Understanding the Intention to Trust Product Information and Certifications to Promote Sustainable Consumption: Applying the Theory of Planned Behavior

This paper explores consumers trust in sustainable product and certification information included in the product’s package and label by using Azjen’s theory of planned behavior as a framework. We used 327 observations collected from an international survey distributed to students in the U.S., Mexico and Indonesia as proxy of consumers’ view. Our results demonstrate that the consumer’s general predisposition toward trust, social normative pressure, and the presence of factors that facilitate consumer’s perceptions to perform trust behavior significantly increase the consumer’s intention to trust sustainable product and certification information. Although we found some country variations in terms of the propensity to trust product information, the differences have no impact on the hypotheses of the theory of planned behavior. Our findings provide suggestive evidence of the instrumental roles of ICTs to facilitate sustainable development by enabling positive changes in consumer behavior, specifically in supporting sustainable consumption

Comercio electrónico y emprendimiento: un análisis aplicando la teoría del comportamiento planeado

Electronic commerce is a reality nowadays. Companies with a physical presence have realized the opportunities available in electronic commerce and have incorporated this distribution channel to other traditional channels. Moreover, companies have been created exclusively seeking to exploit this sales channel. Although e-commerce has already nearly 20 years of history, still remains a relatively incipient phenomenon in countries like Mexico. Current university students are those who are receiving the best education to implement this type of business in both existing and new businesses. In this research, the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991) is used as a framework to analyze potential entrepreneurs’ intend to implement e-commerce projects after completing their studies. Results suggest that potential entrepreneurs intend to implement e-commerce in the future. Moreover, attitude and perceived behavioral control had a significant impact on the intention to implement e-commerce. No significant impact of subjective norms on intention to implement e-commerce was found.El comercio electrónico es una realidad en nuestros días. Empresas con presencia física se han dado cuenta de las oportunidades disponibles en comercio electrónico y han incorporado este canal a sus canales tradicionales. Por otro lado, se han creado empresas que tratan de explotar exclusivamente este canal de ventas. El comercio electrónico es relativamente nuevo y los estudiantes actuales de las universidades son los que están recibiendo la mejor educación para implementar este tipo de negocio tanto en negocios ya existentes como en negocios nuevos. En la presente investigación se utiliza como marco de referencia la Teoría del Comportamiento Planeado (Ajzen, 1991) para analizar la intención de emprendedores potenciales de implementar el comercio electrónico en proyectos al concluir sus estudios. Los resultados obtenidos indican que los emprendedores potenciales tienen la intención de implementar el comercio electrónico en el futuro. Se soportaron dos de las tres hipótesis planteadas, la actitud y el control conductual percibido tuvieron un impacto significativo en la intención de implementar el comercio electrónico. No se encontró impacto significativo de las normas subjetivas en la intención de implementar el comercio electrónico

Examining trust as key drivers in smart disclosure for sustainable consumption: the case of I-choose

Smart disclosure constitutes a form of open data policy that has the objective of promoting more sustainable economies and innovation by providing consumers with information to help them make better purchasing decisions. Trust in the information regarding product and certification is crucial for the adoption and usage of smart disclosure tools that make use of such information. In this paper, we investigate the determinants of trust in sustainable product information through a survey administered in Mexico and the United States. Our results suggest that brands and certificates reputation are important components to develop trust. Our results also suggest that additional information to verify label does not emerge as significant predictor to induce trust. We argue that to be useful, such information should be aggregated and presented to consumers in a simple way right at their fingertips. Finally, we found that support from government agencies and endorsement from non-for-profit organizations significantly influence consumer's trusting beliefs on sustainable practices information

Full Information Product Pricing: An Information Strategy for Harnessing Consumer Choice to Create a More Sustainable World

Research and practice in the information systems (IS) field have been evolving over time, nourishing and promoting the development of applications that transform the relationships of individuals, corporations, and governments. Building on this evolution, we push forward a vision of the potential influence of the IS field into one of the most important problems of our times, an increasingly unsustainable world, which is traditionally considered the product of imperfect markets or market externalities. We describe our work in Full Information Product Pricing (FIPP) and our vision of a FIPP global socio-technical system, I-Choose, as a way to connect consumer choice and values with environmental, social, and economic effects of production and distribution practices. FIPP and I-Choose represent a vision about how information systems research can contribute to interdisciplinary research in supply chains, governance, and market economies to provide consumers with information packages that help them better understand how, where, and by whom the products they buy are produced. We believe that such a system will have important implications for international trade and agreements, for public policy, and for making a more sustainable world

Strengthening institutional-based trust for sustainable consumption: Lessons for smart disclosure

Smart disclosure constitutes a form of open data policy that has the objective of promoting more sustainable economies and innovation by providing consumers with information to help them make better purchasing decisions. Trust in the information regarding product and certification is crucial for the adoption and usage of smart disclosure tools that make use of such information. In this paper, we investigate the determinants of trust in sustainable product information through a survey administered in Mexico and the United States. Our results suggest that information indicating brands and certificates reputation are important factors that encourage the development of trust. Our results also suggest that additional information to verify labels does not emerge as significant predictor to induce trust. We argue that to be useful, such information should be aggregated and presented to consumers in a simple way right at their fingertips. Finally, we found that information indicating support from government agencies and endorsement from non-for-profit organizations significantly influence consumer's trusting beliefs on sustainable practices information

The Effect of Online Reviews on Customer Satisfaction: An Expectation Disconfirmation Approach

During the last decade online retail sales have been growing constantly. This growth has been possible due to different factors like online reviews. Online reviews have been proven successful in predicting different variables like trust and sales in online settings; however the impact of online reviews on other variables like customer satisfaction has not been widely studied. Based on expectation-disconfirmation theory, this study analyzes the effect of online reviews on customer satisfaction. A laboratory experiment allowed collecting data from a sample of 225 undergraduate and graduate students from a US university. It is expected that results will indicate that online reviews shape expectations that later impact customer satisfaction when mediated by disconfirmation. Results will have implications for research and practice. For research, results will help to increase the understanding of customer expectations formation in online settings. For practice, results will give advice to practitioners about how to increase customer satisfaction

Comercio electrónico y emprendimiento: un análisis aplicando la teoría del comportamiento planeado

Electronic commerce is a reality nowadays. Companies with a physical presence have realized the opportunities available in electronic commerce and have incorporated this distribution channel to other traditional channels. Moreover, companies have been created exclusively seeking to exploit this sales channel. Although e-commerce has already nearly 20 years of history, still remains a relatively incipient phenomenon in countries like Mexico. Current university students are those who are receiving the best education to implement this type of business in both existing and new businesses. In this research, the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991) is used as a framework to analyze potential entrepreneurs’ intend to implement e-commerce projects after completing their studies. Results suggest that potential entrepreneurs intend to implement e-commerce in the future. Moreover, attitude and perceived behavioral control had a significant impact on the intention to implement e-commerce. No significant impact of subjective norms on intention to implement e-commerce was found.El comercio electrónico es una realidad en nuestros días. Empresas con presencia física se han dado cuenta de las oportunidades disponibles en comercio electrónico y han incorporado este canal a sus canales tradicionales. Por otro lado, se han creado empresas que tratan de explotar exclusivamente este canal de ventas. El comercio electrónico es relativamente nuevo y los estudiantes actuales de las universidades son los que están recibiendo la mejor educación para implementar este tipo de negocio tanto en negocios ya existentes como en negocios nuevos. En la presente investigación se utiliza como marco de referencia la Teoría del Comportamiento Planeado (Ajzen, 1991) para analizar la intención de emprendedores potenciales de implementar el comercio electrónico en proyectos al concluir sus estudios. Los resultados obtenidos indican que los emprendedores potenciales tienen la intención de implementar el comercio electrónico en el futuro. Se soportaron dos de las tres hipótesis planteadas, la actitud y el control conductual percibido tuvieron un impacto significativo en la intención de implementar el comercio electrónico. No se encontró impacto significativo de las normas subjetivas en la intención de implementar el comercio electrónico