A Review on Initial Trust Antecedents in E-Commerce Paper/G... · In e-commerce context, initial trust refers to the condition of trust by consumer to an unfamiliar e-commerce website

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A Review on Initial Trust Antecedents in E-Commerce

Aszifa Aris1

e-mail: [email protected] Norlia Mustaffa

2

e-mail: [email protected]

Nurul Syafika Nadiah

Mohd Zabarudin4


Nasriah Zakaria3


Author(s) Contact Details: 1, 2, 3 School of Computer Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia

Abstract—Trust is the key factor in ensuring e-commerce success and had emerged rapidly in e-commerce research. One of

the key areas in trust studies is the antecedents of trust, a research between trust and IT artifacts. However, the trust

antecedent’s study found in the literature still addressed various antecedents from different views that create complexity in

understanding antecedents of trust, especially for novice researchers. Besides, there are not yet firm theory exists on trust

antecedent study. This brings the significance in continuing the research on antecedents of initial trust, but with careful

analysis of the trust concepts to avoid complexity and provide more focused discussion in the literature. In this review, a

literature study that is closed to systematic review was designed to track the main antecedents of initial trust that can affect

trust building mechanism. Journals and proceedings selected have empirical evidence from the starting year of empirical

study on initial trust to current years. Three main antecedents in initial trust are identified - 1) website quality; 2) assurance;

3) reputation. Only website quality and assurance antecedents are discussed further because this study aim to find the

antecedents that can be controlled and embedded in all e-commerce websites (reputable and non-reputable). Lastly the sub-

antecedents of website quality and assurance are categorized to cognitive-based trust and emotional-based trust constructs.

Researchers who are interested to further the initial trust research can pay awareness to the main antecedents and sub-

antecedents addressed in this study. Categorization of sub-antecedents to cognitive-based trust constructs and emotional-

based trust constructs can simplify the complexity of initial trust building mechanism study as it can easily match consumer

that is human which is dominant in cognitive ability and emotional reaction while making decision to pursue initial

exploration and purchasing with e-commerce website.

Keywords – e-commerce; trust; initial trust; antecedents of trust

1. INTRODUCTION

Trust is vital in e-commerce environment. Research has shown that consumers who had an intention in trusting the e-

commerce website have a tendency to commit purchasing behavior. Due to this reason, research on trust in e-commerce had rapidly emerged each year and had been researched among scholars from abundant disciplines and countries. Because of this, the research on antecedents of trust area had developed into finding the factors that can influence consumers to trusting behaviour. Consequently, rich trust models had been developed in the literature of trust in e-commerce research, yet there is no firm theories being formed for the antecedents of trust research. This brings the significance to carry out research on trust antecedents. Moreover , trust research is complex [1] because the concepts of trust originate from many different field such as psychology, sociology and economics. This could be one of the reasons that makes trust research in e-commerce inherited different definitions, concept and views from scholars. One of the famous metaphor among scholar in trust research is the situation of the different blind men trying to describe the physical of an elephant [2] . Even until current years, in having clear definition on trust , scholars still facing complexity issues [3]. Hence, trust scholars should pay attention to reduce the complexity in trust research by carefully define the antecedents used to suit the abstract level of the trust concept. In this review, the researchers study the antecedents of trust but the scope is limited to initial trust. The researchers have three objectives to be achieved. The objectives are – i) to identify main antecedents for initial trust building mechanism from the year where empirical study on initial trust started until current year; ii) to identify main initial trust antecedents that affect trust building mechanism that can be controlled and embedded by all e-commerce websites ; iii) to group the antecedents found to cognitive-based trust and emotional-based trust constructs as e-commerce website will deal with consumer that is human which make decision in life based on cognitive ability and emotional reaction. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 defines trust in e-commerce research for this study and reviews relevant research. Section 3 describes the methodology of this review. Section 4 represents the result found in this study. Finally the researcher discussed and concluded the findings.



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2. TRUST IN E-COMMERCE

A. E-Commerce Research

E-commerce refers to buying and selling of products and services using electronic transmission medium [4] . The

evolution of brick and mortar transaction to e-commerce transaction like Amazon.com that started their e-business in 1996

had given an impact to the research arena. The history tracking on e-commerce research from databases showed that the e-

commerce field had been given attention by scholars starting from the year 1996. For example, the search for keyword ‘e-

commerce’ on ISI Web of Knowledge returns ten studies. In this year, the issues being touched by the scholars are close to

the research on the readiness of the new way of shopping, payment methods and studies about secure environment of e-

commerce. In 1997, studies about prediction and effect of e-commerce in the future start to emerge. Besides that, e-

commerce characteristic, architecture and framework had been developed. The year 1998 showed an increment of e-

commerce research as the search result returns 36 studies, which is three times larger compared to the year 1997. Number of

studies start to increase rapidly for the year 1999, which returns results of seven times larger (203 studies), than year 1998,

with one proceeding mention about ‘trust’ in e-commerce. In the year 2000, e-commerce research has grown steadily as

number of proceedings and journals in ISI Web of Knowledge already reached 646 studies. During this year, there were

issues such as adoption and security being studied. One of the important issue starts to come into view is “trust” in ensuring

purchasing behavior in e-commerce. Trust research will be discussed in the next section, Section B: Trust in E-Commerce

Research.

B. Trust in E-Commerce Research

Trust has been identified as the key factor to ensure e-commerce success. Thus, research on trust is an ongoing issue for

e-commerce’s scholars. From the review on trust research agenda by Gefen et al., there are plenty of potential issues that can

help to improve practice and extend the foundations of trust in the online environment [5]. One of the important areas is the

antecedents of trust research, where it studies the relationship between trust and IT artifacts. Gefen et al. stated that the

antecedents of trust research is still in preliminary stage in MIS research and suggested for the development of theory or set

of theories that identify the IT artifact constructs that have the potential to increase trust in e-commerce [5]. Beatty et al. in

their meta-study of consumer trust in e-commerce, found there are already multitude of conceptual models are used in trust in

e-commerce research, but because the complexity of the trust definition itself, it seems that researchers keep on adding the

conceptual model of trust from their view, yet there is no established or firm model being built [3]. Thus, this brings the

significance to the researchers to research on the antecedents of trust in e-commerce. From the literature, there is a clear

dividing line has to be made between trust phases, the initial phase and the knowledge-based phase [6-8]. Initial trust phase in

e-commerce is the first time interaction of the consumer with the particular website [7] while knowledge-based phase occurs

for experienced consumers that already have experience with the particular website [8, 9] . The antecedents of trust in these

two phases are logically have some differences as in the initial phase, consumers tend to trust the website based on their first

impression [7, 10] while for experienced consumers, trust purchasing behavior will depend on their interpretation of their

experience with the particular website [11]. Both initial and knowledge-based trusts are beneficial studies to advance the e-

commerce research. However, due to the researcher’s scope and limitation, we will only be focusing on initial trust as initial

trust itself already involved many concepts and constructs to be discussed in a deeper context. The initial trust in e-commerce

is being discussed in the next section, Section C: Initial Trust in E-Commerce.

C. Initial Trust in E-Commerce

In e-commerce context, initial trust refers to the condition of trust by consumer to an unfamiliar e-commerce website.

Here, consumer never had any experience with the web vendor, having a first time visit and exploration with the vendor’s website [1]. In e-commerce, initial trust is a critical form of trust in e-commerce research [12]. From the literature, there are abundant studies on trust still not making clear boundary on the phase being researched [13]. This action could lead to problems, as definition of trust itself is already complex [3], thus creating the hypothesis without clearly stating the phase of trust can create more complexity on the antecedents found. However, there are researchers that do not address the phases but the results have indications of initial trust research. To have firm review of the main antecedents of initial trust, the researchers only choose studies that clearly state the words “initial trust” in their title in assuming that those studies are serious in ensuring the clear boundary of the researched on initial trust phase. The methodology of this review paper is being discussed in the next section, Section 3: Methodology.

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3. METHODOLOGY

As this review has objectives to be achieved

as the methodology. The systematic review process consists of five steps Brereton [14].

Define the objectives - The objective of this review is to identify main antecedents for initial trust building mechanism

from the year where empirical study of initial trust started until constructs level. When reading research papers, we found different level of antecedents being determined by scholars in theirstudies. For example, a study addressed internal assurance as antecedent, another study aantecedent, and the other study stated security antecedents. Second objective would be to identify main initial trust antecedents that affect trust buibe controlled by all e-commerce websitesantecedents as e-commerce website will deal with consumers that are human which make decision in life based on emoreaction and cognitive ability. Identify relevant evidence - As a second step, the researchers identified relevant evidence by searching the journals and

proceedings from databases on trust in eunderstand the big picture of trust research in escholars that pursuing trust research in e-studies. Then the researchers used divide-andThe separated subject are trustworthinessuncertainty, risk and assurance, initial trust, knowledgeinitial trust in e-commerce.

Assess the quality of the evidence - In ensuring the quality of the evidence,

determined in this study. Firstly, the researchers identify the starting years of empirical initial trust study. One of the selected here, is by McKnight et al. that gives empirical evidence to initial trust years of studies on initial trust from 2002 to current years of the study. Almost all journals and proceeding selected for inclusion are being indexed by ISI or Scopusindexing by ISI or Scopus because these databasesmeeting high standards (impact, peer review, diversity in content selected to be indexed by them [15-will be based only on the literature. Therefore, selecting focused paper on the subject is very important to get a good review. Thus, another criterion for inclusion purpose isscholars are serious in researching about initial trustresearch.


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achieved, the researchers choose approach that is close to systematic review process as the methodology. The systematic review process consists of five steps (Fig. 1) as being suggested

FIGURE 1: Methodology

The objective of this review is to identify main antecedents for initial trust building mechanism initial trust started until the current year, and re-group the antecedents based on

constructs level. When reading research papers, we found different level of antecedents being determined by scholars in theirstudies. For example, a study addressed internal assurance as antecedent, another study addressed thirdantecedent, and the other study stated security control as antecedent. Those factors can actually be grouped to “assurance” antecedents. Second objective would be to identify main initial trust antecedents that affect trust building treatments that can

s. Lastly we aim to group the antecedents into cognitive and emotional trust commerce website will deal with consumers that are human which make decision in life based on emo

As a second step, the researchers identified relevant evidence by searching the journals and proceedings from databases on trust in e-commerce research. The researchers tracked the histounderstand the big picture of trust research in e-commerce by year. At this stage, the researchers also identified relevant

-commerce and tracked their journal and proceedings from previous and-conquer process to isolate the trust research into small subject to be studied.

trustworthiness, trust and distrust, Technology Acceptance Model (TAMuncertainty, risk and assurance, initial trust, knowledge-based trust and trust moderator. This paper is limited to the review of

In ensuring the quality of the evidence, there are some inclusion criteria being determined in this study. Firstly, the researchers identify the starting years of empirical initial trust study. One of the

gives empirical evidence to initial trust study [7]. Therefore this review will cover from 2002 to current years of the study. Almost all journals and proceeding selected for

inclusion are being indexed by ISI or Scopus to ensure reliability and validity of the review. The researchers ensure the these databases are two of the largest citation databases available and are known in

(impact, peer review, diversity in geographical distribution of authors and -17]. Besides that, this review only covers ten papers and the result of the review

. Therefore, selecting focused paper on the subject is very important to get a good review. Thus, another criterion for inclusion purpose is, we choose studies that state “initial trust” in their title in scholars are serious in researching about initial trust, thus the scholars state clear boundary on the trust phase

Define the objectives

Identify relevant evidence

Assess the quality of the evidence

Combining the results

Placing the finding in context


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close to systematic review process as being suggested by Hemingway and

The objective of this review is to identify main antecedents for initial trust building mechanism group the antecedents based on

constructs level. When reading research papers, we found different level of antecedents being determined by scholars in their ddressed third-party seal as

. Those factors can actually be grouped to “assurance” lding treatments that can

. Lastly we aim to group the antecedents into cognitive and emotional trust commerce website will deal with consumers that are human which make decision in life based on emotional

As a second step, the researchers identified relevant evidence by searching the journals and commerce research. The researchers tracked the history of trust research to

commerce by year. At this stage, the researchers also identified relevant commerce and tracked their journal and proceedings from previous to recent

conquer process to isolate the trust research into small subject to be studied. TAM) studies on trust,

based trust and trust moderator. This paper is limited to the review of

there are some inclusion criteria being determined in this study. Firstly, the researchers identify the starting years of empirical initial trust study. One of the papers

. Therefore this review will cover from 2002 to current years of the study. Almost all journals and proceeding selected for

. The researchers ensure the are two of the largest citation databases available and are known in

authors and editors, etc) for each Besides that, this review only covers ten papers and the result of the review

. Therefore, selecting focused paper on the subject is very important to get a good review. we choose studies that state “initial trust” in their title in assuming that the

the trust phase of their



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Combining the results - Then, the researchers analyzed the hypothesis and findings of each individual study. Only supported hypotheses are being chosen as the antecedents to be extracted for this review. After that, all antecedents extracted are being organized in table form for clear observation purpose. From here, the researchers identify the keywords to group the antecedents to main antecedents. From the evidence in the literature, the researchers then divided the main antecedents to sub-antecedents of initial trust and group the sub-antecedents to cognitive and emotional trust construct. The results of this review are being addressed in Section 4 – Results (Initial Trust Antecedents).

Placing the finding in context - In placing the finding in the context as in Section 5 – Discussion, the researchers discuss

related issues from the results found during this study. Suggestions on initial trust study also being addressed in this section. Lastly, the researchers provide a general framework that reflects the initial trust study as being discussed in this review.

4. RESULTS (INITIAL TRUST ANTECEDENTS)

In this section, the researchers provide the finding on initial trust antecedents. Firstly, the researchers list the

antecedents of initial trust from previous research. Secondly, the main antecedents of initial trust are identified. Lastly, the

researchers provide the finding on sub-antecedents that had been grouped to different constructs level.

A. Antecedents of Initial Trust

From the review of ten related journals/proceeding on initial trust in e-commerce, the researchers extracted the

antecedents from each study as in column four in Table 1.

TABLE 1: Previous Research on Initial Trust

Researchers Year Index/Journal/Proceeding Title Antecedents of Initial Trust

Karimov, Bregman, & Hove [13]

2011 ISI/Journal of Electronic Commerce Research

The effect of website design dimensions on initial trust : a synthesis of the empirical literature

• website design cues

• e-assurance structures from the e-vendors

Wu, Hu, & Wu [18]

2010 ISI/Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication

Effects of perceived interactivity, perceived web assurance and disposition to trust on initial online trust

• perceived interactivity

• perceived web assurance

Hu, Wu, Wu, & Zhang [19]

2010 ISI/Scopus/Decision Support Systems

The effects of web assurance seals on consumers' initial trust in an online vendor: a functional perspective

• web assurance seals

Lowry, Vance, Moody, Beckman, & Read [20]

2008 ISI/Journal of Management Information Systems

Explaining and predicting the impact of branding alliances and web site quality on initial consumer trust of e-commerce web sites

• branding

• website quality

Chen & Barnes [21]

2007 ISI/Industrial Management & Data Systems

Initial trust and online buyer behavior

• perceived usefulness

• perceived security

• perceived privacy

• perceived good reputation

• willingness to customize

Kim & Tadisina [22]

2005 Scopus/ Conference on System Sciences

Factors impacting customers' initial trust in e-businesses: an empirical study.

• website quality

• company profile

• supporting organization

Hampton-Sosa & Koufaris [23]

2005 ISI/ International Journal of Electronic Commerce

The effect of web site perceptions on initial trust in the owner company

• website appeal

• website usability (for travel website only)

Koufaris & Hampton-Sosa [24]

2004 ISI/ Information & Management

The development of initial trust in an online company by new customers

• perceived company reputation

• willingness to customize products and services

• perceived website usefulness



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• ease of use

• security control

McKnight, Kacmar, & Choudhury [9]

2004 ISI/Electronic Markets, The International Journal on Networked Business

Shifting factors and the ineffectiveness of third party assurance seals: a two-stage model of initial trust in a web business

• structural assurance

• reputation advertising

• web seal

McKnight, Choudhury, & Kacmar [7]

2002 ISI/Journal of Strategic Information Systems

The impact of initial consumer trust on intentions to transact with a web site: a trust building model


• perceived website quality

• reputation

In order to find the antecedents that affected initial trust building mechanism on previous years until the current year, the

researchers analyzed the hypothesis being outlined by each individual study. For the extracted antecedents in column four, the researchers only selected the antecedents based on supported hypothesis and evidence provided in each study. The process of determining the main antecedents is being explained in the next section – Section B – Main Antecedents of Initial Trust.

B. Main Antecedents of Initial Trust

From the previous research as depicted in Table 1, the researchers arranged and grouped the antecedents from Table 1

into three main antecedents of initial trust (Table 2). They are i) website quality, ii) assurance, iii) reputation. The keywords are being used to group the antecedents also being addressed. Firstly, website design cues, website appeal, website interactivity, usefulness, ease of use and customization or personalization antecedents are being grouped under “website quality”. The researchers named the antecedent as “website quality” as all the interrelated keywords are related with the website features. Secondly, web assurance, internal e-assurance, perceived security, perceived privacy, security control and structural assurance are being grouped under “assurance”. According to Oxford Dictionary, the word “assurance” means a “positive declaration intended to give confidence; a promise; confidence or certainty in one’s own abilities” [25]. Whereas Beatty et al., stated that assurance means that “there are institutional and/or norms that sanction a trustee who betrays the trustor”[3]. All the keywords of the antecedents grouped under “assurance” are related with giving certainty regarding the risk that the consumers have to take while transacting with the website and provide sanction to the trustee who is trying to betray the trustor. Finally, the researchers grouped the company reputation, reputation advertising and branding antecedents under “reputation” construct. Company reputation, reputation advertising and branding are antecedents that are logically interrelated. For example, the increased of the advertising will increase branding thus increase the company reputation. The same goes to high company reputation will increase the branding effect, thus increase the advertising chances by media. All these effect will impact the “reputation” antecedent. By doing this, the researchers fulfilled the first objective that is to find main initial trust antecedents for trust building mechanism from the starting year to the current year of empirical studies on initial trust.

TABLE 2: Main Antecedents and Keywords

Antecedents Keywords

Website quality • website design cues

• website appeal

• interactivity

• usefulness

• ease of use

• customization / personalization

Assurance • web assurance

• internal e-assurance

• perceived security

• perceived privacy

• security control


Reputation • company reputation

• reputation advertising

• branding

In this study, as the researchers' second objective is to find the main antecedents that affect trust building treatment for all

e-commerce websites, “reputation” construct will not be discussed in this paper. This is due to some e-commerce website



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that is not yet have reputation would not be able to directly embed this factor in their website. The effect is different with “website quality” and “assurance”, as these antecedents can be directly controlled and manipulated by any e-commerce vendors (reputable and non-reputable) while implementing their e-commerce web in ensuring initial trust from the consumers. Thus, only “website quality” and “assurance” will be discussed. The categorization of sub-antecedents on “website quality” and “assurance” to construct level will be presented in the next section – Section C – Sub-antecedents of Initial Trust Based on Construct Level.

C. Sub-Antecedents of Initial Trust Based on Construct Level

The researchers identified the sub-antecedents from the ten journals or proceedings from previous research to be grouped

into cognitive-based trust construct and emotional-based trust construct in fulfilling our last objective of this review. Karimov et al., stated that cognitive-based trust is related with rational mind while emotional-based trust is related to instinct, intuition and feeling of the customer when interacting with the website [13]. While grouping the antecedents to cognitive-based trust and emotional-based trust, the researchers realized that separating both construct under interpersonal trust construct and institutional trust construct would be beneficial too in having a clearer view of the effect of the antecedents on different construct level. According to Hung et al., institutional trust is trust that being shaped by the institutional structures such as Internet (experience and protection) while interpersonal trust formed through perceiving the characteristic of the specific party [26]. The result for the last objective is in Table 3.

Here, firstly, the researchers discussed the “website quality” antecedent. Perceived website quality is one of the

antecedents that influence initial trust in e-commerce [8, 13, 22]. In this review we separated website quality to sub-antecedents of information quality and website interactivity. One of the factors that determine the quality of the website is the “information content” provided by the website [13, 22]. According to Kim and Tadisina, information quality is related to how well the website provides useful information to the consumer [22]. Subsequently, by perceiving the information quality, customer will understand the functionality [20] and usefulness [23, 24] of the services provided by the e-commerce vendor. All these antecedents are related to the rational part of a human as in perceiving the information quality, functionality and usefulness; a consumer must be analyzing using cognitive ability. Thus we place these antecedents under cognitive-based trust construct.

Differing from cognitive-based trust that is related to rational decision making when consumer use the thinking ability,

emotional-based trust or affect-based trust is related to the feeling that influencing the consumers when they first “see” and “use” the website. When they first “see” the website, the website appeal [13, 23], attractiveness [13] and good interface [13] design may influence them instinctively to trust the website. Later, when they “use” the website, the enjoyment [22, 23], ease of use [23, 24], navigability [16, 20], feeling of controlling the website [18], responsive website [18] and customization or personalization [18, 22] may make them intuitively feel connected to the website thus influence their emotional-based trust. Hampton-Sosa and Koufaris, believe that the perception makes to the website is the same as perception make to the salesperson that help make perception to the vendor [23]. Thus, we placed these antecedents under interpersonal trust construct as the antecedents are related to how the consumer view the e-vendor. All the information provided and the interactivity with the website (when they see and use the website) will actually create an impression to the e- vendor.

For assurance in e-commerce, there are three major assurance needed from online shoppers which are privacy, security

and reliability or transaction security [18]. In this review, the researchers categorized the assurance antecedent under both interpersonal trust and institutional trust constructs. Interpersonal is related to the assurance from the vendor on reliability or transaction integrity [18] such as providing return policies and money back guarantees [13]. Karimov et al., in his synthesis of empirical literature study , state the assurance given by the e-vendor (IPeAs) can be an influence to the consumer to trust the e-commerce website during the initial phase [13]. When a website provides IPeAS, the consumer will make a trust perception to the e-vendor thus this cause the researchers to group this antecedents under interpersonal trust construct.

Secondly, assurance that is related with privacy [18, 19, 21], security [18, 19, 21] and reliability or transaction integrity

[18, 19] that providing assurance by utilizing the third party seal (EPeAs) [13], from organizations like Truste, Verisign and BBBonline are related to trust to the e-commerce structures like the internet instead of the trust to the e-vendor. Hu et al. make an evidence through the empirical study that different combinations of the privacy, security and reliability or transaction assurance create a different trust response from consumers [19]. When consumers trust those third party sign, they actually trust the assurance given by the e-commerce structures like the internet. Thus, the researchers categorized the antecedents under institutional trust construct.



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TABLE 3: Sub-Antecedents Based On Construct Level

Entity 1st level construct 2nd level construct

Website (e-vendor)

Interpersonal trust Cognitive-based trust

• website information quality o information content o functionality o usefulness

• assurance – reliability or transaction integrity o return policies o money back guarantees

Emotional-based trust

• website interactivity o website appeal o website attractiveness o good interface design o perceived enjoyment o perceived ease of use o navigability o perceived control o perceived responsiveness o perceived

personalization/customization

Website (technology, internet)

Institutional trust Cognitive-based trust

• assurance o privacy – e.g : Truste o security – e.g : Verisign o reliability or transaction integrity–

e.g : BBBonline

5. DISCUSSION

While doing this review, the researchers found that trust in e-commerce studies are being conducted by different

disciplines such as business and marketing, management, economic, statistics, computer science and information system.

Due to scholars doing interdisciplinary research, and coming from different disciplines, there are various views on trust that

originate from our specialized discipline. For example, the antecedents of reputation and branding might be important for

business and marketing scholars but scholars from computer sciences will tend to focus on the technology antecedents that

could be embedded in the website. Furthermore, because of this reason, the way scholars explained the definitions, terms

and concepts of trust might be having some differences. After reviewing the literature and found various terms related to

initial trust antecedents, the researchers purposely design a study that tracked the trust antecedents in previous until the

current year of initial trust study. The researchers found three main antecedents which are i) website quality; ii) assurance;

and iii) reputation. These are the antecedents that being proposed by Mcknight et al., during year 2002 [7]. As this review is

appraising studies from year 2002 until the year 2011, the result of this study indicates that there are not much difference

with regard to factors that impact initial trust in e-commerce even though the way consumers used technology and view e-

commerce might change over the years. Thus, scholars should pay high awareness in constructing their model by including

all these antecedents in their initial trust building mechanism study. Neglecting one of the antecedents might decrease the

effectiveness of the model. Another issue that the researchers found in the trust literature is regarding the different school of

thought by scholars. The first school of thought look at trust in e-commerce research as highly related to Technology

construct such as in Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), an information system theory that model the user acceptance

and use of the technology which value perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU) constructs. Perceived

usefulness (PU) is the user’s subjective perception concerning the technology utility that could improved job performance

while perceived ease of use (PEOU) is the user’s subjective perception on amount of effort needed to learn and use a

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technology [23, 27, 28]. The second school of thought

trust. The scholars that are using the second school

as the antecedents of trust. Besides that, tru

trust, interpersonal-based trust and dispositional

researching the trust antecedents will make the resea

real scope of trust research while using multiple theories can create confusion regarding the level of constructs used. Thus,

scholars have to carefully and clearly define the level of

researchers have defined the main antecedents found to

institutional trust and interpersonal trust, and the second level construct

as depicted in Fig.2. Framework in Fig.2 is not the objective of this review but is generated while we are doing this review.

The researchers will discuss further about th

within the scope of this review. The researchers include this figure to provide an overview of the interaction between a

website and consumer and the significance of arranging the

constructs for initial trust building mechanism's

framework (denoted by light blue boxes).

FIGURE 2: General framework

Besides that, as stated in the third objective, the researchers only aim to categorize the sub

emotional constructs, but while doing this review, the researchers found that the categorization of institutional and

interpersonal trust are also important in making a clear boundary

embedded under the e-commerce IT structures or by the e

categorize the constructs used as antecedents to b


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school of thought views the vendor as the main entity that will

the second school of thought will have tendency to use the Benevolence

as the antecedents of trust. Besides that, trust types such calculative-based trust, emotional-based trust, institutional

dispositional trust also being used as antecedents of trust.

researching the trust antecedents will make the research being conducted in less complexity but the result will not cover the

trust research while using multiple theories can create confusion regarding the level of constructs used. Thus,

scholars have to carefully and clearly define the level of construct in the combination of related theory

e defined the main antecedents found to first level and second level constructs. The first level constructs are

institutional trust and interpersonal trust, and the second level constructs are cognitive-based trust and emotional

2 is not the objective of this review but is generated while we are doing this review.

will discuss further about this framework, in our next study as it touches many sub

. The researchers include this figure to provide an overview of the interaction between a

website and consumer and the significance of arranging the construct into cognitive-based trust and emotional

mechanism's purpose. In this review, the researchers only discussed

FIGURE 2: General framework on initial trust review

, as stated in the third objective, the researchers only aim to categorize the sub-antecedents to cognitive and


so important in making a clear boundary on cognitive or emotional constructs that can be

commerce IT structures or by the e-vendor itself. The researchers believe that scholars have to

categorize the constructs used as antecedents to build a trust mechanism in e-commerce into cognitive


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vendor as the main entity that will determine consumer’s

of thought will have tendency to use the Benevolence-Ability-Integrity

ased trust, institutional-based

Using single theory in

in less complexity but the result will not cover the

trust research while using multiple theories can create confusion regarding the level of constructs used. Thus,

in the combination of related theory. As in our study, the

The first level constructs are

based trust and emotional-based trust

2 is not the objective of this review but is generated while we are doing this review.

constructs which is not

. The researchers include this figure to provide an overview of the interaction between a

based trust and emotional-based trust

purpose. In this review, the researchers only discussed the upper part of the

antecedents to cognitive and


on cognitive or emotional constructs that can be

researchers believe that scholars have to

commerce into cognitive-based trust



ISSN: 2289-1358 P a g e | 56

antecedent and emotional-based trust antecedent. This is due to the reason that the website is an important entity that

represents both the technology and the vendor. Thus website has to embed both cognitive and emotional level antecedents

because the transaction using the website is depending on human that used cognitive ability and emotion in their daily life’s

decision making including doing the transaction with the website. Addressing the antecedents to cognitive and emotional

level constructs will consciously ensure the continuance of trust research in an organized order as the scholars will always

check the matching of the antecedents being addressed in trust building mechanism with the real condition of the human

that exist with cognitive ability and emotional reaction.

6. CONCLUSION

In this review , the researchers found three main antecedents that can influence initial trust in e-commerce in the

literature, which are i) website quality; ii) assurance; iii) reputation. Next, the researchers only focused to discuss about

website quality and assurance as this review aim to study about the antecedents that can be embedded across all e-

commerce website ( e.g : reputable and non-reputable). Lastly, the researchers organized the antecedents found into two

levels of constructs. The first level is institutional trust and interpersonal trust. The second level is cognitive-based trust and

emotional-based trust. Website information quality (information content, functionality, usefulness (TAM)) and assurance

on reliability and transaction integrity are being placed under cognitive based-trust. Website interactivity (website appeal,

website attractiveness, good interface design, perceived enjoyment, perceived ease of use (TAM), navigability, perceived

control, perceived responsiveness, perceived personalization and customization are being placed under emotional-based

trust. These antecedents are also being positioned under interpersonal trust. Assurance antecedents i.e. privacy, security and

reliability or transaction integrity that being handled by third party organization are identified as cognitive-based trust and

positioned under institutional trust construct.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The researchers are grateful to the School of Computer Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia for their support and

dedication in producing this research paper.

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A Review on Initial Trust Antecedents in E-Commerce Paper/G... · In e-commerce context, initial trust refers to the condition of trust by consumer to an unfamiliar e-commerce website