A Study of Consumer Trust in On-line Shopping: Methodological & Research Considerations

Research as to how consumer trust can be built in an on-line environment is limited and varies considerably in terms of the dimensions of the problem that are examined. Consequently, much of our understanding of the antecedents of trust in on-line shopping context remains fragmented. This paper outlines an in-progress study in which a previously validated measurement instrument was applied in Ireland and in the United States in order to investigate the existence and importance of specific perceptions and factors that are thought to predict the generation of consumer trust in Internet shopping. It is expected that the results of this study will provide a refined understanding of the predictors and moderators of trust in an electronic purchase environment and thus make a valuable contribution not only to information systems research but also to the overall body of marketing, trust and diffusion research. In addition, the detailed insights afforded by this study are likely to be of benefit to vendors operating in a global environment in their attempts to engender consumer trust in their websites and thus increase their success in the competitive electronic commerce marketplace.

[1]  Anol Bhattacherjee,et al.  Individual Trust in Online Firms: Scale Development and Initial Test , 2002, J. Manag. Inf. Syst..

[2]  Paul A. Pavlou,et al.  Building Effective Online Marketplaces with Institution-Based Trust , 2004, Inf. Syst. Res..

[3]  Matthew K. O. Lee,et al.  A Trust Model for Consumer Internet Shopping , 2001, Int. J. Electron. Commer..

[4]  Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa,et al.  Consumer Trust in an Internet Store: A Cross-Cultural Validation , 2006, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[5]  Margaret Tan,et al.  Factors Influencing the Adoption of Internet Banking , 2000, J. Assoc. Inf. Syst..

[6]  L. Zucker.  Production of trust: Institutional sources of economic structure, 1840–1920. , 1986 .

[7]  L HoffmanDonna,et al.  Building consumer trust online , 1999 .

[8]  J. Hagen,et al.  Trust in Japanese Interfirm Relations: Institutional Sanctions Matter , 1998 .

[9]  P. Ring,et al.  Structuring cooperative relationships between organizations , 1992 .

[10]  Joobin Choobineh,et al.  Trust in electronic commerce: definition and theoretical considerations , 1998, Proceedings of the Thirty-First Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[11]  Paul A. Pavlou,et al.  Consumer Acceptance of Electronic Commerce: Integrating Trust and Risk with the Technology Acceptance Model , 2003, Int. J. Electron. Commer..

[12]  Venkatesh Shankar,et al.  Online trust: a stakeholder perspective, concepts, implications, and future directions , 2002, J. Strateg. Inf. Syst..

[13]  Marcel Creemers,et al.  Understanding online purchase intentions: contributions from technology and trust perspectives , 2003, Eur. J. Inf. Syst..

[14]  Tibert Verhagen,et al.  An Empirical Exploration Of Trust And Risk Associated With Purchasing At Electronic Marketplaces , 2004, Bled eConference.

[15]  Susan Wiedenbeck,et al.  On-line trust: concepts, evolving themes, a model , 2003, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[16]  M. Gurtman.  Trust, distrust, and interpersonal problems: a circumplex analysis. , 1992, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[17]  Kyung Kyu Kim,et al.  Initial trust and the adoption of B2C e-commerce: The case of internet banking , 2004, DATB.

[18]  Sanghyuk Park,et al.  Development of electronic commerce user-consumer satisfaction index (ECUSI) for Internet shopping , 2001, Ind. Manag. Data Syst..

[19]  A. Borchers.  Trust in Internet Shopping: A Test of a Measurement Instrument , 2001 .

[20]  Ortwin Renn,et al.  Trust and credibility in risk communication , 1989 .

[21]  Tibert Verhagen,et al.  Perceived risk and trust associated with purchasing at electronic marketplaces , 2006, Eur. J. Inf. Syst..

[22]  Detmar W. Straub,et al.  Trust and TAM in Online Shopping: An Integrated Model , 2003, MIS Q..

[23]  Colin Camerer,et al.  Not So Different After All: A Cross-Discipline View Of Trust , 1998 .

[24]  Kyung Kyu Kim,et al.  Initial trust, perceived risk, and the adoption of internet banking , 2000, ICIS.

[25]  Norman L. Chervany,et al.  What Trust Means in E-Commerce Customer Relationships: An Interdisciplinary Conceptual Typology , 2001, Int. J. Electron. Commer..

[26]  Elizabeth Sillence,et al.  Trust and mistrust of online health sites , 2004, CHI.

[27]  Brian R. Kovar,et al.  Consumer Responses to the CPA WEBTRUST™ Assurance , 2000, J. Inf. Syst..

[28]  Dianne Cyr,et al.  Beyond Trust: Web Site Design Preferences Across Cultures , 2005, J. Glob. Inf. Manag..

[29]  Fn Florian Egger,et al.  Developing a model of trust for electronic commerce: an application to a permissive marketing web site , 2000 .

[30]  D. H. Mills.  The Logic and Limits of Trust , 1983 .

[31]  N. L. Chervany,et al.  Initial Trust Formation in New Organizational Relationships , 1998 .

[32]  S. Sitkin,et al.  Explaining the Limited Effectiveness of Legalistic “Remedies” for Trust/Distrust , 1993 .

[33]  Yu-Ting Caisy Hung,et al.  Modeling Initial and Repeat Online Trust in B2C E-Commerce , 2006, Proceedings of the 39th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'06).

[34]  Henry H. Emurian,et al.  An overview of online trust: Concepts, elements, and implications , 2005, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[35]  Ewald A. Kaluscha,et al.  Empirical research in on-line trust: a review and critical assessment , 2003, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[36]  Charles J. Kacmar,et al.  Developing and Validating Trust Measures for e-Commerce: An Integrative Typology , 2002, Inf. Syst. Res..

[37]  Claudia Keser,et al.  Trust, the Internet, and the digital divide , 2003, IBM Syst. J..

[38]  V T Covello,et al.  The Determinants of Trust and Credibility in Environmental Risk Communication: An Empirical Study , 1997, Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis.

[39]  R. Hardin,et al.  Conceptions and explanations of trust. , 2001 .

[40]  Christy M. K. Cheung,et al.  Trust in Internet Shopping: A Proposed Model and Measurement Instrument , 2000 .

[41]  Brian R. Kovar,et al.  Selling WebTrust: An Exploratory Examination Of Factors Influencing Consumers' Decisions To Use Online Distribution Channels , 2011, BIS 2011.

[42]  R. Lewicki,et al.  Developing and Maintaining Trust in Work Relationships , 1996 .

[43]  Claire Gauzente.  WEB MERCHANTS' PRIVACY AND SECURITY STATEMENTS: HOW REASSURING ARE THEY FOR CONSUMERS? A TWO-SIDED APPROACH , 2004 .

[44]  W. Galston.  Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity , 1996 .

[45]  France Bélanger,et al.  Trustworthiness in electronic commerce: the role of privacy, security, and site attributes , 2002, J. Strateg. Inf. Syst..

[46]  Yao-Hua Tan,et al.  Toward a Generic Model of Trust for Electronic Commerce , 2000, Int. J. Electron. Commer..

[47]  Fred D. Davis,et al.  User Acceptance of Computer Technology: A Comparison of Two Theoretical Models , 1989 .

[48]  Aneil Mishra.  ORGANIZATIONAL RESPONSES TO CRISIS: THE CENTRALITY OF TRUST , 1996 .

[49]  Gregory A. Bigley,et al.  Straining for Shared Meaning in Organization Science: Problems of Trust and Distrust , 1998 .

[50]  M. Koufaris,et al.  CUSTOMER TRUST ONLINE: EXAMINING THE ROLE OF THE EXPERIENCE WITH THE WEB SITE , 2002 .

[51]  Chris Snijders,et al.  Determinants of trust , 1999 .