148,454 research outputs found

    Towards An Internet Site Usability Evaluation Model

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    The population of web sites continues growing every year, but are the sites usable? Most sites seem to ignore the usability issue. Usability is about making the site easy for consumers to navigate and operate. Unusable sites do not attract and retain consumers. A usable site is one that is concerned with the user’ perception and provides the fundaments that allow the consumer to accomplish tasks such as searching and purchasing. According to ISO’s usability definition, examining its effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction, measures the usability of the web site. Five commonly used usability evaluation methods, competitive analysis, scenarios, inspection method, log analysis and on-line questionnaires, were reviewed. Using these earlier concepts as a basis, the usability evaluation model was developed. The model consists of four components - Information, Transaction Service, Trust, and Non-functional requirements. The model was first tested on Travel sites. It was found that it could be used to classify the sites. It was then tested against a user perception survey of the industry sites. This indicated an agreement between the model and the user perceptions. The model was then tailored for e-commerce web sites and, based on the core similarities, a more abstract level could be postulated. This was then tested against its application to a third industry, Internet banking sites. Similarities and differences between the fundamental elements of the sites in the three industry sectors are related to the sector’s needs and those of the customers that they service

    Interorganizational Trust in Business to Business E-Commerce

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    Most previous research in the Information Systems discipline focused on information systems and technology, e-commerce applications such as Inter-Organizational Systems (IOSs), competitive advantages, and security issues. The emphasis on IOSs' gave rise to concerns about Inter-Organizational Relationships (IORs), as trading partners became aware of the social-political factors that affected their relationships. IOSs involve the sharing of e-commerce applications in different locations. When this study was initiated in 1997, universal standards were not fully developed. This posed a security concern for Small-Medium-Enterprises, particularly in Australia and New Zealand. This study examines the importance of inter-organizational trust (trading partner trust) in ecommerce participation. The objective of this study is to empirically examine the importance of interorganizational- trust in e-commerce participation. Despite the acknowledged importance of trust, only limited research has examined the role of trust among trading partners in business-to-business e-commerce, when this study was initiated in 1997. As the participation in e-commerce increased, the need for trust among trading partners became more pertinent in business-to-business e-commerce. Exploratory research was carried out via three case studies in the automotive industry. The automotive industry was selected as a critical and typical case for Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) via Value-Added-Networks, and the findings emphasized on the importance of interorganizational trust in e-commerce participation. The exploratory study, together with a literature review, provided the theoretical foundations for the development of the conceptual model. Theories from multiple disciplines including the marketing, management, sociology, information systems and e-commerce were applied in the conceptual model. The research question developed for this study is: How does inter-organizational trust (trading partner trust) influence the perception of ecommerce benefits and risks of e-commerce, thus influencing the extent of participation in ecommerce? The conceptual model was then tested using a multiple-case-study research strategy that aimed to solicit qualitative and in-depth understanding of inter-organizational trust in the context of business-tobusiness e-commerce. Ten organizations from a cross-industry selection that formed four bi-directional dyads and two uni-directional dyads participated in the study. They included a public sector organization involved in customs clearance; their Internet service provider; a customs agent (broker); an importer; two organizations in the computer and data communications industry; two organizations in the telecommunications industry; and two organizations in the automotive industry. The primary unit of analysis in this study is the uni-directional dyad. The case study participants included e-commerce coordinators, IT managers, and senior executives involved in e-commerce. In addition, e-commerce applications, existing documents, and standards contributed to secondary data sources. For example, trading partner agreements, organizational charts, web sites, and internal security policies gave evidence of the organizations' best business practices and background information on the organization and their products. The findings of the four bi-directional dyads (eight organizations) and the two uni-directional dyads indicated that trust was important for participation in e-commerce. The findings differed by the type of e-commerce application used and the industry. For example, organizations that developed extranet applications had only one trading party (the supplier) undertaking the implementation process. Suppliers were involved in the installation of their websites that provided product information. In addition, suppliers had to train their buyers to use extranet applications. The products consisted of many different parts, (such as data communications, computers and telecommunications) which made the task of placing an order complex. These inter-organizational dyads (Cisco-Compaq NZ, and Siemens-Telecom NZ) experienced relational risks arising from the need to establish trust among their trading partners. On the other hand, Avery Ford NZ and Toyota NZ applied intranet applications and Internet-based EDI for routine orders between the manufacturers and suppliers. Smaller organizations such as the customs broker and the importer experienced a smooth e-commerce adoption due to their application "Trade Manager" which was not connected to the Internet. The study contributes to theory, practice and research in the following ways: First, rather than inferring characteristics of e-commerce adoption from a technical and economic background, this study examined behavioral characteristics of trading partners in business-to-business ecommerce from theories in multi-disciplines. The primary emphasis of prior research was on transaction economics, its competitive advantages and/or external pressure (socio-political). This study focused on the importance of inter-organizational trust in e-commerce participation. The findings of the study led to the development of a model of inter-organizational trust within bi-directional dyads in e-commerce participation. Second, the study contributed to practice as it increased the awareness of e-commerce practitioners, who will check the trust behaviors of themselves and that of their trading partners. Trading partners will be better able to select and evaluate trust and security-based mechanisms in e-commerce, thus protecting themselves against opportunistic behaviors of their trading partners. Third, the study contributed to research as it paved the way for longitudinal studies. This study only took a micro-perspective of inter-organizational trust within dyadic relationships as it was intended to be an exploratory study. Further research should extensively test the model using a field survey with business-to-business e-commerce organizations.This thesis aims to empirically examine the role of inter-organizational trust (trading partner trust) in e-commerce participation. By doing so, trust behaviors in business relationships were identified. The findings from ten organizations that formed four bi-directional dyads and two uni-directional dyads contributed to a model of inter-organizational trust within bi-directional dyads. The model identified the development of inter-organizational trust in three stages and identified trust behaviors and characteristics involved in the gradual development of trust from one stage to the next stage, thus providing an awareness of trust behaviors that trading partners need to develop. For example competence trust emphasized on an individual or team's ability and skills to operate e-commerce system and applications (i.e. is at a technical level). Predictability trust examined the reflections and interpersonal experiences of the trading partners based on past experiences, and a consistency of trading partner behaviors. Goodwill trust examined the institutional (i.e. the organization's image, reputation that determines the strategic benefits). Overall, the findings indicated that trust in inter-organizational relationships clearly matter

    The application of information systems in marketing: a study of empowerment in electronic commerce

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    This thesis describes post-positivist research in the field of Information Systems (IS), more specifically in Electronic Commerce (E-Commerce). Information systems (IS) and information technology (IT) both play a major role in improving productivity and competitive edge in e-commerce (Lin and Benjamin, 2000). The existence of IS does not depend on computers but it is the utilisation of computers and technology that produces a viable IS system (Davis and Olson, 1985). E-commerce is considered as a new type of information system and was defined by Poong (2006, p. 553) as “an information system that provides catalogues of products over the World Wide Web”. Despite the deep employment of technology in Information Systems (IS), they are regarded as social systems. Business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce has been rapidly changing the competitive landscape of retailing and service industries. Despite its claimed benefits, this innovative mode of retailing has not yet been accepted by every buyer. For company managers, the delays in the adoption of information systems such as e-commerce systems, and the empowerment of e-commerce users are recognised as a dilemma. An interesting question is why some users accept the idea of online shopping more readily than others. This study aims at helping to improve information systems applications for e-commerce in the complex, technology-oriented marketing sector. This thesis innovates a model to empower e-commerce users based on key critical factors that affect this technology. The core factors in this model are e-commerce self efficacy, Personal Innovation in Information Technology (PIIT), system ease of use, system experience, and technology anxiety. The model was empirically tested in a field experimental setting, using a real retail website for the purchasing decisions. The participants in this study were students at the University of Wollongong in Australia, as they are normal users of e-commerce. The Amazon.com website was chosen for this study, as this website is usually used by university students to buy books and CDs. The results of the investigation were tested using factor analysis and partial least square (PLS). The empirical testing provides support for the proposed theoretical model by explaining seventy-eight percent (78%) of the variance in the users’ intention to use e-commerce systems. The implications of this study are both theoretical and practical. At the theoretical level, this study combined four models in one model. The first model, by Compeau et al. (1999)1, put social cognitive theory into practice for the IT area. The second model, by Thatcher and Perrewe (2002)2, applied personal innovation in information technology, trait anxiety, and computer anxiety to computer self-efficacy. Henry and Stone’s (1995)3 model is the third model used, as it employed ease of use and system experience in computer self-efficacy and outcome expectation. The final model was constructed by Kim and Kim (2005)4 and used specific self-efficacy (online trading self-efficacy) in customer trust, perceived risk, and buying intention. Therefore, it can be positively confirmed that this research model is a solid model, as it unites these four models into one to generate a clarification of users’ behaviour in the framework of e-commerce utilisation. At the practical level, the study shows that adoption of e-commerce systems is directly, significantly and positively affected by e-commerce self-efficacy, outcome expectation (perceived usefulness), system ease of use, and system experience. It is proposed that individuals with higher levels of e-commerce self-efficacy, outcome expectation, system experience, and perceived system ease of use are more likely to perform an online transaction than those experiencing lower levels of these concepts. The study makes significant contributions across all areas of IT adoption and usage research and practice. There is justification for claiming that the study model will empower the application of management information systems for e-commerce

    Trust and risk in consumer acceptance of e-services

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    Thesis (Ph.D. (Information Systems))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law & Management, School of Economic and Business Sciences, 2015Electronic services (or e-services) are defined as any service whose delivery is based on Internet, IT and communications technology, and which incorporates a large self-service component. They offer consumers the promise of increased convenience, lower-cost of transacting, greater choice and accessibility by eliminating space and time constraints to their interactions with service providers. Benefits of e-services cannot however materialize without consumer acceptance. Unfortunately, uncertainty and fears of opportunism still characterize the online context and varying degrees of consumer acceptance and engagement in use of e-services has thus been observed. The extant literature considers consumer perceptions of risk and their trust beliefs amongst the most important psychological states influencing their online behavior. However, despite the number of empirical studies that have explored the effects of trust and risk perceptions on consumer acceptance of e-services, the field remains fragmented and the posited research models are contradictory. For example, the trust-risk relationship has been modeled differently in past studies and the causal relationship between trust and risk perceptions has not been clarified. In addition, research into the antecedents of trust has not been integrated to provide an answer as to which are the most significant antecedents. Furthermore, past research has paid more attention to initial trust or risk perceptions and has not adequately examined whether these perceptions change over time or how they come to influence later stage acceptance of e-services. To address these gaps in our understanding of trust and risk in consumer acceptance of e-services, this thesis adopted three research designs, namely meta-analytic approaches, cross-sectional surveys and longitudinal designs. First, a meta-analytic study1 was used to aggregate empirical findings from across prior studies in e-service. This allowed the nature of the relationship between trust, perceived risk, and acceptance of e-services to be synthesized and for competing nomological models of the trust-risk-acceptance relationship to be compared. 52 studies were examined and it was found that trust is most important to form consumer positive attitude for acceptance. By comparing competing models, it found that trust and risk are significantly related and trust may influence risk in consumer acceptance of e-services. 1 Presented at 34th International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2013), Milano, Italy. iv Moderator analysis within the meta-analysis was also carried out to determine if different types of consumer cultures (e.g., Western versus Eastern), different types of e-services (e.g., commercial versus non-commercial), or different objects of trust (e.g., trust in vendor versus trust in website technology) influence the relationships between trust, risk and acceptance of e-services. Furthermore, the antecedents of trust as suggested by past research were examined via a second meta-analysis of 59 prior studies2. The antecedents of trust were classified as vendor and institution-based antecedents, technological-based antecedents, knowledge-based antecedents, and consumer characteristics-based antecedents. Technological-based antecedents were found the most significant antecedents of trust. For all antecedents, studies classified as having been carried out in Eastern cultures reported on average stronger effect sizes than those carried out in Western cultures. In addition to the meta-analytical studies, this thesis also carried out cross-sectional and longitudinal investigations to study trust and risk in an understudied context of e-services, namely consumer acceptance of online health information services. The motivation to adopt this context is because previous studies of e-services were mostly focused on commercial (e.g., e-commerce, e-shopping and e-banking, etc) and mostly on non-commercial context such as e-government. However, e-health services are relatively under-explored. Moreover, the Web has become an important health information dissemination channel. People are increasingly searching for health information online and engaging in the self-management of their health. Trust and risk are considered important to the online health context, and it therefore served as an appropriate e-service context for empirical analysis. Two cross-sectional studies3,4 were carried out to explain user acceptance of online health information services. This cross-sectional work was underpinned by multiple theoretical perspectives namely Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), Health Belief Model (HBM) and Extended Valence Framework (EVF). Findings showed that multiple dimensions of trust (trust in provider, trust in website and trust in institutional structures) have both direct and indirect effects, via perceived usefulness, on consumer acceptance. 2 Presented at 18th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS 2014), Chengdu, China. 3 Forthcoming at 35th International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2014), Auckland, New Zealand. 4 Forthcoming at 25th Australasian Conference on Information Systems (ACIS 2014), Auckland, New Zealand. v One-dimensional risk was not found to have a significant influence on consumer acceptance. However, multi-dimensional risk (performance risk, psychological risk and time risk) did combine with health belief variables such as perceived susceptibility and severity to influence consumer acceptance. Because cross-sectional data is limited in its ability to address causal connections amongst phenomena, two longitudinal investigations were also carried out. These investigations were used to explain whether trust beliefs and risk perceptions change over time in consumer acceptance of e-services, how early stage trust and risk perceptions influence later stage acceptance and usage behaviors, and whether there is reciprocal causality between trust and risk perceptions. This work was underpinned by TRA and Expectation-Confirmation Theory (ECT), and employed both path modeling and cross-lagged structural equation modeling techniques. The results showed that trust, risk perceptions and perceived usefulness are important to the prediction of consumer acceptance of online health services at both the early and later usage phases5. Furthermore, trust in provider and trust in website have reciprocal relations and empirical data supported the influence of risk perceptions on trust. Through the meta-analytic design, cross-sectional approaches and longitudinal designs, this thesis contributes to research on e-services in a number of ways. First, meta-analytic approaches integrated the available evidence from prior studies, which resulted in the generation of a dataset which was larger in scope and scale than could feasibly be achieved in any single research study. This dataset could then be used to compare competing nomological models found in the literature. In so doing, results have improved our understanding of how trust and risk are related, how they combine to influence consumer acceptance, as well as identifying the most important antecedents of trust. Results provide a benchmark against which future studies can compare their effect sizes. Moreover, by examining the heterogeneity of effect sizes, the meta-analysis has also identified moderators that can account for observed inconsistencies in the effect sizes reported by prior studies. Together, the findings have extended our understanding of how trust and risk relate to e-service acceptance in different e-service contexts, across 5 Presented at 18th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS 2014), Chengdu, China. vi different consumer cultures, and whether trust in the vendor or technology platform has relatively greater importance to consumers. Second, this thesis also integrated trust into HBM to examine online health information seeking as both a health behavior and online consumer behavior. Results help us better understand this specific case of e-service acceptance. Third, this study is also the first to develop and validate a dynamic trust and risk model in consumer acceptance of online health information services. The longitudinal design integrates trust into the theoretical framework of TRA and ECT to develop the dynamic research model. Tests of the model have made a key contribution to the development of a theory that explains the dynamic nature of e-service acceptance. Furthermore, the cross-lagged longitudinal design contributed to our understanding of the casual relationship between consumers’ trust and risk perceptions in the context of online health information services. Taken together this thesis illustrates how meta-analysis and structural equation modeling can be integrated together to approach the fragmented and contradictory nature of the field. Moreover, this thesis addresses the lack of longitudinal studies on acceptance, and presents a novel method, cross-lagged structural equation modeling, to examine controversial causal relationships within the field of Information Systems. This thesis also has important practical implications. It provides insights into the relative importance of trust and risk perceptions necessary to inform practitioners on risk reduction and trust-building mechanisms. The investigation into the antecedents of trust reveals especially important factors which are within the control of e-service providers. With this understanding, practitioners can be better positioned to establish their online service offerings. Website designers can also benefit from understanding the extent to which particular antecedents of trust (e.g., ease of use and system quality) are important for e-service acceptance. By studying the online health information services context, this thesis has also shed light on the general perceptions and attitudes of consumers towards this high-potential area of e-service

    Trust Building and Managing in Service-oriented Environment

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    Services are ubiquitous. In daily life, we can find service provisioning everywhere such as online shopping, online storage, doctor, hotel, lawyer, restaurant, etc. With the development of Web 2.0 technology, a huge amount of information about services has become available on the Internet. For instance, on a review website people can discuss which restaurant serves the best Chinese food; in a blog, an author posts an article about the experience of visiting a doctor. The abundance of services and the overload of service information online, result in two main problems. The first problem is service selection; the second one is the overload of consumer-driven information which refers to information such as reviews, articles, assessments, and discussions generated by service consumers. The concept of trust is proposed to solve the two problems. The computational concept of trust is defined as a subjective probability, which makes a prediction of the occurrence of an event such as a good service provisioning. Software used for building and managing trust data related to service offerings, is called Trust Management System (TMS). The first topic is trust model. A trust model is the computing kernel of a TMS that calculates the trust value of a service. Another significant topic regarding trust management for services is the robustness of a TMS. Robustness of a TMS refers to the ability of a TMS to cope with inaccuracy (deliberate or accidental) in the consumer-provided information used for computing trust. There are many trust models that have been proposed. I do not know of any survey analyzing and comparing different trust models with respect to trust in services. In this thesis, 40 trust models are compared from both a theoretical and a practical perspective, using criteria such as application context, information representation, properties of trust evaluation, and robustness of system. In addition, a trust model framework for service provisioning is proposed. This framework is considered a meta-model covering all existing trust models. A concrete trust model can be derived by instantiating the meta-model. In the thesis, four concrete services which cover both quantitative and qualitative services are studied. A quantitative service refers to a service the quality of which can be measured objectively. For a qualitative service there is no general agreed-upon objective measure for service quality. The first case study is about Online File Storage Service (OFSS) which is categorized as a quantitative service. The trust model, R-Rep, for a OFSS is proposed. In order to mitigate manipulation, a statistics based detection mechanism, named Baseline Sampling (BS), is introduced. In addition, when social network information among users is available, Clique Identification (CI) is used to detect manipulative groups. One e-commerce website, Taobao.com, and two review websites, TripAdvisor.com and Dianping.com, are chosen as case studies for trust building and managing in the context of qualitative service. For each case, specific trust models which consider intrinsic robustness enhancement by designing special weight functions are proposed. Meanwhile, machine learning-based extrinsic robustness enhancement is applied. Three types of machine learning approaches, clustering, classification and Annotation-Auxiliary Clustering (AAClust), are applied to identify manipulative behavior

    Critical review of the e-loyalty literature: a purchase-centred framework

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    Over the last few years, the concept of online loyalty has been examined extensively in the literature, and it remains a topic of constant inquiry for both academics and marketing managers. The tremendous development of the Internet for both marketing and e-commerce settings, in conjunction with the growing desire of consumers to purchase online, has promoted two main outcomes: (a) increasing numbers of Business-to-Customer companies running businesses online and (b) the development of a variety of different e-loyalty research models. However, current research lacks a systematic review of the literature that provides a general conceptual framework on e-loyalty, which would help managers to understand their customers better, to take advantage of industry-related factors, and to improve their service quality. The present study is an attempt to critically synthesize results from multiple empirical studies on e-loyalty. Our findings illustrate that 62 instruments for measuring e-loyalty are currently in use, influenced predominantly by Zeithaml et al. (J Marketing. 1996;60(2):31-46) and Oliver (1997; Satisfaction: a behavioral perspective on the consumer. New York: McGraw Hill). Additionally, we propose a new general conceptual framework, which leads to antecedents dividing e-loyalty on the basis of the action of purchase into pre-purchase, during-purchase and after-purchase factors. To conclude, a number of managerial implementations are suggested in order to help marketing managers increase their customers’ e-loyalty by making crucial changes in each purchase stage
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