Electronic Business: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (4-Volumes) P158 potx

Research Objectives and Organization of the Article This study researched the effect of adding media cues video clips, photographs of a presumed sales person’s face to the home page of a

by 2004 these had increased to over £18 billion

(Wallis, 2006) The growth in Internet sales

be-tween 2003 and 2004 was over 67%; this clearly

shows brisk expansion in the value of Internet

VDOHV:DOOLV,QWKH$VLD3DFL¿FUHJLRQ

sales also grew rapidly, from about $200 billion

in 2003 to about $300 billion by 2004 (United

Nations Conference on Trade and Development

[UNCTAD], 2003) In contrast, the situation in the

$UDEZRUOGLVGLIIHUHQWVLQFHWKHHVWLPDWHG¿JXUH

for B2C in Africa and the Middle East cannot be

compared with those in the US, the EU, or China

(UNCTAD, 2004)

Trust in online shopping still represents a

VLJQL¿FDQWEDUULHUIRU,QWHUQHWXVHUVDQGLVFULS-pling the e-commerce environment (Zhang &

Zhang, 2005) Trust is a critical component for

any business transaction, and is particularly

es-sential in the e-commerce environment because

of the paucity of rules and customs in regulating

e-commerce and due to the fact that, typically,

online services and products are not immediately

YHUL¿DEOH0RUHRYHURQOLQHWUDQVDFWLRQVDUHPRUH

impersonal, anonymous, and automated and lack

the assurance provided in traditional settings

through formal proceedings and receipts B2C

online vendors are particularly challenged when

trying to build and attain consumer trust Indeed,

in contrast to face-to-face commerce and to other

applications of trust, which encompass a wide

range of emotions involving various types of

so-cial interaction with humans, there are typically

no interpersonal interactions in e-commerce,

neither direct nor implied Such interactions, or

even cues relating to them, are notably missing

from e-commerce Web sites Online shopping

may be viewed as lacking human warmth and

sociability The social aspect of shopping has been

shown to be a major contributor towards positive

emotions (Jones, 1999) that have been linked to

several important outcomes, such as increased

unplanned purchasing, increased spending, and

increased time spent in the store (Jones, 1999)

2QOLQH YHQGRUV IDFH D VLJQL¿FDQW FKDOOHQJH LQ

making their Web sites socially rich (Kumar & Benbasat, 2002)

The aspect of trust has been examined over many years, however, most of the research on consumer trust focuses on consumers in Eng-lish-speaking countries and newly industrialized countries Trust in e-commerce research has been conducted almost exclusively in the US or Western Europe Considering the cultural, eco-nomic, social, and political differences between the developed and less developed countries, concerns have been raised in terms of whether research based in the US or Western Europe can

be generalized to other countries (Bagozzi, Wong, Abe, & Bergami, 2000) The global nature of the Internet raises questions about the effects of trust across cultures as well Although trust may be formed in a variety of ways, it depends on the cultural factors (e.g., societal norms, values, etc.) that guide people’s behaviors and beliefs Despite the differences national culture can cause in e-commerce behavior (Kacen & Lee, 2002), and despite e-commerce becoming global, research

on trust in e-commerce has to emphasize the possible effects of national culture For that, this study attempts to carry out a pilot case investiga-tion of our research objectives in Saudi Arabia;

a developing country with the highest growth

in Internet users in the Middle East and Africa (www.mcit.gov.sa)

Research Objectives and Organization of the Article

This study researched the effect of adding media cues (video clips, photographs) of a presumed sales person’s face to the home page of an e-com-merce vendor, and considered the effect of social presence cues, also known as interpersonal cues, that are implicit in the media cue on users’ initial trust in the vendor (Research Objective 1) The majority of studies of online customer trust focus

on general trust as it develops between customers and online vendors over time and after repeated

experiences While we recognize the importance

of the evolving nature of trust, our study focuses

on initial trust beliefs that develop after a customer

¿UVWLQWHUDFWVZLWKWKHFRPSDQ\¶V:HEVLWH7KH

difference between the two concepts may be subtle

EXWDVZHGLVFXVVODWHULVVLJQL¿FDQWSDUWLFXODUO\

in the online environment The study further

investigated the effect of culture, as represented

by a facial photograph of a Western and Saudi

man added to the home page of an e-commerce

vendor, on users’ trust in that vendor (Research

Objective 2) This experiment was concerned

with investigating trust as a dependent variable

and other variables as independent variables, as

well as how the depth of a user’s exploration of a

VLWHH[SORUDWLRQGHSWKLQÀXHQFHVWKHHIIHFWRID

media cue on user trust (Research Objective 3)

On a methodological level, the experiment aimed

to overcome part of the limitations of

convention-DOO\XVHGWUXVWTXHVWLRQQDLUHVIUHHIURP¿QDQFLDO

risk by introducing trust questionnaires that

ZHUHHOLFLWHGXQGHUFRQGLWLRQVRI¿QDQFLDOULVN

(Research Objective 4) This article is organized

as follows: the second section examines

previ-ous work related to e-commerce and trust and

reviews the research hypotheses The third section

outlines the methodology of the study, while the

data analysis is presented in the fourth section

7KHUHVXOWVDUHGLVFXVVHGLQWKH¿IWKVHFWLRQDQG

LQWKH¿QDOVHFWLRQFRQFOXVLRQVDUHGUDZQ

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND

HYPOTHESES

Trust

7UXVWKDVZLGHO\FRQÀLFWLQJFRQFHSWXDOGH¿QL-tions; the literature on trust in general, and on

trust in e-commerce in particular, is in a state of

confusion (McKnight & Chervany, 2001) The

confusion in trust terminology is expressed in

terms of two kinds of problems First, similar

the same terms are used for different concepts (Krauter, Kaluscha, & Fladnitzer, 2006) There LV QR XQLYHUVDOO\ DFFHSWHG VFKRODUO\ GH¿QLWLRQ

of trust (Rousseau, Sitkin, Butt, & Camerer, 1998)

6XPPDUL]LQJ WKH GLIIHUHQW GH¿QLWLRQV RI trust across various research disciplines, it can EH FRQFOXGHG WKDW DOO WUXVW GH¿QLWLRQV DGGUHVV one or more of the following perspectives: (1) context characteristics, (2) trustor properties, and (3) characteristics of the trusted object (Krauter HWDO0DQ\GH¿QLWLRQVDOVRDGGUHVVWKH interaction or relationships between two or all three of these perspectives The key concepts of PRVWRIWKHWUXVWGH¿QLWLRQVDUHULVN0D\HU'DYLV

& Schoorman, 1995), vulnerability (Mayer et al.,

H[SHFWDWLRQ%DLHUDQGFRQ¿GHQFH (Lewicki & Bunker, 1995) These factors are JDWKHUHGE\WKHIROORZLQJWUXVWGH¿QLWLRQZKLFK UHSUHVHQWWKHPRVWFRPPRQGH¿QLWLRQRIRQOLQH trust (Mayer et al., 1995):

Trust is the willingness to depend upon another party and be vulnerable to the actions of this other party based on the assumption that the trusted party will deliver without taking advantage of the situation (p 711)

$VLWLVYHU\DEVWUDFWWKLVGH¿QLWLRQFDQEHVHHQ

as the most common in the human computer inter-action (HCI) trust research (Corritore, Kracher, & :LHGHQEHFN,WGH¿QHVWUXVWDVDQLQWHUQDO state or attitude which entails cognitive and affec-tive aspects (Corritore et al., 2003) Trust, as an internal state, is different from trusting action (e.g., buying online, entering credit card details, relying

on advice) or cooperation (e.g., in a team setting), which are observable behaviors (Corritore et al., 2003) Also trust is not the same as trustworthi-ness; trust is the act of a trustor while perceived trustworthiness is a characteristic of someone or something that is the object of trust (Corritore et al., 2003; Serva, Benamati, & Fuller, 2005) In the HFRPPHUFHFRQWH[WWUXVWKDVEHHQGH¿QHGUDWKHU QDUURZO\HJ%KDWWDFKHUMHHGH¿QHGWUXVW

trust as trusting beliefs and trusting intentions)

Trusting beliefs (i.e., perceptions of Web vendor

attributes), and trusting intentions (i.e., intentions

to engage in trust-related behaviors with a Web

vendor) are based on the theory of reasoned

ac-tion (TRA) which was introduced by Ajzen and

Fishbein (1980) to analyze the psychological

pro-FHVVHVWKDWUHÀHFWREVHUYHGUHODWLRQVKLSVDPRQJ

beliefs, attitudes, intentions, and behaviors The

theory asserts that intention to perform behavior

is determined by the individual’s attitude toward

the behavior, and a person’s attitude is affected

by his/her beliefs TRA has been widely accepted

and applied to a broad range of disciplines and

contexts Existing empirical research has revealed

WKDWWUXVWLVVLJQL¿FDQWO\UHODWHGWRDWWLWXGHDQG

DWWLWXGH SRVLWLYHO\ VLJQL¿HV SHRSOH¶V SXUFKDVH

intentions (Chow & Holden, 1997; Macintosh

& Lockshin, 1997) TRA is also applied as the

theoretical base in recent studies on trust

forma-tion (McKnight & Chervany, 2001; McKnight,

Cummings, & Chervany, 1998), especially in the

context of e-commerce (Jarvenpaa, Tractinsky, &

Vitale, 2000) Since trust can be seen as a belief,

FRQ¿GHQFHVHQWLPHQWRUH[SHFWDWLRQDERXWDQH[-change partner’s intention and/or likely behavior,

we believe that it is posited to be directly related

to the attitudes toward purchasing from a vendor

and indirectly related to consumers’ willingness

to buy through purchasing attitudes This is how

ZHGH¿QHWUXVWLQWKLVDUWLFOHWKLVLVFRQVLVWHQW

ZLWKKRZWUXVWKDVEHHQSUHYLRXVO\GH¿QHGLQWKH

literature (Gefen, 2002)

Trustors and trustees, that is, objects of trust,

can be individual people, groups, organizations,

or even societies This article focuses on the

nar-row-scale study of trust, where the target is an

individual e-business At this level, the focus is

on the process of identifying a trustee’s

charac-teristics or his trustworthiness

The Varying Dimensionality

of Trust

Although there is no complete agreement on the meaning of trust, it should be noted that the GLPHQVLRQVWKDWFRQVWLWXWHLWDUHFRQWH[WVSHFL¿F (Lewis & Weigert, 1985) As mentioned previ-ously, the literature does reveal that the concept

of trust tends to coalesce around a few key recur-ring concepts There must exist, for the trusting party, uncertainty about a potential or existing relationship that leads to a certain perception of risk or vulnerability This perception of risk is generally based upon the beliefs regarding spe-FL¿FIDFWRUVRIWKHWUXVWHH<HWUHFHQWUHVHDUFK KDVSULPDULO\IRFXVHGRQWKUHHVSHFL¿FIDFWRUV which may parsimoniously capture the concept

or the dimensions of trustworthiness—that is, ability, benevolence, and integrity (Jarvenpaa et al., 2000) Ability is the perceived skills, compe-tencies, and characteristics that enable a party to KDYHLQÀXHQFHZLWKLQDVSHFL¿FGRPDLQ0D\HUHW al., 1995) Benevolence is the trustor’s belief that the trustee wants to do good toward the trustor Integrity is the belief that the trustee adheres to a VHWRISULQFLSOHVWKDWWKHWUXVWRU¿QGVDFFHSWDEOH (Mayer et al., 1995) Perceptions of these three characteristics can lead to a willingness of the trusting party to depend or rely upon the trustee LQ H[SHFWDWLRQ RI D FHUWDLQ EHQH¿FLDO RXWFRPH

or that the trustee will not act opportunistically 7KHVH WKUHH VSHFL¿F IDFWRUV FDQ RIWHQ QRW EH observed directly, but need to be inferred from signals in the Web site interface In HCI trust research, signals given in the interface of a system that can form the basis of perceived trustworthi-ness are referred to as surface cues (Fogg, 2002) Certain literatures construct trust from different viewpoints and propose two main components or factors of trust: cognitive and affective or emo-tional (e.g., Shneiderman, 2000) Feng, Lazar, and Preece (2004) argue that the affective component

of trust has been to some extent ignored in HCI

trust research, in particular in the domain of

e-commerce, where research is largely focused on

factors that contribute to cognitive trust, such as

security, error absence, and trust seals For retail

transactions, cognitive factors can increase the

FRQ¿GHQFHWKDWDWUDQVDFWLRQZLOOEHVXFFHVVIXOO\

completed Affective factors can increase the

feelings of attraction and trust

The distinction between cognitive and

emo-tional trust has received some support in an

empirical study on long-term work relationships

(McAllister, 1995), and strong support in a

face-to-face study that manipulated emotional trust

(Johnson-George & Swap, 1982) However, only

a few studies have examined affective-oriented

factors in an e-commerce (B2C) environment

This oversight of the affective element of trust

GRHVQRWUHÀHFWWKHLQFUHDVLQJFRQVLGHUDWLRQWKDW

is given to affective processes in multiple

disci-plines (e.g., marketing, psychology, sociology)

(Riegelsberger, Sasse, & McCarthy, 2005) For

example, marketing and advertising research are

WKH¿HOGVWKDWKDYHWKHJUHDWHVWSRZHULQLQYHV-tigating affective elements in decision-making

processes In these disciplines it is well-known

that a consumer’s purchase decision depends on

rational process and on positive affective reactions

(Kotler, 2002)

However, as mentioned in the research

ob-jectives, this study concentrates on initial trust

7KHGH¿QLWLRQRIWUXVWSUHYLRXVO\GLVFXVVHGDOVR

applies to initial trust The difference lies in the

temporal context of the development of trust In

this case, initial trust is the willingness to rely

RQ D WKLUG SDUW\ DIWHU WKH ¿UVW LQWHUDFWLRQ ZLWK

that party It is recognized that the development

of trust is an ongoing, dynamic process that is

LQÀXHQFHGE\LQWHUDFWLRQVEHWZHHQWZRSDUWLHV

However, we believe that initial trust beliefs can

also be formed without any prior experience or

interaction between the two parties The initial

trust beliefs may change with time and with re-peated interactions but they may also determine the extent to which such future interactions will take place (McKnight, Choudhury, & Kacmar, 2002)

In the context of e-commerce, initial trust is very important since Web-based companies must rely on their Web sites to represent them and to show their new customers that they are reliable and trustworthy Customers visiting a Web site IRUWKH¿UVWWLPHPD\UHO\KHDYLO\RQ:HEVLWH cues to form their initial trust beliefs, but they still lack the important information that develops through interaction over time (McKnight et al., 2002) Another important reason for establishing FXVWRPHUWUXVWWKURXJKWKH¿UVW:HEVLWHYLVLWLV the possibility of low switching costs for new cus-tomers compared with switching costs for expert customers (Reichheld & Schefter, 2000) Since the Web contains vast numbers of alternatives, either in vendors or in products, it has become very easy for customers to switch to a different RQOLQHVWRUHDIWHUWKHLU¿UVWYLVLW6RLWKDVEHFRPH

an essential process for online vendors to try to establish and retain a trusting relationship with

¿UVWWLPHFXVWRPHUV7KHUHIRUHZHEHOLHYHWKDWD thorough examination of the factors that promote initial trust in new customers of online vendors

is critical

Social Presence and Online Trust

Applying trust-inducing features to the Web sites

of online merchants is the most effective technique for enhancing online trust Many researchers in HCI have begun to study trust in an online con-text Some researchers are focusing on the cues that may affect trust or convey trustworthiness

to users of Web sites In a sense, a Web site with trust-inducing features functions as a skillful salesperson for the company (e.g., Katsikas, Lo-pez, & Pernul, 2005)

The trust phenomenon represents an

ongo-ing interpersonal interaction with another party,

whether a person or organization, over an extended

period of time Indeed, trust is typically built

gradually through extensive ongoing interactions

that enable individuals to create reliable

expecta-tions of what the other party may do (Luhmann,

1979) This social context is a key characteristic

of trust and trust-building behaviors, since trust,

in general, is built through constructive

interac-tions with other people (Luhmann, 1979) So, the

perception of a high degree of social presence,

implying direct or indirect human contact in the

relationship should, arguably, contribute to the

building of trust Extending this logic implies

that another way in which trust in an e-commerce

Web site may be built is through embedding the

Web site interface with a high social presence,

such as the perception that there is a medium of

communication that represents personal, sociable,

and sensitive human contact (Gefen & Straub,

2004)

6RFLDOSUHVHQFHKDVEHHQGH¿QHGDVWKHH[WHQW

to which a medium allows users to experience

others as being psychologically present (Fulk,

Schmitz, & Power, 1987) Social presence theory

by Short, Williams, and Christie (1976) describes

how the social context affects medium use; they see

social presence as a quality inherent in a

commu-nication medium Some researchers characterize

the social presence of a medium as its capacity

to transmit information about facial expressions,

posture, dress, and non-verbal cues (Short et al.,

1976) Others focus on the psychological

con-nection, where social presence is concerned with

warmth and whether it conveys a feeling of

hu-man contact or sociability (Yoo & Alavi, 2001)

While others still, focus on its close relationship

to information richness theory (Straub, 1994),

which concentrates on the interactivity of the

media Related to media information richness

theory (Straub, 1994), social presence theory

considers the extent to which a medium enables

a communicator to experience communication

partners as being psychologically present (Short et al., 1976) High social presence is typically found

in face-to-face communication However, medium richness can vary depending on circumstances (Zmud, Lind, & Young, 1990)

$VLJQL¿FDQWGLIIHUHQFHEHWZHHQRQOLQHDQG off-line shopping environments is that the latter involve a wide range of social interactions with humans through multiple sensory channels On-line shopping, on the other hand, primarily tends towards reducing the users’ affective or emotional factors through functional and performance based Web site design As such, online shopping may

be viewed as lacking human sociability, since it is more impersonal and automated than traditional RIÀLQHFRPPHUFH6RFLDOUHVSRQVHVWRFRPSXWHU technology (SRCT) research paradigm proposes that individual interactions with computers and other communication technologies are fundamen-tally social and natural, and people interact with computers and mediated stimuli using the same social attitudes and behaviors that they apply to other people The computers are social actors (CASA) paradigm (Nass, , Moon, & Carney,

 LQLWLDWHG WKLV ¿HOG RI UHVHDUFK DQG XVHV theories and experiments derived from psychol-ogy, sociolpsychol-ogy, and communication to develop and validate theories Granted, online shopping Web sites typically involve no actual interaction with other people, however, Web site interface features have been suggested to help impact the perception of social presence cues, also known as interpersonal cues (discussed in more detail in the next section), that can be embedded in different ways Higher perceived social presence cues in a Web site may increase online trust through their effect on increased electronic communication since communication is a necessary element of constructive interaction (Gefen & Straub, 2004) Trust may increase when the trusted party shows behavior or other indicators in accordance with one’s expectations; the perception that the vendor

is embodying a high degree of social presence cues

in the Web site should increase consumer trust

to the degree that such indications are expected

(Luhmann, 1979)

Social presence cues can convey a sense of

personal, sociable, and sensitive human contact,

so too should multimedia Web sites Indeed,

recently many online shopping Web sites have

used interface features and embedded social

pres-ence cues Advertising research has long relied

on imagery of friendly faces to build a positive

attitude towards products

Social Presence Cues

(Interpersonal Cues)

Social presence cues, also known as interpersonal

cues, are the signals that make a person aware of

the presence of other people (Short et al., 1976)

They are non-verbal and para-verbal

communica-tion methods and suggest participant appearance

each time a person interacts with another It may

be intentional or unintentional and it is part of

the rapid stream of communication that passes

between two interacting individuals Although

WKHUHDUHDQXPEHURIGH¿QLWLRQVRIVRFLDOSUHV-ence cues (interpersonal cues), in the broadest

sense it is communication that transcends the

bare elements of the written or spoken word The

interpretation of this communication has been

shown to have a central effect on participants’

perceptions of the event and can give information

about individuals’ backgrounds, motivations, and

emotional attitudes They augment spoken

mes-sages by helping people express their feelings or

thoughts through the use of their bodies, their

facial expressions, and their tone of voice and so

on (Mehrabian & Epstein, 1972) Psychological

studies have concluded that more than 65% of

the information exchanged during a

face-to-face interaction is expressed through non-verbal

means Fromkin & Rodman (1983) suggest that

up to 90% of the communicative process takes

place non-verbally The characteristics of the

individuals involved and their response to coding

SUHVHQFH FXHV LQ DQ\ H[FKDQJH 7KUHH VSHFL¿F YDULDEOHVFDQEHLGHQWL¿HGDVLPSDFWLQJRQWKH nature of non-verbal communication during the exchange; gender, culture, and personal traits Social presence cues (interpersonal cues) are

of relevance in the debate on trust as they can

be interpreted as signals for trustworthiness

A trustor can form an impression of perceived trustworthiness of a trustee from the interpersonal cues he/she perceives in a face-to-face situation;

it works as inferences (Steinbruck, Schaumburg, Kruger, & Duda, 2002) Interpersonal cues lead

to an instant impression formation and thus have

an immediate impact on affective trust The dif-ferent types of cues differ in their reliability for trust assessments, and in how they are affected

by transmission over media (Riegelsberger et al., 2005)

7KHUH DUH PDQ\ FODVVL¿FDWLRQV RI LQWHUSHU-sonal cues (Hinton, 1993); the most common types are:

1 Paralanguage: The vocal cues that

accom-pany spoken language

2 Kinesics: Body movements

3 Occulesics: Eye behavior

4 Appearance/artifacts

5 Proxemics: The non-verbal study of space

and distance

6 Haptics: The non-verbal communication

study of touch

7 Olfactics: The non-verbal communication

study of smell

8 Chronomics: The non-verbal

communica-tion study of time

9 Facial expressions

Online Trust and Media Cue

Existing technologies allow for various represen-tations of interpersonal cues that are embodied in different kinds of media cues (e.g., photo, audio, video, embodied agent) to be integrated into one

that classify and explain such media effects The

most common are social presence (Short et al.,

1976), media richness (Straub, 1994), and SRCT

(Nass, Moon, Fogg, Reeves, & Dryer, 1996) as

discussed in the previous section

The reduction in the number of interpersonal

cues when interacting online is seen as one of the

reasons for the lack of trust online (Shneiderman,

2000) This assumption is well supported by many

studies (e.g., Hassanein & Head, 2004) These

studies found that richer representations result

in higher awareness, preference, and

interper-sonal focus The most commonly used example

of visual interpersonal cues is the smile—this

KDV EHHQ LGHQWL¿HG DV SRZHUIXO LQ VWLPXODWLQJ

immediate affective responses, and can form a

basis for affective trust

Thus, Web site interface elements such as

photographs, video clips, or synthetic voices can

create some level of social presence that may

enhance the affective trust compared to Web site

interfaces lacking such elements, and can therefore

be taken as an indication of the trustworthiness

of the trustee

There is much research on trust in e-commerce

vendors, while in contrast there are very few that

KDYHVSHFL¿FDOO\WHVWHGWKHHIIHFWRILQWHUSHUVRQDO

cues on trust (Al-Diri, Hobbs, & Qahwaji, 2006)

Some of the existing studies focused on the

ef-fect of synthetic interpersonal cues in avatars

(embodied agents); others investigated the effect

of displaying facial photos of humans on

e-com-merce sites All of these studies tested users’ trust

either in the form of quantitative questionnaires

or with qualitative interviews, using two

mock-ups of an e-commerce Web site, one with and

one without a photo or avatar (e.g., Bickmore &

Picard, 2005)

Video

In general, video is considered to be a rich media

cue and thus is considered to afford high social

presence cues as it transmits many visual and audio cues

In a study by Swerts, Krahmer, Barkhuysen, and Van de Laar (2003), on the effect of social presence cues on the detection of speaker uncer-tainty, they found the best discriminative ability for video with audio, compared to video only and audio only

Brosig, Ockenfels, and Weimann (2002) found that video with audio reached levels of cooperation that were close to those reached in face-to-face communication, even though they were reached after a longer time than in face-to-face com-munication

Horn, Olson, and Karasik (2002) in a study

on lie detection in job interviews found a better performance in discriminating lies from truthful statements in high quality video than in audio only

The study also compared low resolution video and low frame rate video They found that low resolution video, which suppresses detailed facial cues gives a performance as high-quality video and good performance in lie detection Horn et

al (2002) attribute this result to the reduction in truth bias in the absence of recognizable facial cues and the fact that the presence of facial cues may lead to a trusting reaction

A study by Van Mulken, Andre, and Müller (1999) investigated trust in advice This study varied the representation of an advisor (video, embodied agent, audio, and text only) and the quality of the advice Hence, the effect of media representation could be compared to the effect

of advice quality The study found a preference for high quality advice in all representations, but RQO\LQVLJQL¿FDQWLQGLFDWLRQRIDSRVLWLYHHIIHFW for video on the behavioral measures

Photos Research on the use of personal photos in Web sites are very few and contradictory, with some

(Fogg, 2002; Nielsen, 1996; Steinbruck et al.,

2002), while others found them to be neutral

(Riegelsberger, Sasse, & McCarthy, 2002) Urban,

Fareena, and Qualls (1999) found that

screen-sized facial photographs of shopping assistants

embedded into a shopping Web site interface led

to a wide range of reactions as some users liked

it, while others considered it unnecessary In the

Fogg et al (2001) study on the credibility of online

news articles, they found that photos of authors

increased credibility Riegelsberger, Sasse, and

McCarthy (2003) found that virtual re-embedding

had a positive effect on user trust for medium

ex-perienced shoppers Highly exex-perienced Internet

users, as well as consumers with a high level of

GLVWUXVWWRZDUGVRQOLQHYHQGRUVEHQH¿WHGOLWWOH

from the provision of social cues in the interface

(Riegelsberger & Sasse, 2002) Steinbruck et al

(2002), in an experimental study, investigated

whether adding a photo of an employee to the

home page of an online-banking site increased

user trust in the bank—they found a positive

ef-fect on trust As a result of the foregoing it was

hypothesized that:

H-16XEMHFWVGLIIHUVLJQL¿FDQWO\RQWKHLUUDWLQJ

of trust belief and trust intention across vendor’s

Web sites.

H-2:

H-2-a7KH ¿UVW UDWLQJ RI D YHQGRU¶V :HE VLWHV

trustworthiness will result for those presenting

video clips

H-2-b-The second rating of a vendor’s Web sites

trustworthiness will result for those presenting

photos

H-2-c-The third rating of a vendor’s Web sites

trustworthiness will result for those without

photos.

Web Site Design and Culture

Understanding how to build trust for diverse consumers in electronic markets is imperative (Grewal, Munger, Iyer, & Levy, 2003) Culture has implications in Internet settings as well and is FRQVLGHUHGWRLQÀXHQFHFRQVXPHUWUXVW-DUYHQSDD

& Tractinsky, 1999), Internet diffusion (Ferle, Ed-wards, & Mizuno, 2002), Internet marketing (Tian

& Emery, 2002), Web site development (Kang & Corbitt, 2001), and Web interface acceptance and preferences Despite an anticipated large number

of consumers from multiple cultures, few studies have examined the Web preferences of users in terms of design characteristics across cultures (Chen & Dhillon, 2003) Cyr and Trevor-Smith  IRXQG VWDWLVWLFDOO\ VLJQL¿FDQW FKDUDFWHU-istics in Web design for municipal Web sites across cultures Further, Simon (2001) examined cultural differences related to Web site satisfac-tion among the residents of Asia, Europe, Latin and South America, and North America based

on Hofstede’s model and found different prefer-ences for colors and navigation Sun’s (2001) exploratory study examining cultural markers focused on language, pictures and graphics, colors, and page layout and found culture to be

an important design consideration that increases usability of multilingual Web pages All of these studies point to one general conclusion—Web sites need to be adapted to the different cultures

of the targeted consumers Singh, Xhao, and Hu, FRQFOXGHG³7KHZHELVQRWDFXOWXUDOO\ neutral medium.” Studies like that of Hillier  HPSKDVL]HG WKDW ³EXLOGLQJ WUXVW RQ WKH web requires user interface characteristics ap-propriate for culturally diverse audiences.” An effective Web site design can engage and attract online consumers’ trustworthiness (Fogg et al., 2001), which is also considered central to trust development (Egger, 2001)

Cultural Photo as a Symbol

Symbols are important elements denoting culture

(Marcus & Gould, 2000) One important form

of symbolism is multimedia relating to culture,

which few researchers have so far examined Such

multimedia elements might include streaming

video, sound, and animation So, the aim was to

identify whether the strategy of adding a facial

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when tested and can bias the trustworthiness of

vendor Web sites Hence the following additional

research hypotheses were proposed:

H-3: Across Web sites including human portraits

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in trustworthiness between Web sites with local

social presence and Web sites with foreign social

presence.

H-4: Saudi subjects will trust a Web site with

Saudi social presence (photo) more than a Web

site with Western social presence (photo).

EXPERIMENTAL METHODOLOGY

This study was designed as a one-factor

experi-ment manipulating three levels of Web site social

presence cues (or interpersonal cues) Each of

the four specially designed Web sites displayed

the same products but each represented different

vendors Only the media cues were manipulated on

the sites Thus, the study attempted to investigate

and examine the effects of the interpersonal cues

that can be manipulated by facial photographs,

video clips, and culture as control variables, which

used photos of Saudi and Western people when

forming the initial trust toward online vendors

In addition the study set out to measure some

auxiliary parameters

Experiment Participants

The experiment was conducted in an IT training institute in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) The number of participants totaled 72 students Since online consumers are generally younger and more highly educated than conven-tional customers, student samples are close to the online consumer population (McKnigh et al., 2002) and therefore are representative of online shoppers (Gefen & Straub, 2004)

Experiment Material

An initial survey on the most popular online prod-ucts was carried out and found that laptops came

¿UVWLQSRSXODULW\7KHVWLPXOXVH[SHULPHQWPDWH-rial used in this research was carefully selected, having noted that previous studies in online trust used mock-ups of shopping sites to test the effect

of interpersonal cues (e.g., Riegelsberger et al., 2002; Steinbruck et al., 2002) This experiment used semi-functional copies of existing vendors’ sites, chosen in consultation with the four most famous reviewer business sites; BizRate.com, ResellerRating.com, Price Grabber.com, and Epinion.com to facilitate the task of rating online shopping sites These services aggregate feedback from customers of e-commerce vendors based on post service and handling of privacy and security, which represents an aspect of vendor trustworthi-ness Western shopping sites were selected as they constitute a realistic scenario with relatively high risk, due to the vendor and the users being in two different countries The selection was based on the rating of high trustworthiness of the vendors and the number of reviewers of the selected site Also we made a usability test for the four vendors’ Web sites to check the usability index for each Web site and to make sure that all selected Web sites had almost the same usability criteria To do WKDWZHDVNHG¿YHSDUWLFLSDQWVWRXVHWKHFKHFNOLVW developed by Keevil (1998) to measure the

us-ability index of the four Web sites The checklist

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even though it is not very recent, it is still valid

and robust The results showed that the four Web

sites had almost the same usability index

Semi-functional copies of the Web site

includ-ing the home page and some subsequent layers

depending on the available links in each layer

were designed so that participants were able to

browse and search general information about the

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were present on some pages were removed

Photos and the video clip were selected by

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who were asked to rate the photos and select the

most appropriate based on a realistic image of

a customer service representative The media

cues (photo or video clip) were placed in attrac-WLYHSODFHVLQWKH¿UVWSDJHRIWKHVLWHVKRZLQJ the selected product (without deleting or hiding anything from the page itself) This page was connected to the entire Web site so the subject could browse and search the site In addition, each media cue was presented into each vendor :HEVLWHEDVHGRQDSUHGH¿QHG:HEVLWHVGLVSOD\ scenario (see Figure 1)

Data Collection

The research methodology of studies on trust

in e-commerce can be categorized into qualita-tive approaches, using either semi-structured interviews (e.g., Egger, 2001), or qualitative interviews in conjunction with user evaluation

Figure 1 Snap shot of the experimental Web sites

on Hofstede’s model and found different prefer-ences for colors and navigation Sun’s (2001) exploratory... Grabber.com, and Epinion.com to facilitate the task of rating online shopping sites These services aggregate feedback from customers of e-commerce vendors based on post service and handling of privacy and