Dynamics of the key elements of consumer trust building online
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14779960680000278 |
| Pages | 17-26 |
| Date | 01 February 2006 |
| Published date | 01 February 2006 |
| Author | Erkki Patokorpi,Kai K Kimppa |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
Dynamics of the key elements of consumer
trust building online
INTRODUCTION
A greater and greater part of our commercial, gov-
ernmental and private affairs are turning into bits
and bytes, and moving over to various electronic
media – to the Internet in particular. A growing part
of our lives takes place online. For the online cus-
tomer, the feeling of security and the reliability of
information presented at a site can be a major factor.
Against this background, there is an ever growing
urgency of thinking through the problem of build-
ing trust in an online context. In recent years, it has
become relatively clear that e-commerce has not
been able to deliver the early promise of fully
informed players in a symmetric and transparent
market place (Fekete, 2004). In the same vein of
thought, Keen et al. (2000) argue that players on the
online market cannot build trust on the inherent
properties of the Internet (i.e. technology alone) but
increasingly need to build on trusting relationships.
At the same time, research into online trust building
often starts with the implicit assumption that trust
building online by nature differs from trust building
offline. Unfortunately, trust building in e-com-
merce has been very little studied (Ngai & Wat,
2002), and as a rule these studies concentrate on one
or two key trust building constructs. A typical exam-
ple is Swan and Rosenbaum (2004), who focus on the
first-time customers of a pure-play e-business,
ignoring other trust constructs and their interrelated
Info, Comm & Ethics in Society (2006) 1: 17-26
© 2006 Troubador Publishing Ltd.
Erkki Patokorpi
IAMSR, Åbo Akademi University, Finland, Lemminkäinengatan 14 B, 20520 Åbo, Finland
Email: epatokor@abo.fi
Kai K Kimppa
Turku Centre for Computer Science (TUCS), LABORIS Information Systems Laboratory,
Information Systems, Department of Information Technology,
University of Turku Lemminkäisenkatu 14 A, 20520 Turku, Finland
Email: kakimppa@it.utu.fi
We lead increasingly electronic lives, in which a significant part of our existence takes place online. The concepts of
eGovernment, eCommerce, eHealth and eLiving are an indication of this development. Against this background, there is
an ever growing urgency of thinking through the problem of building trust in an online context. This paper examines the
contextual conditions which affect building trust online. It will be argued that different combinations of the contextual
conditions of trust building will result in different views of the trust by the customer. Some of these combinations are
better than others, and while a holistic approach would likely result in the best solution, it is not necessarily always with-
in reach. Online trust building could be defined as a successful combination of four basic elements: reputation, technol-
ogy, expertise and relationship. Unlike previous research, this study attempts to take all of these four key elements and
the dynamics of their interconnections into account.
Keywords: building online trust, electronic commerce, consumer-to-business
VOL 4 NO 1 JANUARY 2006 17
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