Curbing electronic shopper perceived opportunism and encouraging trust
| Published date | 04 December 2017 |
| Pages | 2210-2226 |
| Date | 04 December 2017 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-08-2016-0315 |
| Author | Sonia San-Martín,Nadia Jimenez |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information systems,Data management systems,Knowledge management,Knowledge sharing,Management science & operations,Supply chain management,Supply chain information systems,Logistics,Quality management/systems |
Curbing electronic shopper
perceived opportunism and
encouraging trust
Sonia San-Martín and Nadia Jimenez
Department of Economics and Business, Administration, University of Burgos, Spain
Abstract
Purpose –Consumers can face a situation of information asymmetry in electronic shopping (ES).
The purpose of this paper to examine the relationships between: relational variables such as satisfaction, trust
and perceived opportunism; and website cues (cognitive signals such as security and personalization, and
experiential signals, such as design and entertainment).
Design/methodology/approach –The paper opted for the structural equation methodology to analyze
data collected from 447 Spanish e-shoppers.
Findings –Results show different factors that relate to satisfaction, trust and perceived opportunism in ES.
Satisfactory experience with ES and entertainment emerge as the most relevant factors to achieve trust and
prevent perceived opportunism in e-commerce.
Originality/value –The five contributions of this study are: the introduction of variables from several
theoretical approaches to the study of an agency problem in e-commerce; the study of different ways to gain
buyer trust and reduce perceived opportunism in an electronic shopper-vendor relationship; the application of
signaling theory as part of the process of helping the principal (e-shopper) to solve their shopping problem in
a context of information asymmetry; the analysis of the impact of external cues from e-vendor/site, which
allows for a comparison between internal experiences and external quality signals; and the study of
entertainment as an important hedonic variable in order to have satisfied and confident e-shoppers.
Keywords Trust, Satisfaction, Electronic shopping, Perceived opportunism
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
One business challenge currently facing enterprises is the possibility of developing electronic
commerce (e-commerce). Some recent advances are related to mobile commerce, which is an
extension of e-commerce ( Jahanshahi et al., 2011; Yang et al., 2014). As Herrmann and
Tavakolifard (2010, p. 235) point out, “the emergence of a new generation of versatile mobile
devices will evoke a world in which we nearly always are electronically connected with our
environment.”The widespread use of e-commerce in today’s society is beyond question, as
reflected by the high penetration of new technologies (International Telecommunication Union,
2016). Infact, the revenue in theglobal e-commerce(including purchasesvia desktop computer
and via mobile devices) market amounts to US$1,179,203 million in 2016 (Statista, 2016).
E-commerce has received increasing attention from scholars (Cyr et al., 2006; Zhang et al.,
2012; Chan and Chong, 2013; Yang et al., 2014; Bao et al., 2016), although perceived opportunism
has been overlooked in the literature. Wakefield et al. (2004) highlight that perceived
opportunism is a barrier to electronic shopping (ES) activities, and involves acts such as
withholding or distorting information, disclosing private information, intrusion or failing to
fulfill promises or obligations. Hence, ES is by no means free from agency problems. ES is
conducted in a virtual environment without face-to-face interaction between shoppers and
vendors. Trust and confidence are still lacking among some types of e-commerce (i.e. mobile
commerce) users in comparison to alternative business models such as web-based commerce
that has gradually succeeded in gaining users’trust (Yadav et al., 2016).
Industrial Management & Data
Systems
Vol. 117 No. 10, 2017
pp. 2210-2226
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0263-5577
DOI 10.1108/IMDS-08-2016-0315
Received 8 August 2016
Revised 23 January 2017
Accepted 7 February 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0263-5577.htm
The authors thank the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Spain) for its support of this
research through the project ECO2014-53060-R.
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IMDS
117,10
The electronic shopper-vendor relationship is usually established and developed through
a website and this is the means through which the e-vendor sends quality signals to the
market of potential e-shoppers (Pavlou et al., 2007; Chen et al., 2010). In this sense,
the present study seeks to explore the relation between website quality signals and
relational variables in situations of ES facing information asymmetry.
2. Theoretical background and hypotheses
The agency theory states that when the consumer (principal) has to choose the “best”
electronic vendor (e-vendor) (agent) to buy from (to establish the relationship with),
a problem of information asymmetry may appear (Pavlou et al., 2007; Chen et al., 2010).
The principal-agent perspective can be applied whenever there is bounded rationality,
asymmetric information and parties’goal incongruence, as is often the case in ES
(Morosan and DeFranco, 2015). This problem means that, due to a lack of information, the
consumer has difficulty distinguishing the true quality of different products/services and
the true behavior of the e-vendor (Pavlou et al., 2007) and might, therefore, perceive
opportunism. This information asymmetry becomes greater if consumers do not have
comprehensive information, as happens in ES. It is particularly acute when e-shoppers are
faced with a lack of advice, the impossibility of trying out products and services, distrust
when paying and transferring personal data, little or no experience and knowledge in the
field, difficulties with small smartphone screens, tiny multifunction keypads, connection
instability or transfer of location based sensitive information. Morosan and DeFranco
(2015) suggest that in e-commerce, consumers face perceived opportunism concerning
agents (e-vendors) and systems where transactions are conducted (websites). As an
example, Yang et al. (2015, p. 80) recognized that “wireless technology-based systems are
more vulnerable to information interception and are more unstable as compared to
traditional fixed broadband-based web sys tems.”
2.1 Agent perceived opportunism and principal trust in e-commerce
The lack of any tangible indicators of product and purchase quality in the electronic context
involves that the purchase may be affected by uncertainty, insecurity, and distrust (Li and
Yeh, 2010). This problem is evident in distant principal-agent relationships. Some causes of
risk include spam, phishing, changing seller ID, location, unclear transactions, unauthorized
use and contract terms before, during or after purchase (Yang et al., 2015), and can make
buyers steer clear of such markets. Opportunistic behavior is defined as any violations of
promises regarding the expected behavior of each party in exchange relationships,
and the electronic context is no exception to this undesirable behavior (Zhang et al., 2012;
Wakefield et al., 2004). Some opportunistic behavior mentioned in the literature are: sending
messages and making calls to target groups of users on behalf of advertisers without user
permission, renting customer lists to advertisers or tracking customers’electronic activity
(Aguirre et al., 2016; Nwagwu and Famiyesin, 2016).
According to Yang et al. (2015), when consumers face asymmetric information and
uncertainty in their decision-making process, they are motivated to minimize any
expected negative result (such as opportunistic behaviors) and to maximize any benefit of
ES (such as trust). In situations where the balance of power is not equal, one actor
(e-shopper) is vulnerable to the other (e-vendor) (McNeish, 2015). In this circumstance,
trust is one mechanism that can counterbalance perceived opportunism in e-commerce
(Zarmpou et al., 2012; Morosan and DeFranco, 2015), and is one of the key variables in
relationships identified by Morgan and Hunt (1994) in their commitment-trust theory.
In fact, trust becomes a key variable in the development of e-commerce (Chen et al., 2010;
Zhao et al., 2016; Yadav et al., 2016; Bao et al., 2016). Several studies in marketing
literature in Business-to-Consumer (B2C) contexts have focused on trust as the essential
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Curbing
opportunism
and encouraging
trust
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