Impact of Technology-Related Environment Issues on Trust in B2B E-Commerce

Introduction

Research has shown that the virtual environment of B2B e-commerce interactions delays trust building and increases the risk perception of trading partners (Cheskin & Sapient, 1999; UNCTAD, 2002a; Olson & Olson, 2000). It is believed that technology has the potential to influence levels of trust in B2B e-commerce (Kumar & Sareen, 2009). There is an empirical evidence to support the relationship between various trust-related technology issues like security, privacy, non-repudiation, authentication, etc. and the levels of trust in B2B e-commerce. In addition to these company-specific technology issues, a number of factors play an important role in creating a general environment of trust in e-commerce technologies among the members of user community and influence the general attitudes, perceptions, beliefs, etc. of users of e-commerce infrastructure, in general. This helps in appreciating the potential of the relevant technologies in building acceptable levels of assurance with regard to various technology-related trust issues. A number of such factors may be relevant in this context, however, the technology-related environment issues that have drawn the attention of researchers relate to social and cultural aspects, technology standards for e-commerce and the regulatory framework.

Though, the technology-related environment issues are influenced by initiatives from policy makers, professional associations and socio-culture background of the users, companies using B2B e-commerce can also take initiatives to influence the impact of these issues. In the absence of such initiatives, the levels of trust in B2B e-commerce may be lower. Though the impact of the social and regulatory issues on trust in B2B e-commerce has been suggested in the literature, there is dearth of evidence confirming the causal relationship between them. The present paper makes an attempt to identify some of specific attributes of these technology-related environment issues that have the potential to influence trust in B2B e-commerce.