Communicating customer trust in e-commerce through website design | |
| Author | Pimmanee Rattanawicha |
| Call Number | AIT Diss. no.IM-05-02 |
| Subject(s) | Customer relations Web sites--Design |
| Note | A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Technical Science |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | Trustworthiness has been cited as one of the most important factors in the completion of commercial transactions, and this is as hue for today's e-commerce systems. In the ecommerce environment, people do business by interacting with a customer interface which, in this case, is an Internet vendor's website. Thus, websites must be designed appropriately to induce feelings of trust on the part of the customer, which will influence the decision to buy from a specific website. The objective of this research was to identify how website design factors can affect customer trnst in Internet commerce. The research consisted of two parts. The purpose of the study in Part I was to investigate significant trust-inducing website design features and their categories. In this part, a twophase empirical study was conducted. In Phase 1, Part I of the study, respondents were asked to rate the importance of various website design features in terms of their hust for Internet commerce. Forty-six features were identified and grouped into nine categories using factor analysis and reliability analysis. In Phase 2 of the study in Part I, a different group of respondents were asked to decide whether each of these 46 features and nine categories was a Hygiene factor (a "must have" factor), or a Motivator (a "good to have" factor). The purpose of the research in Part II of the study was to examine relationships between website design features and their categories, which lead to a customer's perceived tiustrelated quality in an Internet vendor's website, and four other e-commerce hust constructs: (1) trusting beliefs (an individual's perceptions of a specific Internet vendor's attributes), (2) trusting intentions (one's intentions to engage in trnst-related behaviors with a specific Internet vendor), (3) propensity to trust (a person's willingness or tendency to trust others), and (4) institution-based trust (an individual's perceptions of the Internet environment). In this part, a website of an Internet jeweler was developed with all 46 trust-inducing website design features revealed in Part I of the study. An empirical study was conducted with subjects using this developed Internet jeweler website. The results of Part II of the study indicated that a customer's perceived trust-related quality in an Internet vendor's website would positively influence his/her trusting beliefs in that Internet vendor, and his/her busting intentions to engage with that Internet vendor. The findings determined that a customer's busting beliefs in an Internet vendor would positively influence his/her trusting intentions to engage with that Internet vendor. It was also concluded that a customer's propensity to trust would have positive influence on his/her trusting beliefs and busting intentions towards an Internet vendor as well as on his/her perceptions of the Internet environment. Moreover, the results indicated that a customer's institution-based bust would positively influence his/her trusting beliefs and trusting intentions towards an Internet vendor. The study also determined that all 46 trust-inducing website design features and nine categories of features would significantly influence a customer's trusting beliefs and trusting intentions towards an Internet vendor. It can be concluded from these findings that it is possible to increase customer trust in an Internet vendor by improving trust-related quality in that Internet vendor's website. |
| Year | 2005 |
| Type | Dissertation |
| School | School of Advanced Technologies (SAT) |
| Department | Department of Information and Communications Technologies (DICT) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Information Management (IM) |
| Chairperson(s) | Vatcharaporn Esichaikul; |
| Examination Committee(s) | Batanov, Dentcho N.;Phan Minh Dung;Anulark Techanitisawad;Zhang, Ping; |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | Royal Thai Government;Chulalongkorn University, Thailand; |
| Degree | Thesis (Ph.D.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2005 |