The Relative Importance of Different Trust Constructs for Sellers in the Online World

Abstract

The paper focuses on the relative importance of different trust constructs for the seller–buyer relationship in commercial transactions over the Internet. Following the work of Rousseau et al (1998) and McKnight and Chervany (2002), we analysed the relative importance of three different trust constructs (institutional, calculative and relational trust), covering legal, technical, financial and psychological aspects. For this analysis, we used a conjoint‐analytical approach based on a survey of 1,134 companies in the German‐speaking part of Europe. Our analysis has shown that trust in the regulatory framework (institutional trust) is by far the most important component of trust for sellers in the online world, accounting for 56% of relative importance. The difference between calculative and relational trust is weaker, with relational trust being more important than the former (27% vs 17% respectively), at least for some industry sectors.

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