A multidimensional trust formation model in B-to-C e-commerce (Kim et al, 2005. DSS)

Introduction

1. Trust is an essential component in any relationship: interpersonal, in social structures, as well as in business relationships. As an interpersonal relationship, trust is the willingness of one person to increase his or her vulnerability to the actions of another person whose behavior he or she could not control [110].

Process Model fo Trust

2. Trust is a subjective belief about a system or a specific agent within a particular context [73]. In economics, sociology [20], game theory, artificial intelligence and multiagent systems, trust is usually considered to be a belief or cognitive stance [17] that could eventually be quantified with a subjective probability [60].

3. The first theory is a process-outcome trust model in interpersonal relationships proposed by Johns [57]. The model proposes that people (trustors) gather information from two sources (trustee and situation), process it, and form a
trustworthiness belief.  This model consists of four stages: assimilation of information, decision making, trust relationship and consequences of trusting.

4. Moorman et al. [74] proposed a multilevel characteristic model which illustrates the antecedents and consequences of users’ trust in marketing researchers. Antecedents in the model include variables entitled ‘‘user characteristics’’ (e.g., job/firm experience), ‘‘perceived interpersonal characteristics of the researcher’’ (e.g., honesty, expertise, integrity, tactfulness, timeliness), ‘‘perceived user organizational characteristics’’ (e.g., structure, location, culture),‘‘perceived inter-organizational/interdepartmental characteristics’’ (e.g., perceived power of department),
and ‘‘perceived project characteristics’’ (e.g., perceived importance of project).