A study on the role of consumers' awareness of institutional factors on initial trust of on-line service

摘要

The major concern that consumers hesitate to provide personal information and get into online transaction is from insufficient trust of e-tailers. E-tailers attempt to accelerate the process of new comers' trust formation by revealing trustworthy information in web settings, such as warranty, privacy policies, assurance, and related statements. However, the issue regarding effectiveness of this information is still inconclusive. This study attempts to investigate this question based on the perspective of signal theory and trust transference. An artificial legal consultation service web site was built for collecting data concerning subjects' perception and intention to deal with e-tailers. The result shows that consumers' consciousness of warranty information, such as assurance and web seal, is the critical gateway in initial trust formation. In case consumers credit the trustworthy information in a web site, the effectiveness of these signals will be active and then evoke consumers' trust in e-tailers. Following the same line, trusted third party web seal on web pages is also an effective way to induce sufficient trust necessary to on-line transaction. Consumers usually believe in the trusted third party web seal, since it is certificated by an impartial organization in advance. Consequently, e-tailers should attempt to convey effective trustworthy information by devoting time to attract consumers' confidence on qualified signals of assurance and trusted third party seal, in turn to assist consumers in initial trust formation.