Transference as a means of building trust in World Wide Web sites

This paper uses cognitive balance theory (Heider 1958) to develop the proposition that transference is a means by which initial trust in unknown organizations doing business on the World Wide Web (WWW) may be established. Trust transfer across hypertext links and from physical to virtual stores is explored. Hypotheses are developed to suggest that consumers’ willingness to buy from a web site is an outcome of both trust in that web site and perceived systemic (i.e., WWW-related) risk. An experiment to test the hypotheses is described. Expected contributions, limitations, and possibilities for future research are noted.

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