Agency beliefs mediate trust across cultures in e-commerce

Past research has identified differences in trust judgement between Western and Eastern cultures. In addition, some studies have shown that trust can be established through the trustee’s personal reputation of integrity, or through structural assurance mechanisms such as social monitoring and sanctioning. Nonetheless, the relative importance of personal versus structural cues in trust judgement across cultures is not clear. The present thesis examined cultural differences in the relative importance of personal and structural trust cues in trust judgement in the socially and economically relevant context of e-commerce. Results from 4 studies revealed that Americans prefer using personal integrity in trust judgement, whereas Asians prefer structural cues (Studies 1 and 2). Furthermore, these cultural differences can be explained by relative prevalence of the two types of agency beliefs, individual versus group agency across cultures (Studies 3 and 4).

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2011

Author dc:creator

• Kwan, Letty Y.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Hong, Ying-Yi
• Chiu, Chi-Yue
• White, Tiffany B.
• Cohen, Dov
• Shavitt, Sharon

• Trust
• Inter-cultural trust perception
• Trust and culture
• Trust in e-commerce

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2011 Letty Y. Kwan

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/26376

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F26376