you always make trouble forme’ and I was taken aback…, I had to ask my [friends] ‘how serious was it?’ They
told me that it was just a phrase… [I learnt that] there is a whole side to Chinese
women called soft complaining which is a call for attention. But if you just take thewords it a sound harsher…that’s the support I need.”A related but different theme that emerged was a tendency to continue the ITmediated communication outside the specific auspices of the MOB agency website.
One of our respondents noted that more often than not, such a move is predicated bya desire to reduce expenses, and also to utilize technology platforms considered moreconvenient (and not offered by the MOB agency). One respondent stated:“The five dollars a letter [for translation services] adds up fast so I asked my wife
to send me email in her language and I just forward to friend [who knew Mandarin]
and they would just translate it for me. Then I would write a letter and my friend
would translate it for me and I would send it back to her…we switched from a paid
service...we moved out from the site.”
5.4 Wedding Bell & Post Wedding Bell States

The commitment to have a future together as man and wife signals the transition(h) to the Wedding Bell State. This is the “coupling” state, and a formal wedding
must be organized. Among other issues, spouse visa must be obtained as part ofpreparation for the woman to move overseas. When dealing with Asian cultures
especially, the man needs to be introduced to (and be somewhat integrated with) the
larger family of the bride. While we did not encounter a situation in our cases (i.e.,
those whom we interviewed) where a transition occurred from the Wedding Bell
State to a Termination State, other evidence suggested that a last moment
disagreement regarding the wedding can arise, with misunderstandings arising as
friends and family from both sides get involved. Further, a gross misrepresentationof relevant information (e.g., marital status, financial stability) by either party canbe discovered, and this would lead to the transition (m). Otherwise, the completionof the wedding and immigration formalities signals the transition (l) to the PostWedding state, when the couple settles down to their new life. One respondent
stated:“The young lady over there [Philippines] was good at computers. I received
a couple of messages every day. Of course internet makes things easiercompared to catalog days. More access… of course, CB [the MOB agency][has] got more sophisticated...in a good sense. My experience with CB wasvery pleasant. They helped me a lot. You can get information on immigration,
law, for an additional fee, they help you with your immigration forms. But
even before that, they give a lot of information… for free… They weretremendous. They charge you around $600 after you decide to take thatroute. They can arrange your travel plans and everything. You can buy animmigration package and they arrange everything for you and her.”
The Post Wedding State captures the different issues that arise after the woman
moves overseas as a bride. These include getting integrated with the culture andsociety, and for many, coming to terms with the fact that developed countries are
not necessarily as perfect as she may have dreamt of or been led to believe. For
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example, for some, the “American dream is actually a nightmare,” due to changes in
the financial and job situation, abuse, significant mismatch with the spouse(especially the language), and cultural repression (e.g., not being allowed to cook
food from native land), due to which yet another transition (n) to termination canoccur8. On the positive side, many brides experience a fulfilling life, one that isbetter than they ever had imagined. In this state, although interdependence isevident, actors still exercise control over each other’s actions. Power does not adhere
to any particular position in the dyad but rather expresses the capacity of one actor(man or woman) to control the financial, psychological and social resources the otherseeks [Burke 1997, p. 149]. We note that control and power in this context do notrefer to domination. What may be seen as “exploitation” may in effect be a questionof whether the partners perceive it to be the case. At the outset, men seem to be thesole controllers of financial resources. Women live in a foreign country with little orno social support and are forced to adapt within an alien environment. We argue
that the imbalance in a relationship should be seen in combination with partner’s
perceived comfort and expected value. For example, the initial difficulties (e.g.,difficulties associated with new language, foreign environment, little or no personal
financial resources, no social network) can be offset by positive experiences (e.g.,
caring husband, secure life, happy family), which may effectively transform apotentially alienating condition to a novel exploration experience in her new
country. If power, however, rests in one partner for a prolonged period of time, themore dependent actor may be exploited and will naturally be dissatisfied with therelationship. Such an unbalanced relationship, as it progresses, leads to lesscooperation and a greater frequency of conflict. However, we argue that theassumption that a partner always will exploit the more dependent partner does notseem to hold true for all the MOB cases, as is evident from our interviews.
The salient functional affordances are somewhat similar for the last two states.
During these states the role of IT becomes less central in certain ways, as theindividuals have moved on from the virtual space to the physical domain, in terms of
their interaction. During the Wedding Bell State where the primary preoccupationof the individuals is to organize the wedding, affordance that becomes key is that ofservice provisions, which facilitates the planning of the event. Useful support may
be provided in the form of linkages to companies that organize/facilitate weddings inthe bride’s or the groom’s countries, cultural orientation material for parties, andtravel, legal, and immigration support services. Another possibility could be toward
providing a channel of communication (with IT augmented by human agents incommunity internet centers or internet cafes) between the couple and the bride’s
family, who may not be computer savvy or have access to a computer at home.
During the Post Wedding Bell State, the IT can continue to afford service
provision, by facilitating the couple’s transition to a life together. These could, forexample, take the form of information services that allows the women to learn more
about the cultural environment in which they find themselves embedded. The
service provisions of IT that would be beneficial at this state would be to enable acommunity, for instance, to offer social interaction with others with the following
shared experiences: those currently in the same circumstances and originating fromthe same country, those having shared interests not readily satisfied in the new8

It must also be acknowledged that the man can be the victim of abuse and fraud perpetrated by the
woman. We did not encounter such a situation in our cases. In addition, we have assumed that themen, being embedded in their own cultures, have other support structure and coping mechanisms
available more readily that do the women who are imported in through the MOB process.
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cultural setting, sharing stories and lessons regarding the MOB experience, offering
ideas of how to stay in touch with family and to send gifts back home, seeking help
from, and providing help to, other members of the community, and providing
mechanisms for exit from the relationship if that becomes necessary. Here the key
objective of IT is to ensure that the bride does not feel a sense of isolation andhelplessness in her new environment. For example, one of our respondents felt that
MOB agencies perhaps stopped short of providing adequate service provisioning for
marriage:“The websites need to help you before the marriage… and then there is theprep for marriage, there is onsite marriage support. But there is a missing
process here…that is post marriage. I don’t think any company has the wholecircle of relationship circle that my wife and I need.”
We feel that these systems can be very helpful for the brides who are in theprocess of adapting to their new environment.
Perhaps an organization,
governmental or non-governmental, could start thinking about support and exit
systems that can help to safeguard the interests of the foreign bride, the MOB. As
the above discussion indicates, IT continues to perform the role of communication
facilitator during these two states.
During the final two states, the relevant macro-features are information density,
ubiquity, richness, and interactivity. Information density and ubiquity facilitate therole of the service provider, while the other two shepherd the role of communication
facilitator. The micro feature category of greatest relevance during these last two
states is that of functional convenience, which allows the evaluation of the extent towhich the website provides information regarding critical services.
6. CONCLUSION -- CONTRIBUTIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
6.1 Contributions

A particular contribution of this research, we feel, is the detailed theoreticalelaboration of the phenomenon based on our interpretation of the empiricalinvestigation. Our process model uses the notion of behavioral states and thetransition across these states to provide a nuanced narrative of relationshipdevelopment as it unfolds in MOB phenomenon. This is, to the best of ourknowledge, one the first comprehensive studies of the online MOB phenomenon that
includes the role of technology while exploring the social processes. As noted earlier,much of the work published in business journals is limited to online dating. In thispaper, we clearly distinguish the MOB process from online dating. Though both
involve IT mediation, unlike online dating, the offline component in MOB
interactions is limited. Most interaction takes place online due to the often
international nature of MOB relationships. Moreover, while most research on online
dating views partners as equals [Frost et al. 2008]; our work focuses on mail orderbride business, in which men — at least in the initial stages of the process — areoften the ones in control. Although this phenomenon of MOB has been investigatedin fields outside business (especially by scholars of sociology, communications andwomen’s studies), most research focuses solely on exploitation. Previous researchseems to reflect a perspective that emphasizes social construction of gender roles
and view the mail order bride experience as an extreme case of oppression of women[Angeles & Sunanta 2007, Hughes 2000, and Sciachitano 2000]. While such research
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has highlighted critical, and potentially important issues faced by women while
participating in the MOB process, we believe our focus on uncovering the MOB
process in its entirety, with an emphasis on the evolving role of technology during
the process, provides a less explored and perhaps equally illuminating perspective.
In other words, we believe that our research offers a granularity in theunderstanding of the MOB process and the role of IT within it offers an integrative
view of the phenomenon that is unique and perhaps more inclusive than theprevious perspectives.
Another interesting aspect of our theory relates to our focus on both genders. We
have attempted to develop insight not only on the processual evolution of anindividual’s behavioral patterns, but how it was influenced by the individual’s
gender identity. We feel that our process model allows us to develop anunderstanding of how both women and men navigate through this process. While werealize that some of our readers may question our lack of criticality to the MOB
phenomenon in general, and to the objectification and presumed exploitation ofdisadvantaged women through the use of IT in particular, we feel that our amoral
stance provides an opportunity for alternative interpretations. We would like toclearly state at this juncture, that it is not our intention to downplay the very realissues of exploitation and bias against women that sometimes underlie the MOB
process, nor do we condone the unscrupulous behavior of agencies that abound thelandscape. In fact, it would be fair to say that our investigation begins by accepting(but suspending) the traditional view, and attempts to look beyond such aperspective. Our intention in writing the paper was not to develop a criticism of the
MOB phenomenon, of which there are more than a handful of examples in the social
science literature, but to develop a deeper understanding of the phenomenon. In
particular, we eschew being judgmental for the sake of developing a balanced
perspective of manner in which the social interactions play out within a technologymediated environment. While critical pieces are useful in informing the readers
about the injustices and structural domination that many scholars believe to be
implicit in the MOB practices, and offer a very valuable perspective to thephenomenon, the problem with many of these studies written from a moral highground, is that: (a) they do not acknowledge that there is a real human need thatexists, both among men who sign up to be clients and the women who sign up to be
selected as brides; (b) they do not provide an understanding, from the subject’s
perspective, how the MOB participants experience the phenomenon (indeed, many
women as well as men experience the MOB process and outcome very positively)
since the authors are pre-committed theoretically-- such interpretations may becharacterized as imposed, not emergent as a grounded investigation might lead to;and (c) thus, they cannot offer a map of how we address some of the pitfalls
associated with the process, using IT for instance. We would further submit that ouramoral, non-critical stance does not obfuscate the power asymmetry and theobjectification of women that often characterize this process. In fact, we believe thatthe discussions on the MOB process clearly highlight the prevalence of these,
particularly during the Entry and Match-Seeking States of the process. At the sametime, our process model brings up somewhat newer themes. First, it suggests thateven within the MOB phenomenon, successful and happy relationships arecontingent on an evolution of the power dynamics from a dependent to a moreinterdependent relationship. Second, it also suggests rather interestingly that
unscrupulous behavior, while predominantly male driven, may not necessary belimited to them. Further, we feel that our model has some compensatory benefits in
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terms of providing the potential bride and groom with certain safeguards. To start
with, our explicit consideration of perspectives of both gender roles in the processmodel allows individuals to develop insights about the motivations and objectives ofthe other, and makes them aware of behavior that could signal potential harm tothem. Next, our narrative highlights a number of attributes that reduce trust on
MOB agencies. Thus, this can allow the MOB participant to develop rubrics andmarkers for gauging the reliability and trustworthiness of these organizations. To
the best of our knowledge, none of the earlier papers have shed sufficient light onneed complementarities of partners involved at each stage of the match seeking
process, thereby providing an explanation of why individuals enter into such
relationships while being aware of dangers of exploitation and the attached social
stigma.
A third, and possibly the more relevant contribution of our research is ourtreatment of the technology-mediated environment in the MOB process. Ourcharacterization of the process states as configurative representation of theparticipants’ goals, their perception of functional affordances provided by thetechnology, the key technology features that serve to provide notice of thepotentiality of the affordances, and goal fulfillment tasks/actions, allow us to
explicitly situate the influence of technology within human actions. In other words,
our study suggests that the technological features perceived and comprehended byan individual are not absolute but relative to the particular combination formed bytheir goals/objectives and the actions that they undertake to fulfill them. This
combination gives rise to certain unique needs in the individuals. These, in turn,facilitate their comprehension of technology, allowing them to perceive distinct
functional affordances of suitably aligned subsets of technology features. Our worksuggests that the recognition of perceived affordances and their mapping totechnology feature sets is dynamic and changes as the individual’s goals/objectives
evolve. We feel that this perspective explains human interactions situated withintechnological environments well, and can be easily applied beyond the confines ofthe MOB process.
We also believe that our focus on technology features and their perceived
functional affordances has certain beneficial implications for the stakeholders. First,
our identification of the various technology features and the functional affordances
provides the stakeholders a clearer perspective on how to best harness technology
features, not only to achieve their objectives, but also to safeguard participantsfrom possible predatory behavior. Second, we feel that our identification of distinct
functional affordances across the different MOB states along with the specific micro
and macro features of technology that provides such affordances offer avenues fordesigning better IT systems. Our clear explication of the evolution of a path tosuccess in terms of facilitating features can be useful in developing a clear
architectural strategy regarding the implementation of technological featurebundles of MOB-facilitating technology. In other words, our theory allows insightthat could help develop a prioritization of technology features and could also develop
strategies of dynamically increasing their significance to individuals at various
states within the MOB process. For example, our process theory indicates thatwebsite design focused on providing markers of security, implementing soundnavigation mechanisms and developing an aesthetically pleasing interface will
facilitate goal fulfillment actions of MOB participants in the Entry and MatchSeeking state. On the other hand, technological feature bundles that facilitate
information search and transaction processing will facilitate the MOB participant’s
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S. Sarker et al.

action and their decision making in the Interaction, Wedding Bell and Post Wedding
Bell States. Therefore, web design that makes such technology features salient tothe users depending on their situation in the MOB process would increase
perceptions of usability in MOB participants and, in turn, enhance the reputation of
the MOB agency in their minds.
Finally, we believe that our specific approach to constructing the process modelin terms of behavior states, their explication, and a description of their transitions
offers a very effective way for developing process models. Our efforts in applying
these constructs are not unique but we do provide an illustration of how such an
approach may be adopted.
6.2 Implications for Future Research

The rapid rise in demand and supply of this global service industry deservesattention from academicians, public policy makers, and regulators. We hope that
this research will help generate further research on this important topic by scholars
from many disciplines beyond IS such as business law, marketing, social sciences, orhumanities.
Future research should start with the remaining controversies, discussing andstudying in depth the various ethical issues surrounding this phenomenon. For
instance, we might ask “Is the MOB practice a fair social exchange process between
a man and a woman who are now afforded a global opportunity to meet over theworldwide web, via the assistance of an IT-enabled matchmaking agency?” While
our initial findings indicate that men do possess more control over the process, andwomen have some degree of control, we find the level of information that women
have access to is often far less than what is available to men. Thus, ethical concerns
center on this unequal amount of information. Future research and practice should
explore ways to address the asymmetry and inequality of information availability to
the two parties, since an informed decision has the potential to reduce abuse after
marriage, an important goal for public policy makers, human rights organizations,and academicians alike. Similarly, policy and law makers would be interested in
identifying the nature of responsibilities that the MOB agencies have toward theparties they serve. What is the best policy approach when many sites are foreignbusinesses operating their site from outside the countries (and hence outside thelegal systems) of most of their clients (e.g., based in the United States, Scandinavian
countries, and the United Kingdom)?
Our study also reveals a substantial change in the communication process as aresult of the penetration of IT around the world. What once was conducted via
catalogs and international mail between two people can now be conducted, thanks totechnological advances, almost instantaneously. Great anticipation used to follow
the sending of a letter when it was sent via mail, and we wonder if our IT-aided‘instant’ message (and gratification) society is ultimately being helpful (or harmful)in the matchmaking process. While participants can now narrow a search for a ‘soulmate’ in a short amount of time, we wonder if the speed of the search and criteria
matching, and impression management in a distributed setting actually aids (orundermines) a successful match process. With the availability of video chat and theimmediate perceptions which can be formed, are those decision cues based upon
initial impression as accurate as they would have been if formed through ahandwritten letter or email exchange? Future research may help determine if thechanging pace or method of communication tends to bring about some helpful

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developments (and perhaps greater equality) in the search process, or if it createssome unanticipated challenges and asymmetries.
After reviewing the experiences of participants in active and past searches, aswell as observing the portrayal of women on websites, we wonder if this IT-enabled
portrayal and interaction could ultimately turn women from potential mates to a
type of ‘product’ in the eyes of some men, which could have negative consequences
downstream Thus, an interesting question emerges – are dating websites (and themarketing of international relationships) enabling the ‘commoditization’ of women(and, perhaps, men)? Given the ease of searching by desired criteria (e.g. hair color,body type, attractiveness, professional/educational experience, the presence orabsence of children, etc.), how prevalent is it that some men start thinking of womenas goods or products rather than soul mates? Should this commoditization occur inthe minds of men, does this then impact the quality of the ensuing relationship?
Future research could help answer these important questions, as well as help
determine if there are approaches or techniques regarding information display or
the ensuing communication process that would lessen the potential of thecommoditization of women. Perhaps a particular area such research could focus on
is how technology could alleviate the opportunities for deception during online
interaction, by providing participants with system based cues and/or training. Such
research could build on existing research at detecting deceptions in online
communication (e.g. Derrick et al. 2013).
Finally, now that we have a broad understanding of the mail order bride
phenomenon through our study, we suggest researchers examine, in more depth, thesocial exchange process in this international relationship and marriage context,
including some of the key social and financial benefits gained by both the men andthe women. In addition to Social Exchange Theory, other theories and concepts that
could be used as a foundation for expanding research in this area should also be
examined, such as symbolic interactionism, self-concept, articulation theory,internal and external locus of control, and value-related theories.
In closing, we reflect back on the real and very different experiences of two
women who were MOBs and showcased in the introduction to this paper. We havefound the MOB phenomenon to be complex and one which raises questions
regarding the lack of equality in the experiences of the men and womenparticipants. However, we have also found that despite stereotypes and stigma,
loving relationships and fulfilling futures are indeed real outcomes of thistechnology aided matchmaking process. We hope that our study helps stimulateinterest and leads to further research with significant theoretical, managerial, andpublic policy contributions to this important global IT-enabled social phenomenon.

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ONLINE APPENDIX
The “Mail-Order-Bride” (MOB) Phenomenon in the Cyberworld:
An Interpretive Investigation
A. THEORETICAL SENSITIVITY9

Our study of social interactions was informed by Social Exchange Theory (SET)[Thibaut and Kelley 1959], widely acknowledged as being among the most powerfulconceptual paradigms for understanding social behavior. SET, with its capacity to
explicate individuals’ motivations in initiating, continuing, and existing
relationships, provided us with an overarching framework to gain further insights
on the complex MOB phenomenon. SET suggests that the expectation of a reward
will encourage participants to interact with each other [Thibaut and Kelley 1959].
This theoretical perspective directed us to focus our analysis on understanding of
the expectations of rewards of the participating parties and enabled us to develop arich understanding of premises that set up and perpetuated the MOB process.
While SET provided us with an excellent lens to examine the social interaction
underlying the MOB phenomenon from the perspective of the attributes of therelationship, we also sought a theoretical perspective that focused on the psyche of
the individual. This was important in understanding the factors that madeindividuals willing participants of the MOB process. Specifically, we drew upon Selfdiscrepancy theory [Higgins 1987], which focuses on three basic domains of the self:
the actual self, the ideal self, and the ought self. The ideal self is defined as the typeof self that one would ideally like to have, which is reflected in the aspirations of theindividual (e.g., getting married, having kids, having a supportive, loving wife, etc.).
The ought self is defined as what one believes one should (normatively speaking)have. When there is an incongruity in the sense of self, such as between people’s
ideal selves (the attributes they wish to have) and actual selves (the degree to which
they believe they actually possess those attributes), or between their ought selves(the attributes they see as their obligation to possess, such as the ability to care forand provide security for parents and siblings) and their actual selves, thenindividuals are driven toward a particular course of action related to theincongruity. Overall this perspective, bringing focus on the incongruity of different
self-images, provided us with a complementary micro-level lens for investigating thephenomenon.
The social interaction in the MOB context is intrinsically embedded within atechnological environment (e.g., the Internet and the MOB agency website).It wastherefore of critical importance to understand in depth the role played by IT in
facilitating this social interaction, particularly in terms of its appropriation by theusers to achieve their goals. Our examination of this phenomenon was primarily
aided by the conceptual lens of Functional Affordances. Functional affordances
represent a relationship between a technology object and a specified user that
“identifies what the user may be able to do with the object, given the user’s
capabilities and goals” [Markus and Silver 2008, p. 622]. In other words, they
provide the user with a sense of the potential of the IT and are seen to embody thenecessary conditions for any appropriation moves by the user [Markus and Silver

9

The references for the citations in the appendix are included in the main reference section of the article
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2008]. Further, for a specific IT, the functional affordances perceived by the user arecontingent on the goal (or task objectives) of the user as well as features of thetechnology. Therefore, our theoretical lens for investigating the role of IT was
additionally supplemented by that of technology features.
The IT environment of our context needs to be viewed at two distinct levels.
At one level, this consists of the larger environment composed of the Internet (thetelecommunication infrastructure and its associated protocols and standards) andthe World Wide Web (the application infrastructure), which provides the reach,range, and responsiveness [Keen and Cummings 1993]. At another level, the IT
environment is related to the interface provided by the specific website theindividuals interact with. For our analysis, we distinguish between these two levels
using the labels of macro features of IT and micro features of IT respectively.
IS literature has characterized certain unique technological features of Internetbased technology systems. These are: ubiquity, global reach, universal standards,
richness, interactivity, information density, personalization/customization and social
technology [Laudon and Traver 2010]. We consider these as the set of macro
features of IT that are potentially relevant to the present context. Micro features of
IT in this particular context refer to the interface characteristics of the MOB agency
website. IS literature, particularly the body of work relating to ecommerce andhuman computer interaction, has examined these interface characteristics
extensively and has found them to be strong indicators of a variety of consumerrelated variables such as purchase intention, satisfaction, technology usage, andperceptions of website quality [Gefen et al. 2003; Palmer 2002; Pavlou and Gefen
2004; Pennington et al. 2003; Van der Heijden 2004]. To organize the micro featuresof IT related to the MOB websites, we use the framework proposed by Kim et al.
[2002] as scaffolding.
The Kim et al. [2002] framework can serve as a lens for understanding theoverall quality of the website (in the authors’ terminology, architectural quality).
The core of the framework is a coherent classification of a website’s interface
features. They propose three high level categories of interface features: structuralfirmness, functional convenience, and representational delight. At the second level,
they propose a further six dimensions of perceived quality of the website, entirelycontained within the higher level categories described before. These are internalstability, external security, information gathering, order processing, systeminterface, communication interface. The framework informs our understanding of
the influence of the interface qualities on social interactions. The details of themacro and the micro features of IT are provided in tables A.1 and A.2.

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Table A.1. Macro Features of IT (adapted from Laudon and Traver 2010)
Macro features of IT
Ubiquity
Global Reach
Universal standards
Richness
Interactivity
Information density
Personalization/Customization
Social technologies

Description
Internet technologies are constantly available across time and space.
Internet technologies offer reach and range that span across national
geographies and multiple cultures.
Internet technologies are characterized by one set of technologicalstandards, making it easily accessible to all.
Internet technologies offer a variety of synchronous and asynchronous
communication options that include video, audio and chat.
Internet technologies allow two-way communication, providing users
control over the mechanism and the nature of communication.
Internet technologies provide users with plentiful information choices,
reducing both search and transaction costs.
Internet technologies allow personalization of information presentationand customization of product/services to suit individual needs.
Internet technologies provide opportunities for user generated content
and enable formation of social network communities.

Table A.2 – Micro Features of IT (adapted from Kim et al 2002)
Micro-feature of IT (withdefinition)
Structural Firmness
The solidity of the system
structure and its capability tocounter expected and unexpected
threat to the technologicalenvironment.
Functional Convenience
The extent of availability of
convenient functions that enabletransaction of related tasks andactivities.

Description of sub-dimensions
Internal
Stability
External
Security

Information
Gathering

Order processing

Representational Delight

System Interface

The extent to which technologicalinterface enhances the affect anindividual feels toward to it.

Communication
Interface

Interface characteristics that influence
perceptions of rapid access, quick error recovery
and correct operation and computation
Interface characteristics that indicate
robustness to external threats, in terms of
security and privacy safeguards
Interface characteristics that facilitates
information seeking tasks of the individual byorganizing information such that it is current,
easily accessible and easily comprehensible
Interface characteristics that indicatesinterface’s ability to enable specific task relatedtransaction processing in terms of efficiency,
traceability, easy comprehensibility, and easy
accessibility
Interface characteristics that indicate the extent
by which the interface affords pleasantness ofinteraction for humans
Interface characteristics that indicate the extent
by which the interface facilitates human tohuman communication

We note that, consistent with Glaser’s view [1978], our theoretical sensitivity isderived from “broader” literature, and not from substantive literature of MOB andthe role of IT in it.

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