Psychological antecedents of institution-based consumer trust in e-retailing

Online trust is one of the main determinants of the success of e-retailers and much research has dealt with website features triggering consumer trust to them. Another stream of research focuses on the psychological antecedents to online trust; i.e., what “happens” in the consumer’s mind before or while a person decides to trust an e-retailer? so far, each effort has focused on only a few selected aspects of this trust formation process. No study has attempted to identify major psychological antecedents of trust. Our work identified the relative importance of the antecedents of institution-based trust in e-retailing; i.e., trust people have in it in general. A review of the literature reveals a large number of potential psychological antecedents. These can be categorized into five group of factors: personality-based, perception-based, attitude-based, experience-based, and knowledge-based. The five categories are hypothesized to influence institution-based consumer trust in e-retailing. According to our results, perception based factors are the main determinants of consumer trust in e-retailing. Consumers do behave, after all, rationally

Implications of the new EU Directive on Data Protection on Multinational Corporations: Expectation of European and US American MNC's

The 1995 eu directive on data protection legislation (dpl) ensures free flow of data within the eu. However, the transfer to countries without adequate dpl is generally forbidden. The effect of this directive on the business of mncs is still unknown but a few authors foresee major problems for mncs doing business in europe. On the eve of the implementation of the new eu data protection directive this preliminary study investigated some of the effects the new dpl directive might have on mncs doing business in europe as seen by representatives of european and us mncs. The study found that especially those companies transferring customer data across national boundaries are most affected by strict dpl. However, the effects mentioned by interviewees were, in contrast with popular literature on this topic, not exclusively negative. Several positive effects of strict privacy guidelines for mncs could also be identified