Modeling And Empirical Research On E-Business User Trust Influencing Factors

With the development of internet and information technology, E-Business in China has developed rapidly. The B2C and C2C markets of E-Business have also developed a lot in 2006. However, dishonest behavior appears frequently in E-Business because of the anonymity and virtual character of E-Business transaction environment. Trust is the basis of business transaction. Dishonesty in online transaction is a main impediment for the further development of E-Business. In this paper, the online trust influencing factors are modeled and verified by empirical research, so that the trust mechanism for E-Business users can be constructed.Firstly, literature review on researches on trust, especially trust in field of E-Business is conducted in the paper. By means of summary of theoretical basis of E-Business trust and conclusions of those studies by previous researchers, a convincing theoretical basis for E-Business trust influencing factor models in this paper is founded.As for calculation-based trust, trust and opportunity behaviors of transaction partners in single time game and multiple transaction game in condition of full information are calculated by game theory. The calculation conclusion shows that, high cost of opportunity and long cooperation between partners can establish trust for partners engaged in multiple transaction game .Based on Theory of Reasonable Behavior and Web trust theory of McKnight, according to available research and theoretical calculation results, an online trust influencing factor model is proposed, in which measures are introduced that improve costs of opportunity behavior, such as the third Party identification, Feedback system, etc. Furthermore, they are verified by empirical research.The online trust influencing factor model is proposed from three aspects comprehensively: Dispositional Trust, internet System Trust and specific Web Characters. Moreover, dimensional factors for System Trust and Web Characters are also designed. As far as Dispositional Trust is concerned, it is described by previous researchers from two widely accepted dimensions: Faith in Humanity and Trust Stand. System Trust is discussed from formal and informal constraints in the view of new institution economics. Then specific Web characters are discussed from Web page format and content of Website. For the measurement of trust, the Trust Belief and Trust Behavior Intention are formed on the basis of Theory of Reasonable Action. The Subjective Normality is also introduced into the model in order to research its influence on Trust Behavior Intention. All of these may be meaningful for the theoretical and practical research in E-Business trust in China.Furthermore, the concept model and relative hypotheses are verified by empirical research, which is conducted by survey of a famous C2C website named Taobao. Data are analyzed by statistics software tools SPSS and Structural Equation Model software AMOS. After explorative and verifiable factor analysis for structural validity test, Structural Equation Model method is used to verify all the hypotheses. The model is modified according to the hints by the software. Empirical research results show that, Trust Stand, perceived effectiveness of law and technology, perceived effectiveness of third Party Organization, perceived effectiveness of Feedback system, perceived ease of Website use, perceived availability of products and service can positively influence online Trust Belief of the user. Among the three, Dispositional Trust and System Trust play more important roles than Website Characters in influencing users' Trust Belief. Moreover, the empirical results show that, Trust Behavior Intention is influenced not only by online Trust Belief, but also by Subjective Normality. Namely, Trust Behavior Intention will be influenced by family members, friends, colleagues and social media instead of staying as single personal intention.Finally, the online trust mechanisms for E-Business users in our country are discussed according to theoretical and empirical research results. We proposed that the trust mechanism can be established from three levels at the initial stage of mutual trust establishing: deterrence-base trust mechanism such as laws and monitoring; calculation-based trust mechanism such as the Third Party identification, Escrow services, trust evaluation, etc; knowledge-base trust mechanism such as website quality improvement, such ease of use of web pages, availability of products and services.