An empirical examination of the relationship between assurance structures and behavioral decision theory in an ecommerce environment.

摘要

Concerns of potential online consumers over privacy and security of their financial and other personal information is an impediment to the growth of ecommerce. These concerns are often addressed through the use of assurance structures placed on website. Prior research has found that the effect of assurance structures is most pronounced when the vendor is unknown to the consumer and they have no prior interactions from which to judge the trustworthiness of the vendor.; Another important factor to decision making under uncertainty, in any context, is the perceived problem domain of the decision maker. Behavioral Decision Theory helps to explain the behavior of individuals in decisions under uncertainty in terms of the perceived problem domain. Two theories, Prospect Theory (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979) and Probabilistic Mental Modeling (Gigerener, 1991) were used in this study to determine which theory explains the most variance in the behavior of individuals in decisions under uncertainty in the ecommerce context.{09}A major proposition in this study was that since consumers are risk-averse in the gain domain; the risk relieving properties of assurance structures may moderate their decisions and induce more trust and purchase intentions and ultimately, behavior. However, in the perceived loss domain, where risk seeking behavior is common, little to no effect was expected since the reduction of risk is not a driving factor of the purchase decision for potential consumers.; This study was a 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 fully crossed factorial design. Four factors, problem domain, problem frame, theory tested and the presence of assurance structures were manipulated with a dependent variable of purchase behavior. Subjects for this study were solicited from undergraduate students enrolled in accounting and management classes at a large Midwestern university. A total of 400 subjects participated in the study with 337 usable responses used to test the hypotheses of the study. The data provided the first evidence of framing effects in the ecommerce environment. The study also demonstrated that assurance structures moderate choice shifts attributed to the framing effect in the ecommerce environment.