Predicting user trust in information systems: a comparison of competing trust models

The concept of trust has emerged in the MIS field, with a focus on interpersonal or inter-organizational trust in the contexts of e-commerce and virtual teams. The inclusion of the trust concept within IS acceptance models provides further evidence that MIS researchers recognize the relevance of IS trust. While simple trust constructs have been incorporated into existing IS models, and trust models have been developed to address e-commerce issues, a comprehensive model of trust formation for a new information system has not been published. The goal of this research is to advance IS trust research by investigating the trust formation process with new IS. In this paper, two initial trust formation models, applicable to information systems, are reviewed and compared at both the conceptual and empirical levels. The first model was proposed by McKnight, Choudhury and Kacmar in an e-commerce context in 2002. The second model is based on the theory of reasoned action (TRA) and the theory of planned behavior (TPB), and was developed to predict people's trust in national identification (NID) systems. Based upon the conceptual comparison, the TRA/TPB-based trust model appears to be more powerful at predicting user trust in IS. An experimental study has been designed to compare these two models in the same context, predicting people's trust in NID systems. This empirical comparison provides more insights for understanding user trust towards IS.