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Introduction
Evidence suggests that the principal reasons why people do not purchase via the internet are related to online security and policy, reliabilities of companies ([15] Gefen, 2000), and web site technology. Online trust is an important determinant for web sites to succeed in marketplace ([30] McKnight and Chervany, 2001; [2] Balasubramanian et al. , 2003; [19] Grabner-Krauter and Kaluscha, 2003; [25] Koufaris and Hampton-Sosa, 2004), and for retaining long-term relationships with consumers ([36] Reichheld and Schefter, 2000; [16] Gefen et al. , 2003). A definition of trust is:
... 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 that other party ([29] Mayer et al. , 1995, p. 712).
A high degree of trust not only stimulates and meets consumers' high expectations of satisfying transactions, but also eliminates uncertainty, perceived risks, and interdependences in most online transactions ([30] McKnight and Chervany, 2001; [34] Pavlou, 2003). In addition, the higher the degree of consumers' trust, the higher the degree of purchase intentions of consumers, and the easier it is for companies to retain consumers ([22] Jarvenpaa and Tractinsky, 1999; [17] Gefen and Straub, 2004).
This study will focus specifically on online initial trust and purchase intention. The main research question for this study is "how do consumers form their initial trust and purchase intentions?" The research question is divided into three parts:RQ1. How do online consumers form their online initial trust?RQ2. How do personal dispositions influence initial trust?RQ3. Does a consumer's initial online trust affect their purchase intention? This research selected the Taiwanese e-bookshop industry for its investigation. The online bookshop industry is one of the most mature ([3], [4] Barnes and Vidgen, 2001, 2002), and in Taiwan it has the highest volume of online consumers.
The paper is organised as follows. In the next section we provide a review of the salient literature; based on this we also create a research model that we will test in the research. This is followed by the research method adopted for the study. Methodology and Discussion sections provide the findings of the research and discussion,...