A Cross-Cultural Study of Interpersonal Trust in Social Commerce

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the effect of interpersonal trust upon people’s intention to use social commerce. In particular, trust is validated as a construct of three dimensions of competence, integrity, and benevolence. In addition, by applying trust-building theories, familiarity and shared value are incorporated in the research model as antecedents to trust dimensions. Considering culture greatly influences people’s values and trust depends on cultural characteristics, the moderating effect of culture is examined. The research model is tested by survey data collected from the USA and China. Among the three dimensions of trust, competence has the strongest impact upon behavioral intention for both regions. While both familiarity and shared value affect trust dimensions significantly, the effect of familiarity is stronger for users in China whereas the effect of shared value is stronger for users in the USA. Implications of the findings are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Social commerce
• trust
• competence
• benevolence
• integrity
• familiarity
• shared value