Interplay between trust,information privacy concerns and behavioural intention of users on online social networks

Trust and privacy features of websites have evolved as an important concern for any businesses or interactions, particularly in online networks. The study investigates the relationship between trust, privacy concerns and behavioural intention of users on the social network. The behavioural intention of users on the online social network (OSN) is captured by intention to disclose information and intention to interact with others in OSN. The study was conducted on a sample of 457 active users from one of the major social networking website, Facebook. Partial least squares based structural equation modelling was used for analysing the results. The findings of the study reveal that intention to disclose information mediates the relationship between trust in the website and the intention to interact with others. Another important finding of the study indicates that prior positive experience with the website significantly impacts the trust in website, and the trust in website also plays a crucial role while determining the information privacy concerns in the OSN.     

Analysing complaint intentions in online shopping: the antecedents of justice and technology use and the mediator of customer satisfaction

Complaint behaviours are the key to the competition in an online market when service quality is a major concern of consumers. An understanding of complaint intentions can provide insight into a negative service experience and in turn, effectively redress consumer's problems. It is our purpose to examine the determinants of complaint intentions in the online shopping. When online consumers essentially involve the purchase of products/services and the use of web-based technologies, two major issues particularly arise in this context, exchange behaviour and technology use. This study thus integrates justice perception and expectation–confirmation model (ECM) of information system continuance to understand customer satisfaction and in turn, complaint intentions. Data were collected for online consumers with negative service experiences. The results of testing the structural model indicated that distributive and interactional justices significantly contribute to customer satisfaction and complaint intentions, but procedural justice does not. ECM-based features, such as perceived usefulness, are all important in determining customer satisfaction and complaint intentions. The implications for managers and scholars are further discussed.     

潜在网络购物者与有经验者购买意愿比较研究*

感知风险和信任缺失被认为是阻碍网络购物发展的主要因素。以技术接受模型为理论基础,将感知风险和信任引入模型,把消费者分为潜在网络购物者和有经验网络购物者两大类,采用结构方程模型方法对影响我国消费者网络购物意愿的因素进行实证对比研究。实证结果表明：消费者感知网络购物有用性对其购买意愿的影响路径系数高于信任和风险因子对购买意愿的路径系数;感知风险对网络购买意愿有直接的负向影响;对于潜在消费者群体,信任显著影响其网络购物意愿,但对有购物经验的消费者群体信任却对网络购买意愿没有显著影响。     

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.     

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.     

Examination of community identification and interpersonal trust on continuous use intention: Evidence from experienced online community members

Members’ continued intention to use a community service is rooted in social identity. Past research has examined social identity but ignored the development of interpersonal trust through community identification. Drawing on social identity theory, one can conclude that community identification is the foundation of a member’s continuous use intention through interpersonal trust. Data come from responses to a two-stage survey of experienced members of an online game-based community. The findings support the belief that the identity of the community will strengthen long-term relationships within it. The projection of community identification on continuous use intention is tied to interpersonal trust.     

Social presence,trust, and social commerce purchase intention: An empirical research

Lacking the presence of human and social elements is claimed one major weakness that is hindering the growth of e-commerce. The emergence of social commerce might help ameliorate this situation. Social commerce is a new evolution of e-commerce that combines the commercial and social activities by deploying social technologies into e-commerce sites. Social commerce reintroduces the social aspect of shopping to e-commerce, increasing the degree of social presences in online environment. Drawing upon the social presence theory, this study theorizes the nature of social aspect in online SC marketplace by proposing a set of three social presence variables. These variables are then hypothesized to have positive impacts on trusting beliefs which in turn result in online purchase behaviors. The research model is examined via data collected from a typical e-commerce site in China. Our findings suggest that social presence factors grounded in social technologies contribute significantly to the building of the trustworthy online exchanging relationships. In doing so, this paper confirms the positive role of social aspect in shaping online purchase behaviors, providing a theoretical evidence for the fusion of social and commercial activities. Finally, this paper introduces a new perspective of e-commerce and calls more attention to this new phenomenon of social commerce.     

选择在线交易服务者的多情境信任和声誉评估系统

在以信任和声誉值选择服务者的系统中,普遍存在的问题是在评估服务者的信任和声誉值时考虑因素过少,局限于系统内,以及方法缺少灵活性,导致选择的服务者不能满足用户多样性的要求。为了解决这个问题,提出一种应用于在线交易服务者选择的多情境信任和声誉评估系统,服务者通过注册的质量属性和担保资金获得信任和声誉启动值,由系统内、外的交易经历获得信任和声誉经验值,实际信任和声誉值由两者动态线性组合,后者所占比重随交易次数的增加而动态增加,根据用户设置的服务者的情境属性与实际信任和声誉值选择服务者。通过与其他方法对比测试,结果表明此方法更容易满足用户的各种要求。此信任和声誉评估系统不仅能给新服务者与其他服务者一个公平竞争的环境,也可以减少用户选中恶意服务者的机会。     

Predicting repurchase intention for online clothing brands in Taiwan: quality disconfirmation,satisfaction, and corporate social responsibility

Electronic Commerce Research - This study examined the antecedents influencing customer satisfaction and repurchase intention for online clothing brands from the viewpoint of...     

The relationships among service quality,perceived value,customer satisfaction,and post-purchase intention in mobile value-added services

The purposes of this study are to construct an instrument to evaluate service quality of mobile value-added services and have a further discussion of the relationships among service quality, perceived value, customer satisfaction, and post-purchase intention. Structural equation modeling and multiple regression analysis were used to analyze the data collected from college and graduate students of 15 major universities in Taiwan. The main findings are as follows: (1) service quality positively influences both perceived value and customer satisfaction; (2) perceived value positively influences on both customer satisfaction and post-purchase intention; (3) customer satisfaction positively influences post-purchase intention; (4) service quality has an indirect positive influence on post-purchase intention through customer satisfaction or perceived value; (5) among the dimensions of service quality, “customer service and system reliability” is most influential on perceived value and customer satisfaction, and the influence of “content quality” ranks second; (6) the proposed model is proven with the effectiveness in explaining the relationships among service quality, perceived value, customer satisfaction, and post-purchase intention in mobile added-value services.     

Effects of outcome, process and shopping enjoyment on online consumer behaviour

Customer value is one of the most powerful forces in today’s marketplace and emerging as the strategic imperative for the 1990s. In this study, we proposed a three-component customer value model for e-commerce. Drawing upon the literature in marketing and information systems, our research model decomposed customer value into process value, outcome value, and shopping enjoyment. The results from this study showed that outcome value and process value contributed significantly to customer satisfaction and loyalty. Also, evidences confirmed that customer satisfaction affect customer loyalty. Enjoyment, however, had no significant positive impact on customer satisfaction.     

Understanding consumer intention to participate in online travel community and effects on consumer intention to purchase travel online and WOM: An integration of innovation diffusion theory and TAM with trust

The growing presence of online travel communities is leading to great developments in the travel industry. Grounded in the innovation diffusion theory (IDT) and the technology acceptance model (TAM), this paper seek to develop and empirically test a comprehensive framework to examine the antecedents of customers' intention to participate in online travel community. Using SEM to analyse the data collected from a sample of 495 members, the results indicate that innovation diffusion theory and TAM with trust provide an appropriate model for explaining consumers' intention to participate; this intention in turn has a positive influence on intention to purchase and positive WOM. Furthermore, religiosity plays an important role in understanding consumers' behavioural intention. The results offer important implications for online service provider and are likely to stimulate further research in the area of online travel community.     

Consumer perceptions of information helpfulness and determinants of purchase intention in online consumer reviews of services

Online consumer reviews offer an unprecedented amount of information for consumers to evaluate services before purchase. We use the dual process theory to investigate consumer perceptions about information helpfulness (IH) in electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) contexts. Results highlight that popularity signals, two-sided reviews, and expert sources (but not source trustworthiness) are perceived as helpful by consumers to assess service quality and performance. Although two-sided reviews exercise a significant influence on perceived IH, their influence on purchase intention was indirectly mediated by IH. IH predicts purchase intention and partially mediates the relationship between popularity signals, source homophily, source expertise, and purchase intention.     

A simulation testbed for analyzing trust and reputation mechanisms in unreliable online markets

Modern online markets are becoming extremely dynamic, indirectly dictating the need for (semi-) autonomous approaches for constant monitoring and immediate action in order to satisfy one’s needs/preferences. In such open and versatile environments, software agents may be considered as a suitable metaphor for dealing with the increasing complexity of the problem. Additionally, trust and reputation have been recognized as key issues in online markets and many researchers have, in different perspectives, surveyed the related notions, mechanisms and models. Within the context of this work we present an adaptable, multivariate agent testbed for the simulation of open online markets and the study of various factors affecting the quality of the service consumed. This testbed, which we call Euphemus, is highly parameterized and can be easily customized to suit a particular application domain. It allows for building various market scenarios and analyzing interesting properties of e-commerce environments from a trust perspective. The architecture of Euphemus is presented and a number of well-known trust and reputation models are built with Euphemus, in order to show how the testbed can be used to apply and adapt models. Extensive experimentation has been performed in order to show how models behave in unreliable online markets, results are discussed and interesting conclusions are drawn.     

The role of aesthetic,cultural, utilitarian and branding factors in young Chinese consumers' repurchase intention of smartphone brands

Despite the exponential growth of smartphone consumption, to date, very few studies have investigated the factors that influence consumers' repurchase intention of smartphone brands. China has become the world's largest consumer markets for smartphones, therefore understanding young Chinese consumers' repurchase intention in the smartphone market is of crucial importance to smartphone companies. A preliminary qualitative study based on 30 face-to-face interviews has led to the development of a new conceptual framework including aesthetic (design appeal), functional (perceived quality), brand value (brand popularity), social (subjective norm) and cultural influences (mianzi). The newly developed framework has been tested through partial least squares structural equation modeling with a sample of 321 young Chinese smartphone users. The results show that young Chinese customer's smartphone repurchase intention is mainly determined by mianzi, perceived quality, brand popularity, and design appeal. Furthermore, findings also highlight that subjective norm, perceived quality and design appeal affect Chinese people's mianzi.     

How to maneuver in the world of negative online reviews,the important ethical considerations for attorneys,and changes needed to protect the legal profession

The advent of the Internet and social media has revolutionized the way society communicates, the speed in which news is disseminated, and the approach that people take in their daily decision-making. Online reviews are now common place on nearly every consumer-related website. Consequently, attorneys are also being publicly scrutinized by their clients on a range of topics from price, competence, satisfaction, personality, communication, and effectiveness. On one side of the coin, this new phenomenon can be very rewarding since attorneys were previously limited to receiving a small number of referrals from the word-of-mouth promotion before the creation of online reviews. However, the exact opposite is true. Negative online reviews, whether accurate or not, may deter potential clients from even giving the attorney a second thought. As a result, a firm's business can feel the immediate impact of negative reviews. Attorneys, who legitimately need and want to protect their business and reputation, cannot speak freely online to defend their honor. Rather, an attorney must be mindful of not disclosing confidential client information or crossing other ethical lines that may then expose the attorney to potential discipline. There are several interests that must be considered such as allowing attorneys to exercise their First Amendment right to free speech, respect and adherence to the ethical rules of non-disclosure of confidential information, allowing attorneys to preserve their reputation, and protecting an attorney's marketability and means of generating income. This article explores the trend in offering reviews online in a variety of industries, including legal services, the statistical findings regarding the prevalence of this information and consumers' reliance on the information while making a purchasing decision. This article also considers the positive and negative implications of the reviews being so widely spread, while highlighting unique considerations as it relates to the practice of law and factors that may greatly skew a reviewer and reader's perceptions. Next, this article outlines the ethical considerations of attorneys if they want to respond to negative online feedback, such as disclosure of confidential information. Then, this article analyzes the American Bar Association (ABA) and several US states' ethics opinions for guidance for attorneys who wish to respond negative reviews. Finally, this article details the author's recommendations for attorneys, the ABA, and the US states and propose the areas where additional ethics opinions, rules and guidelines should be focused to establish a proper balance between the valuable insights discovered from a client's review and attorneys' legitimate interests in protecting their reputation and livelihood from inaccurate, malicious, or erroneous postings.     

The influence of familiarity,trust and norms of reciprocity on an experienced sense of community: an empirical analysis based on social online services

The growing use of social online services raises the question of what encourages members to participate actively and maintain accumulated social capital. Our research has particularly become aware of the relevance of familiarity, trust and reciprocity in understanding the members' sense of a virtual community (VC). Familiarity and trust are efficient criteria to assess and determine the extent to which one should engage in a virtual relationship. Furthermore, the effort of sharing experiences and knowledge must be based on the expectation of receiving certain returns. A structural equation modelling, specifically partial least squares, is proposed to assess the relationships between the constructs. Overall, the empirical results provided strong support for the hypotheses. Familiarity and trust lead the member to develop a growing perceived community support (PCS) and significantly influence the sense of a VC. Norms of reciprocity directly influence affective trust and PCS. Higher familiarity does not moderate the impact of affective trust on PCS, however. The results of this study could thus help social online service providers to create a successful business model and to determine the main drivers of the members' sense of a VC.     

Understanding buyers' loyalty to a C2C platform: the roles of social capital,satisfaction and perceived effectiveness of e‐commerce institutional mechanisms

Drawing upon social capital theory, this study aims to investigate how different dimensions of social capital affect online buyers' satisfaction and ultimately boost their loyalty to a Consumer‐to‐Consumer (C2C) platform. Specifically, we propose that three dimensions of social capital (i.e., cognitive, structural and relational capital) contribute positively to the two types of online buyers' satisfaction (i.e., economic and social satisfaction). In addition, we posit that perceived effectiveness of e‐commerce institutional mechanisms (PEEIM) moderates the relationships between economic and social satisfaction and buyers' loyalty to the platform. Three hundred buyers on the Consumer‐to‐Consumer platform, TaoBao, were surveyed to test the proposed model. The results suggest that buyers' evaluation of social capital with the community of sellers can enhance their satisfaction with the sellers, which subsequently affect their loyalty to the platform. Furthermore, perceived effectiveness of e‐commerce institutional mechanisms negatively moderates the effect of economic satisfaction and positively moderates the effect of social satisfaction on buyers' loyalty to the platform. The theoretical contributions and practical implications are discussed.     

Connection between customer emotions and relationship quality in online music services

Previous research focuses primarily on studying the influence of emotions on satisfaction in online music services, whereas few studies analyse their effects on trust and commitment. This study specifically examines the interaction role of emotions in relationship quality (i.e. a higher-order construct composed of commitment, satisfaction and trust). We hypothesise that emotions will exert a direct effect on relationship quality, but will also moderate the relationship between its components. An empirical survey is used to test the hypotheses. Data are collected from a total of 408 users of online music services from the UK, Germany and Denmark. The results provide strong support for the proposals that, on the one hand, satisfaction and trust lead customers towards developing high commitment to online music services; and, on the other hand, emotions are important quasi-moderators to engage in online service relationships. The results of this study could help online music service providers (a) to create a successful business model; and (b) to determine the main drivers of online loyalty.     

Investigation into waiting time,self‐service technology,and customer loyalty: The mediating role of waiting time in satisfaction

This study examines customer satisfaction with waiting time (WT) and customer loyalty (CL) relationships in the airline industry. The mediating influence of waiting time satisfaction (WTS) in the self‐service technology (SST) and CL relationship was also examined. Seven hundred fifty structured questionnaires were administered at Sabiha Gökçen, and Instabul international airports in Turkey and partial least square–structural equation modeling were employed for the model analysis. The findings reveal that SST, perceived, retrospective, and prospective WTs are major determinants of WTS. Furthermore, SST and WTS were found to have a linear and significant positive influence on CL. Therefore, this study suggests that the airport management should identify the causes of WT, make the waiting environment conducive for the customers, make the WT inconsequential to the customers, and enhance their loyalty to the airport.