Determinants and Role of Trust in E-Business: A Large Scale Empirical Study
Name
4282-02.pdf
Size
303.44 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
931a38f114f3248b85ec90210855a49c
Author(s)
Sultan, Fareena
Urban, Glen
Shankar, Venkatesh
Bart, Iakov
Date Issued
February 20, 2003
Series/Report no.
MIT Sloan School of Management Working Paper;4282-02
Abstract
This research investigates the determinants and role of consumer trust in e-business. It
examines consumer perceptions of trust in a Web site and addresses the following key
research questions: What factors influence consumer trust in a Web site and what
specific Web site trust cues are associated with these factors? How does trust affect
consumer behavioral intent on a Web site? To address these questions, we develop a
conceptual model that links consumer perceptions of Web site characteristics,
consumer characteristics and demographics to perceptions of trust in a Web site, and
trust to behavioral intent related to a Web site. We also examine whether trust
mediates the relationship between Web site and consumer characteristics and
behavioral intent related to the Web site. We test our hypotheses in a large-scale
empirical study that estimates this model from 6831 consumers across 25 Web sites
and eight industry categories. We validate the model using a holdout sample. The
results show that Web site, consumer, category and demographic variables can explain
76% of the variance in trust. Web site characteristics such as privacy and security,
navigation, presentation, brand, and advice account for as much as 98% of this
explained variance in Web site trust. Surprisingly, over 80% of the explained variance
in Web trust is due to factors other than privacy and security-mainly navigation, brand,
advice, absence of errors, and presentation. We also find that trust mediates the
relationships between Web site and consumer characteristics and behavioral intent
related to Web sites. The results offer important implications for Web site strategies
that include the manipulation of factors influencing Web site trust to favorably impact
consumer behavior at the Web site
Subjects
E-Business
Trust
Internet marketing
Web site design
Online strategy
Persistent DSpace Link
