The Effects of Similarities to Previous Buyers on Trust and Intention to Buy from E-Commerce Stores: An Experimental Study Based on the SVS Model - IT Enabled Services - page 19

1989 ), which focuses on the perceived ease of use and usefulness of websites
(Gefen et al. 2003a , b ; Pavlou 2003 ). These approaches have investigated how to
transcend the signals of trustworthiness of the websites by increasing the sophisti-
cation of the interface and enriching the contents of e-commerce websites.
On the other hand, in addition to information on the website, there are studies
that evaluate the effectiveness of information and reputation that exist outside the
focal e-commerce website in building trust among potential buyers (Lim et al.
2006 ; Lowry et al. 2008 ). Although it is obvious that both approaches are necessary
to understand how to build trust among potential buyers, empirical research on the
latter is scarce in comparison with that on the former. Therefore, this study sheds
light on the effectiveness of external information from a different perspective from
those of previous studies. External information is defined as the information that is
not present on the focal e-commerce website but can be useful in judging the
trustworthiness of the store.
In this study, we first discuss the limitations of trust-building approaches based
on traditional social psychology that focuses only on the internal components of
websites (henceforth referred to as “traditional social psychological approaches”).
Then we present empirical evidence that external information on salient value
similarities (SVSs) with previous buyers is a critical factor in building trust in
e-commerce stores among potential buyers. Through experimental manipulation of
SVSs, we draw valid and rigorous inferences about causal relationships that are not
available from correlational studies based on questionnaire surveys.
2.2 Theoretical Development
2.2.1 Limitations of Traditional Social Psychological Approaches
Previous studies have demonstrated the diverse and complex nature of trust in the
context of e-commerce (McKnight and Chervany 2002 ; McKnight et al. 2002 ;
Doney and Cannon 1997 ; Corritore et al. 2003 ). In fact, there is no clear consensus
on the definition of trust so far (Kee and Knox 1970 ; Driscoll 1978 ; Cook and Wall
1980 ; Scott 1980 ). As McKnight et al. ( 1998 ) note, the word “trust” is so confusing
(Shapiro 1987 ) and broad (Williamson 1993 ) that it almost defies careful definition
(Gambetta 1988 ). In particular, because e-commerce studies are interdisciplinary,
there are different sentences in the “grammar” of trust (McKnight and Chervany
2002 ), which leads to the difficulty in achieving consensus. Despite this difficulty,
however, recent studies have tried to build consensus on the definition of Mayer
et al. ( 1995 ). Mayer et al. ( 1995 ) defined trust as the willingness of a party to be
vulnerable to the actions of another party based on the expectation that the other
will perform a particular action important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability to
monitor or control the other party. Based on this definition, Mayer et al. ( 1995 )
conceptualized perceived competence (i.e. ability), benevolence, and integrity as