Initial Trust in Online Shopping: Empirical Insights into Influential Antecedents in Low-Trust Environment
Lack of trutst in online vendors has been a primary reason why many web users choose not to shop online. Based on prior literatttre from developed courttries, this study proposes an integrated model aiming to explain in a relatively low-trust environment what factors contribute to which dimensions of initial online trust and to consumers initial online trust in online vendors. In this study, initial online trust is composed of two aspects: trusting beliefs and trusting intentions; trusting beliefs is conceptually clustered into three related yet distinct dimensions: ability, benevolence, and integrity. Predictors of initial online trust include perceived website quality, perceived corporate image, and perceived securitty. The model is empirically tested through a questionnaire-based field study conducted in China. The results indicate that perceived corporate image and perceived security significantly affect all three dimensions of trusting beliefs and hence they are significant antecedents of initial online trust, while no support is found for the hypothesized effcct of perceived website qualiity on initial online trust. Meanwhile, among all three dimensions of trusting beliefs only integrity is found to be a significant antecedent of trusting intentions. The research provides insight into the development of initial online trust by consumers and the findiintgs of this research are of potential benefit to online vendors who seek to engender consumer trust in their websites and subsequent increased revenues and profit levels.
initial online trust perceived website quality perceived corporate image perceived security
Ming Zhou Ding Tian
Business School, Hubeil University, Wuhan, 430062, China Businless School, Hubei University, Wuhan, 430062, China
国际会议
第八届武汉电子商务国际会议(The Eighth Wuhan International Conference on E-Business)
武汉
英文
426-434
2009-05-30（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）