Enhancing Trust in E-Commerce in Developing IT Environments: A Feedback-Based Perspective

Enhancing Trust in E-Commerce in Developing IT Environments: A Feedback-Based Perspective

Iwara Arikpo (University of Calabar, Nigeria), Adenike Osofisan (University of Ibadan, Nigeria) and Idongesit E. Eteng (University of Calabar, Nigeria)
Copyright: © 2012 |Pages: 11
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-1637-0.ch011

Abstract

Most research in e-commerce and trust have assumed advanced information technology (IT) infrastructural environments, so results from these studies have little impact on Developing IT environments, where internet infrastructure is still at the developmental stage, and the people are used to traditional commercial methods. This situation affects the level of trust and participation of end-users in e-commerce. This paper presents a unique approach for enhancing trust in e-commerce in less-advanced IT environments, with a perspective on feedback mechanisms in e-commerce websites. Survey results support the importance of feedback in promoting and sustaining end-user trust in online market environments.
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Background

Trust is a catalyst for human cooperation. It allows people to interact spontaneously and helps the economy to operate smoothly. Lack of trust on the other hand is like sand in the social machinery. It makes us waste time and resources on protecting ourselves against possible harm and thereby clogs up the economy (Patton & Jøsang, 2004).

Trust in E-Commerce

There is a wealth of literature on trust in general, and trust in e-commerce in particular, and so we cannot claim a comprehensive review herein. In the discussion of trust, our work will concentrate on trust in e-commerce, with a focus at trust in business-to-consumer (B2C) kind of business relationships. However, there are other potential online trust relationships such as managerial trust (Soule, 1998; Stanton & Stam, 2003), trust in virtual teams (Jones & Bowie, 1998; Gallivan, 2001; Brown et al., 2004; Pauleen, 2003); trust in supply chains (Welty & Becerra-Fernandez, 2001), and others that are not discussed in this paper. Besides, there are related areas such as trust in the economic system in general (Cantrell, 2000) or trust in e-government (Yee et al., 2005) that the paper cannot touch upon.

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