It’s complicated: explaining the relationship between trust,distrust, and ambivalence in online transaction relationships using polynomial regression analysis and response surface analysis

Trust and distrust are considered crucial elements affecting online relationships – particularly those involving electronic transactions. Although some studies propose that they are distinct, others claim that they are merely opposite ends of one continuum. Further adding to the debate is the possibility of ambivalence, a topic that has not been examined in electronic transaction relationships. Unfortunately, current models of trust and distrust have limitations that impede explanations of how – or even if – ambivalence is generated by feelings of trust and distrust and how these two constructs can best coexist. We thus propose a hybrid model which considers the limitations and strengths of previous models. Namely, we posit that trust and distrust can coexist as separate components with related continua. We use polynomial regression analysis (PRA) and response surface analysis (RSA) to test these complex relationships. Using an empirical study of online consumer behaviour with 521 experienced online consumers, strong empirical validation is found for the model. We examine the effects of ambivalence on the truster’s intentions towards a website and find a small positive effect which increases such intentions. PRA and RSA confirm that trust and distrust are most likely separate components – not opposite ends of a continuum – with related continua. The continua within the subconstructs of trust and distrust likely have more complex and interesting relationships than have been considered previously. These findings lead to interesting future research opportunities on trust, distrust and ambivalence using advanced techniques such as PRA and RSA.     

Consumer trust and distrust: An issue of website design

Researchers have long speculated about the distinction between trust and distrust, yet the majority of studies on trust have treated them as essentially the same construct on opposite ends of a continuum. In order to resolve this ambiguity, we propose a theoretical framework to investigate the antecedents and influences of trust and distrust in the online shopping context, relying on the literature of website design and consumer trust, ambivalence theories, as well as emerging studies on distrust in the work place. Our findings indicate that trust and distrust are two separate concepts by reason of their distinct cognitions, different antecedents and different influences on consequent outcomes. In particular, the results show that specific website design attributes have distinct effects on shaping consumers’ trust and distrust. These findings suggest new ways in which website attributes can be fine-tuned by website designers and managers.     

Understanding online purchase intentions: contributions from technology and trust perspectives

This paper explores factors that influence consumer's intentions to purchase online at an electronic commerce website. Specifically, we investigate online purchase intention using two different perspectives: a technology-oriented perspective and a trust-oriented perspective. We summarise and review the antecedents of online purchase intention that have been developed within these two perspectives. An empirical study in which the contributions of both perspectives are investigated is reported. We study the perceptions of 228 potential online shoppers regarding trust and technology and their attitudes and intentions to shop online at particular websites. In terms of relative contributions, we found that the trust-antecedent ‘perceived risk’ and the technology-antecedent ‘perceived ease-of-use’ directly influenced the attitude towards purchasing online.     

Examining customers’ trust in online vendors and their dropout decisions: An empirical study

Customer dropouts represent a critical challenge to online vendors and have severely constrained the proliferation of electronic retailing, which greatly depends on the customer eventually clicking on the “confirm purchase” button. In this study, we investigate the relationship between customers’ trust in an online vendor and their dropouts in different stages of the purchase process. Using a well-established consumer decision-making process, we analyze salient online trust antecedents for each purchase stage, develop specific hypotheses, and test them empirically. Our results suggest that customers’ trust in an online vendor has significant effects on their decisions to exit from the vendor’s website, and that salient trust antecedents vary in different stages of the consumer decision process. According to our findings, customers by and large depend on general, subjective antecedents pertaining to personal traits or perceptions about the website’s ease of use to assess the trustworthiness of an online vendor in the early stages but focus on specific, objective, transaction-oriented antecedents directly related to their purchase decision making in the later stages. Our results have important implications for research and practice which are also discussed in the paper.     

Psychological antecedents of institution-based consumer trust in e-retailing

Online trust is one of the main determinants of the success of e-retailers and much research has dealt with website features triggering consumer trust to them. Another stream of research focuses on the psychological antecedents to online trust; i.e., what “happens” in the consumer’s mind before or while a person decides to trust an e-retailer? So far, each effort has focused on only a few selected aspects of this trust formation process. No study has attempted to identify major psychological antecedents of trust. Our work identified the relative importance of the antecedents of institution-based trust in e-retailing; i.e., trust people have in it in general. A review of the literature reveals a large number of potential psychological antecedents. These can be categorized into five group of factors: personality-based, perception-based, attitude-based, experience-based, and knowledge-based. The five categories are hypothesized to influence institution-based consumer trust in e-retailing. According to our results, perception based factors are the main determinants of consumer trust in e-retailing. Consumers do behave, after all, rationally.     

Psychological antecedents of institution-based consumer trust in e-retailing

Online trust is one of the main determinants of the success of e-retailers and much research has dealt with website features triggering consumer trust to them. Another stream of research focuses on the psychological antecedents to online trust; i.e., what “happens” in the consumer’s mind before or while a person decides to trust an e-retailer? So far, each effort has focused on only a few selected aspects of this trust formation process. No study has attempted to identify major psychological antecedents of trust. Our work identified the relative importance of the antecedents of institution-based trust in e-retailing; i.e., trust people have in it in general. A review of the literature reveals a large number of potential psychological antecedents. These can be categorized into five group of factors: personality-based, perception-based, attitude-based, experience-based, and knowledge-based. The five categories are hypothesized to influence institution-based consumer trust in e-retailing. According to our results, perception based factors are the main determinants of consumer trust in e-retailing. Consumers do behave, after all, rationally.     

The effects of two-way communication and chat service usage on consumer attitudes in the e-commerce retailing sector

In e-commerce retailing (e-retailing), where competitors are only one click away and prices are easy to compare, providing superior customer service and reciprocal communication via a company’s website are important aspects of attracting and retaining customers. One increasingly popular solution to improve customer service is a “live chat” interface that allows consumers to have real-time conversations online with customer service agents. As the literature on the impacts of real-time communication via live chat is currently very limited, this study develops and tests a model that demonstrates the moderating effects of a chat service on the relationship between two-way communication (i.e., a core element of perceived website interactivity) and customer satisfaction, trust, repurchase and word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions. The data for this study were collected via an online survey (N?=?6783) targeting the existing customers of five e-retailers that actively utilize live chats as a customer service tool. The study results show that the extent to which a consumer perceives that an e-retailer is dedicated to fostering two-way communication between the consumer and the seller has significant effects on trust, satisfaction, and repurchase and WOM intentions. Moreover, the results of a multi-group analysis show that the use of a chat service positively moderates these relationships.     

Trust and distrust on the web: User experiences and website characteristics

The aim of this research is to study the content of trustful and distrustful user experiences on the web to identify website characteristics that enhance trust or cause distrust. We collected users’ reports about critical incidents and quantitative questionnaire data by means of an online survey. Results from N = 221 participants suggest that distrust is mostly an effect of graphical (e.g., complex layout) and structural (e.g., pop-ups) design issues of a website, whereas trust is based on social factors such as reviews or recommendations by friends. The content of a website affects both trust and distrust: privacy issues had an effect on distrust and security signs enhanced trust. Furthermore, we show how trustful and distrustful user experiences differ in terms of perceived honesty, competence, and benevolence. High honesty and competence characterize a trustful experience, whereas a distrustful experience is associated with missing honesty and missing benevolence. We discuss how different website characteristics help to enhance trust or to prevent distrust and how this impacts the allocation of design resources.     

How shall I trust the faceless and the intangible? A literature review on the antecedents of online trust

Trust is generally assumed to be an important precondition for people’s adoption of electronic services. This paper provides an overview of the available research into the antecedents of trust in both commercial and non-commercial online transactions and services. A literature review was conducted covering empirical studies on people’s trust in and adoption of computer-mediated services. Results are described using a framework of three clusters of antecedents: customer/client-based, website-based, and company/organization-based antecedents. Results show that there are many possible antecedents of trust in electronic services. The majority of the research has been conducted in the context of e-commerce; only few studies are available in the domains of e-government and e-health. For many antecedents, some empirical support can be found, but the results are far from univocal. The research calls for more, and particularly more systematic, research attention for the antecedents of trust in electronic services. The review presented in this paper offers practitioners an overview of possibly relevant variables that may affect people’s trust in electronic services. It also gives a state-of-the-art overview of the empirical support for the relevance of these variables.     

Antecedents of trust in online auctions

Customer loyalty or repeat purchasing is critical to the online auction sellers’ survival and success. Previous research has established that online repeat purchase intentions are the product of buyer assessments of trust in the online seller. Previous research has also affirmed the importance of justice perceptions in engendering trust. These perspectives, however, have been examined independently by IS and management researchers. By integrating these two perspectives, a richer understanding of buyers’ underlying beliefs and subsequent repeat purchase intentions can be gained. In the research model, bidding justice is proposed as a formative second-order construct driven by distributive justice, procedural justice, interpersonal justice, and informational justice. Bidding justice is hypothesized to positively affect trust in the community of sellers, which in turn is hypothesized to positively affect repeat purchase intentions. Data collected from 412 buyers in Yahoo-Kimo’s online auction marketplace provide support for the proposed model. The study shows that trust is a significant positive predictor of buyers’ intentions to repeat purchase. The study also shows that the four dimensions of justice are important components of bidding justice, which in turn has a strong positive effect on trust in the community of sellers. Implications for theory and practice and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

The role of social media in enhancing guanxi and perceived effectiveness of E-commerce institutional mechanisms in online marketplace

This study extends literature on e-commerce trust and repurchase intentions by exploring the role of swift guanxi and the perceived effectiveness of institutional mechanisms (PEEIM) in the context of a Chinese e-marketplace – Taobao. We explore how Taobao’s social media technologies (online reviews and instant messenger) can improve swift guanxi and PEEIM by increasing online interactivity and presence. We find that buyers’ PEEIM negatively moderates trust in online sellers and repurchase intentions. We show that swift guanxi, created by social media’s interactivity and presence, enhances trust, which further increases repurchase intentions. Theoretical and managerial implications and future research directions are discussed.     

A multi-level model of individual information privacy beliefs

Several types of individual information privacy beliefs have been studied in literature, but their distinctions, relationships, and behavioral impacts have yet been systematically analyzed, causing difficulties in comparing and consolidating results across literature. Based on a review on various types of privacy beliefs, this study develops a multi-level model to strengthen this concept. The model consists of three levels of privacy beliefs, including: disposition to privacy, representing a person’s fundamental beliefs and overall propensity to value privacy across contexts; online privacy concern, representing a person’s overall perception of privacy risks in the online environment; and website privacy concern, representing a person’s perception of privacy risks on a particular website. An empirical test reveals that disposition to privacy has a positive impact on both online privacy concern and website privacy concern, and website privacy concern is the only significant predictor of intentions to disclose information and transact on a website. The study helps to synthesize individual information privacy beliefs and assists in understanding their impacts on online behavior.     

Stage antecedents of consumer online buying behavior

Unlike previous research which adopts simultaneous measures to examine customers’ satisfaction with the entire online shopping experience, this study examines two important stages of online buying behavior: ordering and fulfillment. The explicit consideration of the two stages acknowledges the fact that in an online environment, the two stages are distinct and there is a delay between the time a customer makes an order and the time he receives delivery of the merchandise. Examined are the antecedents and consequences of customer satisfaction in different stages of the online buying process based on the expectation–confirmation model (ECM). Results indicate that the customers’ satisfaction with the ordering process and the fulfillment process, and the perceived usefulness of the website contribute significantly to their intention to continue using a business-to-consumer (B2C) website. It is also shown that the customers’ perceived usefulness affects their satisfaction only with the ordering process but not with the fulfillment process. Implications and limitations are discussed.     

Determinants of repurchase intention in online group-buying: The perspectives of DeLone & McLean IS success model and trust

The purpose of this study is to propose a theoretical model to examine the antecedents of repurchase intention in online group-buying by integrating the perspective of DeLone & McLean IS success model and the literature of trust. The model was tested using the data collected from 253 customers of a group-buying website in Taiwan. The results show that satisfaction with website, satisfaction with sellers, and perceived quality of website have positive influences on repurchase intention, while perceived quality of website and perceived quality of sellers have significant impacts on satisfaction with website and satisfaction with sellers, respectively. The results also show that trust in website has positive influences on perceived quality of website and satisfaction with website, whereas trust in sellers influence perceived quality of sellers and satisfaction with sellers significantly. Finally, the results show that perceived size of website has positive influence on trust in website, while reputation of website and reputation of sellers significantly affect trust in website and trust in sellers, respectively. The implications for theory and practice and suggestions for future research are also discussed.     

Modelling and testing consumer trust dimensions in e-commerce

Prior research has found trust to play a significant role in shaping purchase intentions of a consumer. However there has been limited research where consumer trust dimensions have been empirically defined and tested. In this paper we empirically test a path model such that Internet vendors would have adequate solutions to increase trust. The path model presented in this paper measures the three main dimensions of trust, i.e. competence, integrity, and benevolence. And assesses the influence of overall trust of consumers. The paper also analyses how various sources of trust, i.e. consumer characteristics, firm characteristic, website infrastructure and interactions with consumers, influence dimensions of trust. The model is tested using 365 valid responses. Findings suggest that consumers with high overall trust demonstrate a higher intention to purchase online.     

The impact of online real-time interactivity on patronage intention: The use of avatars

The objective of this paper is to examine the impact of online real-time interactivity on the desire of users to visit and to purchase products/services from the company in the future. Online real-time interactivity has been increased by the use of avatars. We also investigated the antecedents of online real-time interactivity by focusing on trust, emotional appeal, and social presence. As far as the methodology is concerned, we designated companies using avatars on their websites. We asked respondents to visit these websites and then fill in our questionnaire. We received 945 questionnaires back. As we had several latent variables, we used partial least squares (PLS), a variance-based structural equation modeling method. The results show that online real-time interactivity significantly increases the patronage intention. The results also illustrate the impact of the degree of trust and the emotional appeal on user's perception about the online real-time interactivity. Nevertheless, the impact of the emotional appeal is less relevant compared to the degree of trust. Moreover, the degree of trust in the information found on the website explains user's emotional appeal during the conversation. Finally, avatar's social presence has a significant impact on trust and emotional appeal. Our results have immediate and direct implications for avatars' developers and companies who want to invest in improving the real-time interactivity of their website.     

Understanding online customer repurchasing intention and the mediating role of trust – an empirical investigation in two developed countries

Although e-commerce adoption and customers’ initial purchasing behavior have been well studied in the literature, repeat purchase intention and its antecedents remain understudied. This study proposes a model to understand the extent to which trust mediates the effects of vendor-specific factors on customers’ intention to repurchase from an online vendor. The model was tested and validated in two different country settings. We found that trust fully mediates the relationships between perceived reputation, perceived capability of order fulfillment, and repurchasing intention, and partially mediates the relationship between perceived website quality and repurchasing intention in both countries. Moreover, multi-group analysis reveals no significant between-country differences of the model with regards to the antecedents and outcomes of trust, except the effect of reputation on trust. Academic and practical implications and future research are discussed.     

How virtual community participation influences consumer loyalty intentions in online shopping contexts: an investigation of mediating factors

Extant studies generally recognise that virtual community building is an effective marketing programme for forging deep and enduring affective bonds with consumers. This study extends previous research by proposing and testing a model that investigates key mediating processes (via trust, satisfaction and identification) that underlie the relationship between virtual community participation and consumer loyalty intentions. The authors test the hypotheses using data obtained from three large online retailing stores. Virtual community participation significantly enhances loyalty intentions, through both social mechanisms (via community identification) and psychological mechanisms (via trust and satisfaction). Moreover, the findings provide insights into the complex relationship between the two mechanisms in online shopping settings. Community identification is a pivotal factor for enhancing customer loyalty intentions. The results advance understanding of the process by which virtual community building facilitates the development of business-to-consumer relationships in the computer-mediated environment. The authors discuss the managerial implications of the findings, as well as avenues for further research.     

The influence of user affect in online information disclosure

Personal consumer data is the fuel for information driven programs that may differentiate a firm from its competitors and create strategic advantages. However, a tension exists between the user’s desire to protect personal information and the needs of online businesses for consumer data that drive customer relationship and business intelligence applications. This study explores the roles of positive and negative affect on users’ trust and privacy beliefs that relate to the online disclosure of personal information. A model is tested using the responses of 301 Internet users who visited one of two commercial websites. The results indicate that positive affect has a significant effect on users’ website trust and privacy beliefs that motivate online information disclosure and this effect is more pronounced for users with high Internet security concerns. The idea that positive mood-inducing website features can motivate user behavior has the potential to guide the development of websites for effective information disclosure and data collection.     

Understanding consumer intention in online shopping: a respecification and validation of the DeLone and McLean model

The increasing popularity of online shopping has led to the emergence of new economic activities. To succeed in the highly competitive e-commerce environment, it is vital to understand consumer intention. Understanding what motivates consumer intention is critical because such intention is key to survival in this fast-paced and hypercompetitive environment. Where prior research has attempted at most a limited adaptation of the information system success model, we propose a comprehensive, empirical model that separates the ‘use’ construct into ‘intention to use’ and ‘actual use’. This makes it possible to test the importance of user intentions in determining their online shopping behaviour. Our results suggest that the consumer's intention to use is quite important, and accurately predicts the usage behaviour of consumers. In contrast, consumer satisfaction has a significant impact on intention to use but no direct causal relation with actual use.