| Trust has been one of the most important issues in e-commerce (e.g., Hoffman et al., 1999) and there have been several studies that focus on trust in e-commerce (e.g., McKnight, et al., 2000). However, two key issues still need to be addressed. The first issue pertains to inconsistent definitions of trust while the second one relates to the limited set of factors impacting trust that were examined in the previous studies. In addition, initial trust development, which is an important starting point toward more robust trust, has not been fully explained in the context of e-commerce. To resolve these issues the following research questions are addressed in this study: (1) What is trust, especially in the context of e-commerce? (2) What are the factors impacting trust? (3) How is trust built up in business to customer (B2C) e-markets? and (4) What are the main factors affecting customers' initial trust in e-businesses?; To answer these questions, first, this study reviews the previous literature on trust in various fields such as marketing, organization studies, social psychology, etc., and applies the framework of Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) and the conceptualization of Lewis and Weigert (1985) to define trust more comprehensively and reorganize the factors impacting trust in a new framework. Based on the framework, a research model is proposed and tested empirically using survey data and multivariate techniques such as structural equation modeling.; The empirical study provided evidence that the proposed predictors of Initial Trust (Company Profile, Supporting Organization, and Website Quality) had statistically significant effects on Initial Trust, among which Website Quality had the biggest impact. Initial Trust was conceptualized as comprising Competence and Goodwill. The study also found that Propensity To Trust had moderating effects only on the relationships between Goodwill and Company Profile and between Goodwill and Website Quality. Interestingly, this study found that there were negative moderating effects of Propensity To Trust on the relationship between Goodwill and Company Profile. Additional analyses revealed gender differences suggesting Company Profile not having an impact on Initial Trust for females. |
