Network Consumer Trust Evolution And The Decision Model

Online trust has attracted enormous interest in consumer behavior research and practice. Within E-Business context, trust can be considered as the psychological elements for the online consuming behavior, and is the key to the success of E-Commerce. Consequently, trust-building for online consumers is concerned by theorists and managers.In this study, trust is supposed to be a decision-making behavior under the risks that the other side might exploit his honor. Online trust is a judgment that exists in interdependent task based on behavior prediction and outcome measurement, and is influenced by task context, personality, and other factors. Basing on the image theory, this study discussed the dynamic process of online behavior and trust building, and especially focused on the dynamic system of online trust development, as well as the dynamic characteristic of consumer behaviors, which will provide a new perspective to manage customer trust and marketing campaigns for online marketers.This study systematically examined the process of online trust development by semi-structured interview, experiment and scenario questionnaires. With the results confirmed in these researches, a dynamic model of online trust which is based on the image theory has been proposed. Suggestions for online trust-building also have been discussed. The study was developed in five stages as following:(1) Analysis for the process of consumer behaviors and online trust decision-making. In this part, semi-structured interview and coding analysis of 26 online consumers and 20 online dealers were conducted to analyze the characters of online consumers' psychology and behaviors, as well as key factors that influence decision-making. Finally, an image model of decision-making process for online consumers was proposed.(2) Analysis for the characters of in decision-making for online consumers. In order to test the image theoretical model of online behavior, we examined the image characters of online decision-making by scenario experiment design. 110 students took part in the experiment. The results showed the validity of image framework for the process of online decision-making. Meanwhile, this process can be divided into two stages which have different behaviors. One has a compatible standard, and the other has a profitable standard.(3) Analysis for the dynamic process of online trust building. This part focuses on the dynamic influence of personality on the in different stages of trust-decision by scenario questionnaire research. The results show that the effects of personality in different stages are totally different. Meanwhile, when online consumers are making decision of trust, the personal references they use are different in each stage, which testifies the dynamic attribute of trust building.(4) Analysis for the dynamic mechanism of online trust development. We examined the trust transformation in different stage based on the image framework with questionnaire survey. The results show that under the image framework, the trust attitude of online consumers has dynamic characteristic, and the online trust level will increase via compatibility test or profitability test.(5) Analysis for the effect mechanism of trust attitude on consumer behaviors. Using questionnaire research, the results were acquired as follow: the online trust can facilitate the online purchasing behaviors significantly after compatibility test and profitability test. However, the initial trust doesn't have a significant effect on online consumer behaviors.With the results of the five above researches, we concluded that under the E-Business context, image theory can explain consumer behaviors appropriately, especially for online trust building and development. The process of trust decision-making has obvious dynamic, changing with the transformation of image stages, and dynamically influence consumer behaviors. The results of this study revealed that researchers should pay more attention to the dynamic process of online trust building and development, and managers should improve the online trust, and promote construction and maintenance of consumer trust.