Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
H3: Ease of use will affect usefulness for older
consumers.
complete understanding of the factors contributing
to e-commerce acceptance. It is hypothesized that
trust will have both direct and indirect affects on
electronic commerce participation.
Concerns about sending financial and other
personal information over the Internet may be
a direct reason individuals elect not to purchase
items on line. If individuals perceive shopping
online to be risky, they won't use this channel.
As prior research has established (Lee & Turban,
2001; Liu et al., 2005; Van Slyke et al., 2004; Yoon,
2002) trust has a significant impact on electronic
commerce participation.
To form a more complete picture regarding the
antecedents to electronic commerce participation,
the addition of trust was made to the traditional
technology acceptance model. Trust has been
defined, examined and operationalized in many
ways. Researchers have addressed the importance
of trust in business-to-business (Ratnasingam,
Gefen, & Pavlou, 2005), consumer-to-consumer
(Pavlou & Gefen, 2004) and and business-to
consumer (Pennington, Wilcox, & Grover, 2003)
electronic commerce relationships. Research has
examined the way individuals assess trustworthi-
ness (Van Slyke, Belanger, & Comunale, 2004) as
well as ways organizations can build trust online
(Koufaris & Hampton-Sosa, 2004; Patton & Jo-
sang, 2004). Universally, trust has been found to be
an important antecedant to electronic commerce
usage (Gefen et al., 2003; Liu, Marchewka, Lu,
& Yo, 2005; Yoon, 2002). This research focuses
on trusting the ability of the online merchant
to protect personal and financial data and their
integrity in using that data appropriately. These
dimensions were selected because credit card se-
curity and the disclosure of personal information
are the greatest concerns to consumers and are
believed to be frequent barriers to e-commerce
usage (Bellman, Lohse, & Johnson, 1999; Brown
& Muchira, 2004; Hoffman & Novak, 1999; Pit-
kow & Kehoe, 1996). Han and Noh (1999) found
that lower levels of data security have a negative
impact on electronic commerce usage. Vijayasara-
thy (2004) found security concerns have a direct
impact on attitudes concerning online shopping
in the general population. Trusting that the e-
vendor has controls in place to protect financial
information and will treat personal information
legally and ethically is an important precursor
to electronic commerce participation. Trust in
the e-vendors' ability and desire to secure and
protect personal information is therefore added
to the traditional TAM model to obtain a more
H4: Trust will have a positive affect on the four
dimensions of electronic commerce participation
for older consumers.
Trust may also impact e-commerce usage
through perceived ease of use and usefulness.
The popular press has run a number of articles
on protecting privacy online (Branscum, 2000;
Cohen, 2001; Foster, 2003; Hawkins & Mannix,
2000; Jones, 2005; Tynan, 2002), raising the at-
tention of the perils of online transactions. As
these articles point out, individuals interested in
vigilantly protecting their privacy may set their
browser to reject third party cookies, run encryp-
tion and privacy protection software, install a
firewall and read and understand privacy and
security statements on Web sites before provid-
ing information. While these methods would
increase and individual's privacy and decrease
the chance of identity theft, they are also time
consuming and may decrease the ease of use of
shopping online. Likewise, the potential problems
that could result from online shopping may have
an impact on how useful an individual perceives
electronic commerce. For some, the threat of a
possible breech of security and the subsequent
consequences may negate the usefulness of pur-
chasing products online. The possibility that your
identity may be stolen or credit record compro-
mised may outweigh the convenience of having
a topic delivered to your door.
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